Tingfest 2024 –

Tingfest 2024 highlights the work of local underground zine artists while also looking back fondly on the meaning-making cartoons of Merle Tingley, London Free Press Cartoonist.

Tingley’s acerbic commentary, including the mischievous teasing of London’s overdevelopment and limping bureaucracy,remains relevant today — in fact, little has changed. We have more closed store fronts than ever, our heritage properties are moldering, and yet we push out at all borders of our city: more suburbs, more condos, more high rises. Tingley’s playful swooping lines lighten the blow of a dying Canadian dream.

The work of Colombian musician and 2017 Polaris winner Lido Pimienta also appears at Tingfest. Pimiento’s small portraits of large-eyed, colourful waifs reference her own album art, the work of Margaret Keane, and the festooned catholic iconography of the Virgin Mary. 

Soft Flirt also appears with their own London based commentary, most significantly a graveyard of London’s dead businesses, galleries, and venues: a memento mori for Londoners and our night world. Who’s next? What remains? Time will tell, but let’s make sure to keep TAP open with our patronage in the meantime. Tingfest is at TAP Centre from April 16-May 11, 2024.