It is illegal to...

Participatory Exhibition

September 2017

Did you know that the Canadian Criminal Code contains a statute declaring it illegal to scare the Queen? And yes, sneaking up behind her and saying "Boo!" would count!

It’s illegal to … is an ongoing participatory exhibition that started off with a group of young people picking their favourites (including the one above) among a list of strange laws found in Canada. Five bizarre legal rules ripe for parody are now revealed in the East Gallery, and we’re inviting young, budding artists to react to those laws by drawing directly on each and every wall.

Athens Batten, Oxtlan Early, Prema Mellor, Hanna and Satya Perrault Fortin, Amalia Stoltzfus Forand and Tate Ueberstadt are the first young talents who have accepted the challenge and provided their wildly imaginative contributions to the project.

The creative visual responses to the legal text made by current and future participants shape the process of this collective art work. Over the course of the show children and youth will have transformed the blank wall spaces around a “legal phrase” into a dense visual storybook with an open-ended narrative. The main rule: “it’s illegal” to participate if you are older than 16 years of age!