Image Credit: Spectators gather to witness what would become Space Shuttle Columbia’s launch into the unknowns of outer space before its tragic crash upon its return on February 1st, 2003. (CC0)
Milestone Nerve
Philip Leonard Ocampo, Andrew Harding, Brandon Fujimagari, Yan Wen Chang, and Josi Smit
Visual Arts Centre of Clarington
May 17 - August 31, 2025
Opening Reception + Curatorial Tour: Saturday, May 17th, 2 - 4 PM
Curatorial Team: Philip Leonard Ocampo, Megan Kammerer, Samantha Lance
Gathering a selection of sculptures, paintings, images, and site-specific interventions, Milestone Nerve adopts tenacity as essential to witnessing, navigating, and making sense of precarious generational shifts, collective upheaval and reckoning. This group exhibition poses how we might firmly orient ourselves in a world that changes continuously, suddenly, and even catastrophically.
This exhibition expands upon the research, practices, and processes first explored in The Bald Eagle’s Claw, a group exhibition which took place at Xpace Cultural Centre in 2019. As more than half a decade has passed since the first incarnation of this conversation, Milestone Nerve reunites the work of Andrew Harding, Brandon Fujimagari, Yan Wen Chang, Josi Smit, and Philip Leonard Ocampo as an exercise in longform dialogue, eventual returns, and personal/artistic growth.
As an arena wherein they may steadfastly situate themselves at a new nexus point, the artists of this exhibition once again gaze upward and outward towards the unknown horizon. Forging a new benchmark in personal and collective time (milestone) necessitates both bold defiance (nerve) and uncertainty (nervous) interlaced. If the world changes, then so do we.
Exhibition Programming:
Opening Reception + Artist Talk:
The VAC invites you to attend our Opening Reception + Curatorial Tour on Saturday, May 17, 2025, from 2 - 4 PM. Curator-artist Philip Leonard Ocampo and Curator Megan Kammerer will lead a curatorial tour, guiding visitors through the exhibition's dynamic mixed media works from 2:30 - 3 PM. Light refreshments will be provided.
Visitors from Toronto are invited to take a free shuttle bus to the VAC, departing from Factory Theatre at 12:45 PM on Saturday May 17, 2025. Registration for the shuttle bus is required. Visit our events page for more details.
Artist Biographies:
Andrew Harding is an artist who works across sculpture and installation and explores themes of hybridity through found imagery and fabricated forms. Harding completed his MFA at York University and has recently exhibited in Toronto at Blouin Division and Hearth, and in Chicago at Weatherproof. Harding’s projects have been supported by the Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council.
Brandon Fujimagari was born in San Francisco, California and lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. He worked in corporate retail marketing prior to receiving his BFA from OCAD University in 2018. He is a recipient of the Mercedes Benz Drawing and Painting Scholarship and has exhibited at Art Toronto and Xpace.
Josi Smit is a multidisciplinary artist who works in sculpture, installation, photography, and text. Some of her current curiosities include: the blurred borders between memories and dreams; photographs fading in the living room sunlight; dance floor reverberations; shifting winds and clouds and breath. Smit holds a BFA in Sculpture/Installation from OCAD University, and is currently based in Tiohtià:ke/ Montréal, QC.
Yan Wen Chang (b. 1993) received an MFA from the University of Guelph in 2022, and a BFA in Drawing and Painting at OCAD University in 2015. Solo exhibitions include Gillian, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto (forthcoming, Sept 2025); Jillian, Hawkins Headquarters, Atlanta (2025); Nympho, A.D. NYC, New York (2024); Odile’s Notorious Magnum Opus Of Thirty-Two Fouettés, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto (2023); Four Hollywood Paintings, X in Residency, Toronto (2022); and A. Dream, General Hardware, Toronto (2022). Two-person exhibitions include Yan Wen Chang and Níall McClelland, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (forthcoming, 2026); and Auto Dealer Dream: Yan Wen Chang and Andrew Harding, Weatherproof, Chicago (2024). Select group exhibitions include what worked for me I never paid into, what I worked at never paid off, Hearth, Toronto (2024); 1,300,000,000 - 4,000,000,000, Hawkins Headquarters, Atlanta (2024); Unreliable Narrator, A.D. NYC, New York (2024); Piers, Legacy Art Gallery, Victoria, (2022); and The size of a credit card, the plumb, Toronto (2022). Her 33 ft. public billboard entitled same problem my father had and what he dreamed was on display at Hamilton Artists’ Inc. from 2022 to 2023. Chang is represented by Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto.
Philip Leonard Ocampo (b.1995) is an artist and arts facilitator based in Tkaronto, Canada. Ocampo’s multidisciplinary practice involves painting, sculpture, writing and curatorial projects. Exploring worldbuilding, radical hope and speculative futures, Ocampo’s work embodies a curious cross between magic wonder and the nostalgic imaginary. Following the tangents, histories and canons of popular culture, Ocampo is interested in how unearthing cultural touchstones of past / current times may therefore serve as catalysts for broader conversations about lived experiences; personal, collective, diasporic, etc.
He holds a BFA in Integrated Media (DPXA) from OCAD University (2018) and is currently a Programming Coordinator at Xpace Cultural Centre and one of the four founding co-directors of Hearth, an artist-run collective based in the city.
As the curator of The Bald Eagle’s Claw, Ocampo also serves on the curatorial team for Milestone Nerve.
About the Curatorial Team:
Megan Kammerer (She/her) is a curator, writer, and researcher based in Toronto, Canada. She has held various positions with the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Blackwood Gallery, Jackman Humanities Institute, and the Art Gallery of Guelph, where she worked to support critically engaged exhibition programmes across Southern Ontario.
From 2022 - 2024, she was the Curator at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC), where she spearheaded the gallery's artistic direction and facilitated site-specific installation projects. Her work has been shortlisted for two exhibition awards, winning an Exhibition of the Year prize from Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries in 2023. Kammerer's research is published by the University of Toronto, where she holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Art History. She currently works as a Programming Associate at The Bentway.
Samantha Lance became the new Curator for the VAC in October 2024. She holds a Master of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies degree from the University of Toronto and a BFA with Distinction in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University. Lance has worked with the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Algoma.
Accessibility:
The VAC is not yet fully accessible, with stairwell access to our third-floor Loft Gallery. Please email us if you require additional accommodations so we can meet your needs or provide additional seating as required.
From the artists, a special thank you to their fabricators: Andrew Harding - Loading Doc Productions, Brandon Fujimagari - Samuel Kwan, studio Kwan
Milestone Nerve is organized by the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. This Exhibition has been supported by Partners in Art under its Artist-Direct Program.
