February 3 – 7, 2020 marks International Week here on campus! With events, socials and demonstrations happening all week-long, International Week highlights the cultural diversity that exists in our community and the importance of broadening your experiences to appreciate the beauty of the world around us.
As part of IW, the Learning Commons Thistle display cases feature the International Mobility Program.
A full list of events can be found on the Brock International Website
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Categories: Featured Collections, Main
The Matheson Learning Commons digital art wall is displaying the cover art of various publications from Brock University since 1964.
From these works, you can see the changing graphic art styles, how Brock promoted itself to prospective students, and special milestones in our over 50 year history.
The originals books can be found in the Brock University Archives & Special Collections located on the 10th floor of the Library.
Dare alla Luce by Professor Amy Friend of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts has arrived at a screen near you.
The Dare alla Luce series is Friend’s best known work to date. It has been exhibited internationally, travelling to over nine countries. The series is also presented in two artist monographs, Dare alla Luce (Photolucida Publishing) and Stardust (L’Artiere Edizioni). A selection of this work was included in the stage design for Canadian Jazz Musician Diana Krall’s, Turn Up the Quiet world tour.
Friend notes: “in this series I am not specifically concerned with capturing concrete reality. I aim to use photography as a medium that explores the relationship between what is visible and non-visible. I have continued to work on the Dare alla Luce series over a period of time; initially responding to a collection of vintage photographs, retrieved from a variety of sources. Through hand-manipulated interventions I alter and subsequently re-photograph the images re-making photographs that oscillate between what is present and absent. I aim to comment on the fragile quality of the photographic object but also on the fragility of our lives, our history. All are lost so easily. By employing the tools of photography, I re-use light, allowing it to shine through the holes. In a playful and yet, literal manner, I return the subjects of the photographs back to the light, while simultaneously bringing them forward. The images are permanently altered; they are lost and reborn, hence the title, Dare alla Luce, an Italian term meaning, “to bring to the light” in reference to birth.”
Curator and author Laura Serani describes the imagery in the Stardust monograph by stating, “Throngs of tiny lights with a mysterious provenance seem to emanate from the places and characters themselves, confirming the theory of what is visible and non-invisible. In daylight they penetrate the atmosphere and speak of hope; at dusk they inhabit skies where they seem to project dreams.”
Also playing: Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home, 2018-ongoing
This recent series by Assistant Professor Amy Friend explores the topic of migration. The imagery presented here combines a selection of over 300 letters written between family in Italy and Canada with photographs taken in Havana, Cuba (my husband’s homeland) at the famous Malecón. This location is steeped with an aura of hope, imagination, as well as longing and loss, that is not specific to a Cuban-only perspective. I utilize this place as a carrier of meaning, a literal and symbolic passageway, an ending point, a starting point and, a point of stasis in relation to migration. I felt it necessary to reflect on these personal histories with the aim of connecting people, to stories that relay what makes us human and alike. Some of the photos include folds that mimic those found in the letters written between family, while other folds indicate migratory map routes. The politics of migration are present in this work, through my investigations I do not resist this relationship, but rather offer a place to reflect – on the complex experience specific to these movements in life.
View this beautiful exhibit until Friday, November 15th in the Matheson Learning Commons of the James A. Gibson Library.
Digital Exhibits, display
Categories: Featured Collections, Main
The He-ART-Istic Journey highlights individual patient experiences of heart disease in a creative and artistic encounter. This arts-informed dissemination presents science and art together in what promises to be a unique glimpse into the lives of individuals who live daily with cardiac disease. We used an arts-based creative research analysis -the ABELE method- [Arts-Based Embodied Layered Exploration] to translate the experiences of 23 individuals’ journeys through symptom recognition of heart disease. Key words and phrases were extracted from the interviews and constructed into 4 poems. Patients’ stories were interpreted and art was created to represent the early warning signs of heart disease and individuals illness experience.
Sheila O’Keefe McCarthy
Assistant Professor, Nursing, Brock University.
On your travels across campus, take a moment or two to view Getting Graphic, the latest exhibit by University Archivist, David Sharron.
Located at the Thistle entrance to the Learning Commons, the display cases feature past logos for Brock Athletics, the University Coat of Arms, a classic ad from Time Magazine and even a nod to Star Wars!
Intrigued? Stop by the exhibit and learn the strategy behind some of the University’s most successful promotional campaigns. Getting Graphic runs to Friday, September 13.
Have you met Lynda? You should. She has a thing or two to teach you.
Brock University students, faculty and staff have unlimited access to Lynda.com which offers more than 5,000 video tutorials taught by recognized industry experts that help people learn business, technology, software and creative skills.
Here’s how to access courses of interest to you:
Go to Lynda.com
Click on the menu on the top of the screen.
Click Sign In.
Click the Sign in with your organization portal link.
Enter brocku.ca and click Continue.
Sign in with your Brock credentials. Enter your Brock username and password and click the Log in button.
display, Training & Development
Categories: Featured Collections, Main
When enjoying a glass of wine from the Niagara region, have you ever thought, how did this wine come to be? The Origins of Niagara’s Winescape exhibit features artifacts from the Brock University Archives the Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute. The exhibit explores the lasting legacy of Niagara’s wineries – from the first grape growers in the 1850s to the present. The exhibit runs until the end of July in the James A. Gibson Library, and will then move to the Brock University Archives.
Archives and Special Collections, display
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The Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures has mounted a display in the Learning Commons and Thistle hallway showcasing various aspects of French, German, Hispanic & Latin American and Italian Cultures.
Come to view the intriguing assortment of items on display and win a prize by successfully answering a skill-testing question each week.
Each weekly question can be found on the MLLC website. Please send your responses to: dbielicki@brocku.ca
Event: Kaleidoscope of French, German, Hispanic & Latin American and Italian Cultures
Place: Display cases in the Library Commons and Thistle corridor
Date: Monday, March 25 to Friday, April 5
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Categories: Featured Collections, Main
As part of African Heritage Month activities @ Brock University and Festive’Ébène, the Library is hosting an exhibit of hand-crafted ceremonial masks curated by Nafée Faigou of Solidarité des femmes et familles interconnectées francophones du Niagara (SOFIFRAN).
Nafée notes that “masks are vital to many aspects of life in Africa. They are powerful tools that Africans employ to ensure the health of their community. Various themes run through the masking traditions of African societies; they are both social and religious, with all the ramifications of both establishments. A distinction between them is hard since they overlap and intertwine. Masks are living presences that represent and mediate between the empirical and the supernatural worlds at those moments when power, protection, and the crisis of life and death are in dubious balance. Today, they still accompany everyday life in and outside of Africa.”
SOFIFRAN is a non-profit community organization created in 2006 by Francophone immigrant women – living in the Niagara region and from various parts of the world. The organization aims to meet the needs of women by providing services in the social, educational, cultural and economic fields.
Masques, Mythes et Mascarades – Masks, Myths and Masquerades is on display until March 1.
Community, display
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Last term, we profiled a few Library staff members through our social media channels in a campaign we called #MeetTheLibraryMonday. In conjunction with the campaign, a new display features the profiles of each staff member alongside their favourite books.
Take a peak next time you are in the Library. The exhibit runs to January 28th.
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Categories: Featured Collections, Main