The Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence warmly invites you to Sebastian Portillo’s first Canadian showing, Origins & Endings, a timely and urgent exhibition featuring images by the acclaimed Mexican photographer.
Origins & Endings explores profound themes of absence, apocalypse, and resilience through photographic images that draw from personal, mythological, social and scientific perspectives. As communities worldwide grapple with ecological anxiety and social disconnection, Portillo’s stunning mixed media mythologizes our innermost concerns and imaginaries.
Presented as an immersion of images that surround viewers inside a small shipping container, Origins & Endings offers a powerful meditation on cycles of creation and destruction, personal loss and cosmic renewal, and the intimate and the global – inviting viewers to contemplate their own position and relationships within universal themes.
Read some reflections by Sebastian Portillo on the blog.
Exhibition Opening
Friday Sept 12, 2025
5:30-8:30pm
View the exhibition and stay for a reception outside in the courtyard.
PS707 – PlaySpace at 707 Dundas St West
Artist Talk
Sunday Sept 14, 2025
4-5pm in the courtyard
PS707 – PlaySpace at 707 Dundas St West
Mi Gusto Es Pop-Up Art Party
Sunday Sept 14, 2025
1-6pm, in the courtyard
Pop-up art market featuring local Mexican-Canadian artists
Music, authentic Mexican food, games and more
Presented by Mi Gusto Es at 707 Dundas St West
Exhibition on view
Sept 12 – Oct 5, 2025
Open Thurs – Sat 4-7pm, or by appointment
Sebastian Portillo
Sebastian Portillo is a photographer born in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. His work spans fine art and commercial worlds, fluent in the epic and theatrical as well as the intimate and inquisitive. Portillo has participated in national and international art residencies, as well as collective and solo exhibitions in Mexico, France, the United States, and Buenos Aires, including a showcase at the Centro Cultural Recoleta and Centro Cultural Casona Pardo. He has been honoured with support from Programa de Estímulo a la Creación y Desarrollo Artístico (PECDA/FONCA) over the years. Portillo is the founder of the Center for Visual Arts and Cinematography FOTOVIVA in Morelia. His photography has been featured in print and digital magazines in South Korea, Spain, Canada, and Mexico.
Partners in Art
Origins & Endings is made possible through the generous support of Partners in Art (PIA). Since 2002, PIA’s model of collective philanthropy has funded bold, innovative, contemporary arts projects to champion thoughtful perspectives on our world and drive social change. Partners in Art is a Canadian charitable organization that funds and champions contemporary visual art through philanthropy, volunteerism and education. PIA actively collaborates with Canadian curators, educators, art organizations and museums. Having raised over $6.1 million and supported over 146 different projects, PIA focuses on funding projects featuring contemporary artists with challenging works.
PS707
The Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence operates PS707 (PlaySpace at 707 Dundas St West) in a small shipping container. Used by the Lab’s artists and researchers as an occasional gallery/presentation space, as well as a kind of ‘petri dish’ for artistic experiments, PS707 is offered to community by application for other artistic and research purposes when not in use by our own members. Find out more here.