Articles by author: Brock University

  • International philosophers coming to Brock

    Wednesday, September 21, 2016 | By

    This statue outside the #Austrian Parliament, is of the #Roman historian & politician, Publius Cornelius Tacitus

    (Source: The Brock News, Wednesday, September 21, 2016 | by )

    There will be some deep thinking coming to Niagara this week.

    From Thursday through Saturday, a prestigious international conference taking place at Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts will draw up to 60 of the world’s leading philosophers to downtown St. Catharines.

    The 41st edition of the annual Merleau-Ponty Circle, considered one of the most significant gatherings in Continental European thought, is being hosted by Brock’s Department of Philosophy. The conference director is associate professor Rajiv Kaushik, whose research on conference namesake Maurice Merleau-Ponty includes the 2011 book Art and Institution: Aesthetics in the Late Works of Merleau-Ponty and the 2013 book Art, Language and Figure in Merleau-Ponty: Excursions in Hyper-Dialectic.

    Brock had presented a proposal to host the annual conference when the 2014 event was held in Geneva. This week, scholars from as far away as China and Australia will be in Niagara for the 2016 Merleau-Ponty Circle.

    The conference theme this year is “Merleau-Ponty: Doing Philosophy from the Outside,” and seeks to open up the meaning of philosophy to other disciplines. The theme is a play on a series of 1948 radio lectures given by Merleau-Ponty titled “Man Seen from the Outside.” Merleau-Ponty was deeply engaged with a variety of fields apart from philosophy, and the conference aims to continue this approach to philosophy by encouraging connections between philosophy and other academic disciplines.

    The conference is scheduled in a way that allows all participants to attend all presentations. This, says Kaushik, gives scholars “the rare opportunity to engage in a deep and sustained way with the research of other presenters, who are generally internationally well-regarded scholars.”

    This year’s keynote speakers include:

    Rudolf Bernet, from the University of Leuven, Belgium, who has published hundreds of articles in psychoanalysis and phenomenology, and authored a number of widely-acclaimed books.

    Veronique Foti, a Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Penn State University. She is a leading researcher in Merleau-Ponty scholarship and works in the areas of European, Continental and Ancient philosophies, as well as philosophy of art and literary theory.

    Edward S. Casey, from Stony Brook University in New York, was the president of the American Philosophical Association (Easter Division) 2009-2010 and works in the areas of phenomenology, aesthetics, philosophy of space and time, ethic, perception and psychoanalytic theory. His research investigates place and space, including landscape paintings and maps.

    The entire conference takes place at the Marilyn I. Walker School for Fine and Performing Arts and First Ontario Performing Arts Centre.

    More information can be found on the conference website.

    The public is welcome to view the conference art work in the MIWSFPA Visual Art Gallery during regular gallery hours.

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    Categories: Announcements, In the Media, News

  • The Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts Announces their 2016/17 Season: Breaking the Surface

    Friday, September 16, 2016 | By

    Marilyn I Walker School of performing arts building sign blurred in background of words Breaking the surface

    MEDIA RELEASE
    Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
    Brock University
    16 September 2016

    “Breaking the Surface” promotes creative and intellectual activity in the heart of Niagara

    Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) announces Season 2016/17 Breaking the Surface, that celebrates the bond between the community and our arts centre in downtown St. Catharines. This year we build upon the relationship between the arts and the public realm, seeking to broaden the community’s understanding of how the arts relate to urban issues and contribute to cultural development in the Niagara region.

    This season consists of more than 45 dynamic events from performances, exhibitions, concerts and artist talks – on stage, in studios and galleries, and at regional venues.

    Some highlights of the season include:

    • The Ash Mouth Man presented by Stolen Theatre Collective and Brock University’s Department of Dramatic Arts
, runs Sept. 15-18 & 23-25, 2016, held at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre, MIWSFPA
    • Culture Days Open House, runs Sept. 30 – October 2, held at the MIWSFPA. For more information, visit: http://bit.ly/2cu8ksl
    • Guitar Extravaganza II, 
Oct. 22, 2016 at 7:30 pm, held in 
Cairns Recital Hall, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre
    • In Light and Darkness Exhibit, 
Nov. 22 – Dec. 9, 2016, held in the Art Gallery, MIWSFPA

    Now in our second year at 15 Artists’ Common, we are thrilled by the investment of the community in this incubator of creative expression and critical reflection. We invite Niagara to join us in a celebration of our students, faculty and guest artists’ achievements in the fine and performing arts, said David Vivian, MIWSFPA Director.

    The full program of events can be found on our MIWSFPA website, or you can download the “Breaking the Surface” Calendar of Events in pdf format.

    Stay connected to the MIWSFPA on social media by following @miwsfpa on Twitter and Instagram.

    -30-

    For more information or to arrange interviews:

    Marie Balsom, Communications,
    Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts,
    Brock University
    mbalsom@brocku.ca,
    905-688-5550 x4765

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    Categories: Events, Media Releases, News

  • Mahtay Cafe opens at the MIWSFPA

    Thursday, September 15, 2016 | By

    The brand new Mahtay café is now open on the third floor student lounge area! Hours of operation are:

    Mon – Fri from 8:30 am to 2pm.

    Please note that the permanency of this café will be based on its success here at the Marilyn I. Walker School. So take some time on your breaks to get up there and enjoy reasonable prices and excellent food and drinks!

    The location is 3rd floor at the south end of the building (lobby), take that elevator to the 3rd floor (not connected to the 3rd floor at the other end) or take stairwell “D”.

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    Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, News

  • Amy Friend featured in Donggang International Photo Festival

    Sunday, May 15, 2016 | By

    web_01-amyfriend_01amyfriend_march-28_42-17-years_0Brock University Visual Arts assistant professor Amy Friend’s work is featured in the Main Exhibition at the Donggang International Photo Festival in South Korea.

    Exhibition Overview:
    A total of 14 photographers around the world are participating in this exhibition, which will revolve around the theme of ‘Heaven on Earth’.

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    Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News

  • Vivian named director of Brock arts school

    Wednesday, May 11, 2016 | By

    David Vivian

    (Source: Niagara Falls Review, Wednesday, May 11, 2016 | By John Law)

    The new director of Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts enjoys a “pinch me” moment every now and then.

    When David Vivian arrived in Niagara in 2004, culture was struggling and downtown St. Catharines felt stagnant. Now, both are generating national attention. “It’s a fantastic progression since 2004,” he says. “I can’t believe that we have both a new (Marilyn I. Walker) school facility and new performing arts centre downtown here.

    “That’s a huge jump in capacity for this city, to both hear the stories of others and to tell its own stories.”

    Vivian, currently chairman of Brock’s Department of Dramatic Arts, begins a three-year term at the school July 1. The school opened in its new downtown location last September in a former 19th century textile factory at 15 Artists’ Common. With about 500 students, the $45 million building houses Brock’s visual arts, music, drama and culture programs.

    Vivian replaces Derek Knight, who helped oversee the new school’s construction and implementation through its first year of classes. Knight will be taking a oneyear sabbatical from Brock. With the building’s first year winding down, Vivian says there’s a “great foundation” to build on in Year Two.

    “We’ve got some excellent, first rate programs,” he says. “First on my list is to communicate these opportunities to future students here in the Niagara region, the GTA and internationally.”

    He will also strengthen the already crucial link with the nearby FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, and increase the school’s role in the evolving downtown.

    “It’s about finding the right place for the school in the heart of the city,” he says. “We understand ourselves to be part of a larger project of the downtown revitalization. We’re all terribly proud of St. Catharines.”

    Vivian was recognized with the Humanities Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2009, and recognized by the city, province and country for his work as chairman of the St. Catharines Culture Committee in 2011. He studied art and art history at the University of Toronto and Sheridan College, and has an MA in fine arts from the University of British Columbia.

    Vivian is eager to import new students to help become the “cultural fabric” of the region.

    But he also wants to keep the school part of the Brock community, despite the space between them now.

    “We have a lot of relationship building to do with the rest of the university,” he says. “Bringing us from the main campus has broken an immediacy and a knowledge of each other.”

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    Categories: In the Media, News

  • Le Corbusier and the Dynamics of Space, Colour and Design: Art and the Rehabilitation of the Unité d’Habitation

    Wednesday, March 16, 2016 | By

    Professor Derek Knight

    (Source: alliance-francaise.ca)

    Alliance française de Toronto invites you to the lecture of Professor Derek Knight, dedicated to Le Corbusier’s work. On Wednesday, March 16, at 7 pm in the Spadina Theatre. Free entrance.

    Le Corbusier worked particularly in the town planning and the design. He is known to be the inventor of the “Unité d’habitation” (house unit), concept on which he began to work in the 1920s, expression of a theoretical reflection on the collective accommodation. His conception envisages in the same building every community facilities necessities in life: day nursery, laundry, swimming pool, school, businesses, library, places of meeting.

    Derek Knight is an Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Brock University. He teaches 20th century European and North American art history, Contemporary Art and theory, and contributes to the MA program in Studies in Comparative Literatures and Arts. He is Director of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, in St Catherine.

    The lecture will be held in English.

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    Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News

  • Brock prof gets funding for project profiling women animal rights activists

    Monday, March 07, 2016 | By

    human hands wearing bracelets holding the hand of a chimpanzee

    (Source: The Brock News, Monday, March 7, 2016 | by )

    While researching the history of animal rights, Brock visual arts professor Keri Cronin realized that women did much of the advocacy work in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

    She also noticed that, quite often, there was little information about these women. For example, it was common for a woman’s first name to be omitted from the record, with only her married name – Mrs. Smith, for example – being listed.

    That got Cronin and her friend, award-winning photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, thinking.

    “What we’ve noticed again and again is that it’s always women on the ground, raising the money, holding the bake sales, protesting, and it’s usually men at the head of the organizations,” says Cronin. “This is true today and obviously in the 19th century, too.”

    “We thought, ‘all these women are doing amazing work and they’re not getting credit, they’re not being celebrated.’ We want to change that.”

    So Cronin and McArthur created The Unbound Project: Women on the Front Lines of Animal Advocacy, to “recognize and celebrate women at the forefront of animal advocacy, in both a contemporary and historical context.”

    To help make it happen, the UK-based cosmetics company Lush recently granted the pair $20,000 from the company’s North American Charitable Giving Program. Cronin and McArthur have also received funding from the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, the Culture & Animals Foundation, and A Well-Fed World.

    To put together the multi-media and book project, Cronin and McArthur are travelling around the world interviewing, photographing and filming some 200 women in a wide range of professions and walks of life.

    We want to talk about how people in all kinds of careers are making a difference and that activism doesn’t just take one form.

    British primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, with a long history of conducting pioneering chimpanzee research in Tanzania, is among the higher-profile women being featured.

    But Cronin and McArthur’s main focus is on “local grassroots women, unsung heroes who make the world a kinder, gentler place for animals,” says Cronin.

    “When people think of activism, they imagine a certain thing: they imagine someone out there protesting or chaining themselves to a fence,” says Cronin. “We actually want to change a bit of that story. We want to talk about how people in all kinds of careers are making a difference and that activism doesn’t just take one form.”

    Unbound has its roots in a long-term project, We Animals, that McArthur created to expose animal abuses around the world. As she did this, McArthur came across women working passionately and unceasingly to end such cruelty.

    “Sharing stories of inspiration and change not only gets people excited about taking part but gives them hope, something to hold onto, whereas my work on the brutal treatment of animals and factory farming can leave someone with a sense of paralysis,” says McArthur.

    “This project about women is going to do the opposite: it’s going to say, ‘here’s the problem, here are the wonderful people working on this problem, here’s how you can do this kind of thing as well.’”

    The duo is into the second year of their project, having already traveled to several continents and connecting with networks in North America and abroad.

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    Categories: Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

  • Director of the MIWSFPA to deliver lecture at Alliance Française

    Monday, March 07, 2016 | By

    Professor Derek Knight

    Associate Professor of Art History & Studio and Director of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts Derek Knight will be delivering a lecture on the work of Le Corbusier at the Alliance française de Toronto. For more information on this lecture click HERE.

    Wednesday, March 16
    7:00 pm
    Spadina Theatre
    24 spadina road
    M5R 2S7 Toronto, ON
    Canada

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    Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News

  • MIWSFPA awarded for its architecture

    Saturday, March 05, 2016 | By

    miwsfpa-award-1050x658(Source: The Brock News, Wednesday, March 9, 2016 | by )

    Brock University students and staff aren’t the only ones who love the look and feel of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    Niagara Region recognized the school with an Adaptive Re-Use Award during the 2015 Niagara Community Design Awards on Friday.

    The MIWSFPA was completed in 2015, a $45.5-million redevelopment of the former Canada Hair Cloth Building, an iconic structure in downtown St. Catharines which has been transformed and expanded to include a 35,000-square-foot addition.

    “It is arguably one of the most beautifully designed buildings that captures the heritage of what it once was,” said St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik. “It’s the juxtaposition between the modern and the heritage combined in one footprint.”

    The facility is the result of nearly a decade of hard work and commitment from hundreds of people.

    “The Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts is a legacy project and demonstrates the transformative capacity of imaginative approaches to architecture in the service of post-secondary education,” said MIWSFPA director Derek Knight. “Such commitment is a demonstration of the value the University places in conserving both the fabric of a magisterial 19th-century industrial structure and repurposing it as part of the revitalization of our core city.”

    The building wouldn’t have been possible without a $26.1-million investment from the Government of Ontario, and numerous corporate and private donors.

    Designed by the renowned Toronto firm Diamond Schmitt Architects and built by Bird Construction, the project was a joint venture with the City of St. Catharines to create a multi-use arts complex to connect the talent of Brock students with the needs of the community. The result is a 95,000-square-foot education facility showcasing the history of the original space combined with modern architecture and learning technology.

    University President Jack Lightstone said the MIWSFPA has been a huge hit with students and faculty.

    “This amazing downtown school happened because committed and generous people made it happen. As a result, we have all witnessed a dramatic change in our downtown core that is like very few transitions we will ever again see in our lifetimes,” Lightstone said.

    “For Brock, it provides another purpose-built facility serving the very specialized needs of the University and for Niagara, it is a landmark of what a university and a city government can achieve in close working partnership.”

    The Region said the project was noted for its integration with the community from its name to the linkages with the nearby performing arts centre, as well as creating a new landmark within the city and blending heritage elements with new construction.

    The school is named for the late Marilyn I. Walker, a fabric artist, Brock supporter and St. Catharines arts advocate.

    “The award reflects the vision of Marilyn I. Walker, Jack Lightstone and Dr. Rosemary Hale,” Sendzik said. “It acts as a catalysit for where we are going as a community.”
    He said the blend of old and new celebrates St. Catharines manufacturing history and its future as an arts and culture hub.

    “Brock University has made an extraordinary commitment to the next generations of students; not only is this important for sustaining our own community but for the vitality and interest this will generate beyond the Niagara Region,” Knight said.

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  • Brock Professor is the new theatre critic for the Toronto Star

    Thursday, March 03, 2016 | By

    karen fricker

    (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, March 3, 2016 | by )

    Professor Karen Fricker has spent the last three years training Brock University students to critique theatre.

    She will soon be practising what she teaches after landing the role of theatre critic for the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest, most-read newspaper.

    The Brock University Dramatic Arts assistant professor isn’t new to the theatre beat – her resume includes 25 years of experience for outlets including The Guardian and Variety. She was also the founding editor-in-chief of Irish Theatre Magazine, a publication that operated from 1998-2014.

    At the Star, Fricker will be reviewing major show openings in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Areas as well as writing feature articles.

    “It just feels like an un-dreamed-of privilege to get to have a platform like this at this point in my career,” she says. “Toronto is a really exciting and mature theatre market.”

    The theatre scene in the GTHA is rich with plenty of interesting things happening – from major musicals to performance art to original Canadian plays in storefront theatres.

    Fricker can’t wait to see them all and share her observations and critiques with Canadians.

    And, she’s looking forward to sharing her excitement with students, whose critiques are published  on Brock’s DARTcritics.com blog. She started the blog in 2013 to offer students an avenue to be published and edited.

    She plans to make sure her students benefit from the work she’s doing for the Star.

    “Students will gain a strong sense of connection and understanding of how professional arts criticism works,” she says.
    “They will have the opportunity to see their professor go through the same exercises they do and maybe even give her some feedback.”

    Fricker says she’s grateful to be working at Brock both because it’s an exciting time in the arts with the opening of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts and because it’s a university that encourages professors to pursue their creative interests.

    “Being a creator, being an artist, has equal standing to being a scholar and producing peer-reviewed research,” she says.

    Fricker says the Star opportunity fits her creative and research interests of questioning arts criticism in the digital age.

    “I consider this a part of my research,” she says. “It’s a time of extraordinary possibility and growth for criticism.”

    DARTcritics.com is a response to that research interest and the question of how to turn an earnest blog into trusted criticism. The site has grown from a space for outstanding reviews by third-year students as part of their coursework to include reviews and features by students and recent graduates who are paid for their work. Fricker hopes that the site will continue to blossom into a year-round source of quality arts criticism in Niagara.

    Fricker’s role with the Star was announced Thursday. She’s looking forward to reviewing her first production for the paper this month.

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    Categories: Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

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