Andreas Buchwaldt

Andreas Buchwaldt is a multimedia installation artist and freelance labour activist based in Toronto, currently completing his PhD in Visual Culture at The University of Western Ontario (UWO). A common theme running through Andreas’ practice is an interest in networks, exploring ways objects/sounds/people can interact within organized systems. These systems explore the possibilities and impossibilities of collective action. His research at UWO combines an examination of participatory archival strategies in contemporary art with the making of interactive archiving machines. For more information visit Andreas' website.

US Elections 2020: Hiding in Plain Sight

Andreas Buchwaldt, "Return of the Embassy Hotel", 2020; 360 Degree Photograph

Artist Statement: The Embassy Hotel, the building that housed the Embassy Cultural House (ECH), was demolished in 2009, just before Google Street View was able to document the site. If you go online all you’ll see is an overgrown empty lot with a 6ft surrounding metal fence. Andreas Buchwaldt's Return of the Embassy Hotel tells an alternate story by inserting an archival image of the building’s facade into its original location within the online panoramic mapping tool. To fight against government corruption that hides in plain sight community hubs need more than ever to be visible, be that in a physical space or a virtual one. The reinvigorated ECH project can be one of these hubs again, and we want to be seen.

Recent work by Andreas

Growing On You, 2016

Tuesday Night, 2019

Decompression, 2017

Accordia, 2015

EDITORIAL TEAM

ONLINE FOUNDER
Tariq Hassan Gordon

COFOUNDERS & CURATORIAL ADVISORS
Jamelie Hassan & Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou and Dan Smoke,  and Lucas Stenning

COORDINATING EDITORS
Tariq Hassan Gordon & Olivia Mossuto

WEB DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA
Tariq Hassan Gordon, Ira Kazi, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi,   JoAnna Weil

VIRTUAL TOUR
Andreas Buchwaldt

PRINT PUBLICATIONS
Blessy Augustine, Shelley Kopp, Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Andreas Buchwaldt, Blessy Augustine, Anahí González, Ira Kazi, Shelley Kopp, Ashar Mobeen, Niloufar Salimi,  Jenna Rose Sands, JoAnna Weil & Michelle Wilson.

OUR STORY

Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. Other former members of the board were: Debrann Eastabrook, Henry Eastabrook, Sharron Forrest, Wyn Geleynse, Janice Gurney, Jean Hay (1929 - 2008), Doug Mitchell, Kim Moodie, Gerard Pas, Peter Rist, Wanda Sawicki, Jean Spence and Jennie White. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website.

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program.

Thank you to our partners

E M B A S S Y C U L T U R A L H O U S E . C A

London, Ontario is on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.