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

  • RHIZOMES takes on the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts

    Monday, April 25, 2016 | By

    In the Soil Arts Festival will be staging the third edition of its increasingly popular RHIZOMES program — a “choose your own art adventure” — throughout the hallways and spaces of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA), at 15 Artists’ Common in downtown St. Catharines.

    The three-day festival will showcase artists of all disciplines with a series of one-time audience experiences, including short plays, dance performances, and sound and light installations. Upon entry, audience members will be directed to “The Hive,” a licensed area where you can grab a drink and sign up to experience the 11 creations.

    Seven of the eleven installations involved in this program are connected to the MIWSFPA as students, alumni, faculty and staff from all four disciplines (Visual Arts, Dramatic Arts, Music, and Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture) are active participants. In the Soil Arts Festival is produced by Suitcase in Point Theatre Company, and run by two Brock Dramatic Arts alumni.

    RHIZOMES will be open to audiences in four two-hour blocks over the course of the weekend: Friday, April 29, from 7:30 – 9:30 pm; Saturday, April 30, from 2:30 – 4:30 pm & 10 pm – 12 midnight; Sunday, May 1, from 2 – 4 pm.

    Admission at the door is $20, however, a $40 festival pass will give you access to RHIZOMES and the other 150 acts and installations taking over downtown St. Catharines as part of the In the Soil Arts Festival. Tickets can be purchased through the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre Box Office 905.688.0722; email: [email protected]; or online: firstontariopac.ca.

    For more information on the In the Soil Festival visit: inthesoil.on.ca

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    Marie Balsom, Communications
    Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
    T: 905.688.5550, ext. 4765 |E: [email protected] |W: brocku.ca/miwsfpa

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    Categories: Announcements, Events, Media Releases, 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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  • 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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  • Brock instructor’s work one of Time’s top 10 magazine covers of the year

    Thursday, December 10, 2015 | By

    The California Sunday Magazine cover

    (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, December 10, 2015 | by )

    Time Magazine has recognized the photographic work of Brock University visual arts instructor Amy Friend. A photograph created by Friend for the cover of The California Sunday Magazine’s April 5 edition is one of Time’s Top 10 covers of the year.

    “Our selection of the top 10 covers of 2015 displays an exquisite use of photography,” writes Kira Pollack in Time’s online article announcing the best covers. “With this unranked selection, we’ve witnessed that the cover still holds the power to be iconic and, at the very least, move and delight us.”

    Other covers on the list include the Vanity Fair image of Caitlyn Jenner shot by famous photographer Annie Leibovitz, New York Magazine’s issue featuring black and white images of 35 women who claim to be victims of Bill Cosby and a Harper’s Bazaar photo of singer Rihanna in the mouth of a shark.

    Friend said she is thrilled her work is included in a collection of so many amazing images.

    “It gives a boost to the aspects I really believe in regarding photography and its ability to reach a certain and specific sentiment with people,” she said. “When you are struck by an image, it remains with you.”

    As a fine arts photographer, Friend works with light.

    In her photographic series Dare alla Luce, she uses light to re-make vintage photographs.

    “We loved the work of Canadian artist Amy Friend, specifically her series Dare alla Luce, in which she manipulates archival photographs with a needle and then projects light through the images,” said the magazine’s creative director Leo Jung.

    More and more, artists are being approached to work with mainstream media.

    The California Sunday Magazine cover is inspired by that series and shows the silhouette of a woman with spots of light shining through, giving it a poignant quality. John von Pamer took the picture of the woman and Friend applied her technique on it and then re-photographed it. It goes with the story Death, Re-Designed.

    “The resulting image has an otherworldly, ethereal quality – a perfect metaphor for this story,” said Jacqueline Bates, photography director.

    Friend said it’s not unusual for artists to work in editorial realms.

    “More and more, artists are being approached to work with mainstream media,” she said, noting that’s opening even more doors for her students at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    “There’s fertile ground between the fine arts stream and with editorial based work,” she said.

    Friend said Brock visual arts students are exposed to both digital and analogue photography thanks to the MIWSFPA’s brand new darkroom.

    “It’s what really sets us apart from many other universities, which are mainly concentrating on digital,” she said.

    As a photographer, she knows the value of a well-rounded education in the art form.

    “Every time a student develops a photo in the darkroom, it’s a completely magical experience,” she said.

    In her photography, Friend said she concentrates on elements of history, time, memory and impermanence.

    “Despite photography’s traditional connection with the real, I am less concerned with capturing a ‘concrete’ reality, and instead aim to use and explore photography as a medium yet focus on what lies beyond its immediate visual representations,” she said.

    In much of her work, Friend uses found images and vintage pictures.

    Dare Alla Luce has been published in book form by photolucida.org and one of the images featured hangs in the new FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines.

    Friend’s recent work will be on display at Rodman Hall from Jan. 29-May 1 in a show called Assorted Boxes of Ordinary Life, curated by Marcie Bronson.

    An opening reception will be held Jan. 28 at 7 p.m.

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