News

  • Four exciting courses at the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture

    Four exciting and challenging courses at the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) offer you an opportunity to complement your program of studies with relevant experiences in the arts and culture sector! These courses are open to all students in the university.

    STAC 1F98 LANGUAGE FOR THE ARTS
    This is a great way to begin your studies in arts and culture at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.  The course focuses on reporting arts and culture. Examples may include photography, visual arts, new media art, performance, music, and dramatic arts.
    – Express your appreciation of different cultural and artistic expressions more efficiently
    – improve transferable skills such as communication, adaptability, and analytical proficiency.
    – Be prepared for written and communication assignments in your further studies.
    – Acquire confidence in your writing skills.
    This is a full-year ONLINE course (September 2020 to April 2021), and is asynchronous (meaning that you can proceed at your own pace) and is open to all students!  ***ALSO eligible as a Humanities Context Course for your major in another university subject.***

    STAC 2P94 EMBODIED TEXT: ART BEYOND THE ARTIFACT,
    also offered as CANA 2P94, IASC 2P94 and MLLC 2P94, offers you the opportunity to experience and explore various forms of art (music, visual art, movement, theatre) and how they interact in interdisciplinary performances, both low- and high-tech. This is an ONLINE course (Fall 2020), asynchronous (meaning that you can proceed at your own pace) and is open to all students!

    STAC 3V91 – SPORT IS IN THE ARTS,
    is a special one-time-only course from the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, on the occasion of the Canada Games in Niagara in 2021! You like sports and movement? Learn about their cultural and artistic representations, from visual arts to performance, with an emphasis on Canadian perspectives. This is a Winter 2021 asynchronous course (meaning that you can proceed at your own pace) and is open to all students!

    STAC 4F40 ARTS MANAGEMENT,
    also offered as DART 4F40 and VISA 4F40, is another great course from the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture! Planning a career in event management? Learn and practice effective skills to organize cultural and artistic events with an experienced instructor. This is a full-year ONLINE course (September 2020 to April 2021), and is asynchronous (meaning that you can proceed at your own pace) and is open to all students!  The course has been a stepping stone to successful post undergraduate studies and employment opportunities in the field.

    For more information about all of these courses please contact: Catherine Parayre at stac@brocku.ca

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  • A welcome to the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture in 2020!

    The Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) welcomes 2020-2021 students!
    Please watch this video by STAC Major Maya Meyerman.

    For more info, please contact Catherine Parayre, Director of STAC.
    stac@brocku.ca

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  • The Small Walker Press announces its third title for 2020: Videopoetry/ Vidéopoésie, by Daniel H. Dugas and Valerie LeBlanc

    Dugas, Daniel H. and Valerie LeBlanc.
    Videopoetry/Vidéopoésie.

    St. Catharines, ON: Small Walker Press, 2020.
    414 pages, with illustrations, sound and videos
    Graphic design by Daniel H. Degas and Valerie LeBlanc
    ISBN 978-1-9990860-6-0
    Online, free access
    https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/14790

    The Small Walker Press announces its third title for 2020: Videopoetry/Vidéopoésie, by Daniel H. Dugas and Valerie LeBlanc, a volume that combines text, images, and dynamic media into an immersive experience.

    Canadian digital artist and videopoet Valerie LeBlanc and Canadian poet, musician, and videopoet Daniel H. Dugas have been working together since 1990.

    Daniel H. Dugas was born in Montréal, QC. Poet, videographer, essayist and musician, Dugas has exhibited and participated in exhibitions, festivals and literary events in Canada and internationally. His ninth book of poetry, L’esprit du temps/The Spirit of the Time, won the 2016 Antonine-Maillet-Acadie Vie award and the 2018 Éloizes: Artiste de l’année en littérature. daniel.basicbruegel.com | Videos distributed through: vtape.org

    Pluridisciplinary artist and writer, Valerie LeBlanc was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has worked and presented throughout Canada and internationally. LeBlanc’s first video, Homecoming, was collected and screened by the National Gallery of Canada. She is the creator of the MediaPackBoard (MPB), a portable screening / performance device. valerie.basicbruegel.com | Videos distributed through: vtape.org

    “Their specific uniqueness within the videopoetry world also lies in the musicality of speaking two languages. LeBlanc’s first language is English and her second French; and Dugas’ is French with English second.” (Sarah Tremlett).

    Professor Derek Knight of the Department of Visual Arts remarks about this latest addition to the collection of the Small Walker Press: “The sheer volume and complexity of Videopoetry/Vidéopoésie at 400 plus pages was daunting enough, but with a keen eye, a facility for both French and English, and an unbounded curiosity for the imaginative nature of Daniel H. Dugas and Valerie LeBlanc’s poetry and time-based work, Catherine’s efforts have resulted in a worthy digital publication.”

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  • The Centre for Studies in Arts & Culture launches ‘ti <‘ for 2020

    The Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) is proud to announce this year’s issue of ti<.
    Showcasing the creative works of 60 students of Brock University, it includes, among other things, two exhibitions catalogues (Imagined Urban Gardens at Rodman Hall and Crisscross in the Art Gallery of the MIWSFPA), as well as creative writing by students in STAC 1F93 (Writing for the Arts).

    TI< IS AVAILABLE ONLINE THROUGH BROCK UNIVERSITY.

     

    Focus and Scope

    ti< publishes creative work combining text and image.

    ti< is primarily interested in creative work by students, their instructors, as well as by artists and writers whose work combines literature and the visual arts.

    All languages are welcome, including endangered languages. No translation is needed.

    Peer Review Process

    Thematic group projects are encouraged. The organizer/instructor of the project works with the group and edits the selected works.

    The Editor of ti< makes the final decision to publish after consultation with the organizer/instructor and other peers.

    Open Access Policy

    This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

    Sponsors

    Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (MLLC)

    Brock University

     

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  • CrissCross, a new student exhibition at the MIWSFPA

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This exhibition is unavailable for viewing until further notice. It is closed as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Please check here again.

    CrissCross, a new student exhibition at the MIWSFPA

    March 5 – 28
    opening reception: March 12th, 5 p.m.
    (This is also the reception for the Artist Talk by the Walker Cultural Leader, Landon Mackenzie.)

    VISA Gallery and Student Exhibition Space, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines, L2R 0B5.

    The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

    An exhibition by students from the Studies in Arts and Culture and Visual Arts programs. Our hybrid assemblages celebrate incongruity and unfettered associations. Whether abstract or figurative, paintings, or texts, they are intended to trigger reactions, prompt comparisons, and challenge the usual. Beyond the immediate effect of surprise, they provoke, their apparent disparateness nevertheless generates, on closer view, a semblance of overall coherence.

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  • Industrial Niagara, a new exhibition at Rodman Hall Arts Centre, on view March 7

    (image: Shawn Serfas)

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This exhibition is unavailable for viewing until further notice. It is closed as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Please check here again.

    Industrial Niagara
    March 7-22, 2020, Rodman Hall Art Centre, Brock University
    Saturday, March 14, 2-4 p.m. Speaker Series

    Industrial Niagara, an exhibition, brings together key works by members of the Research Centre, Studies in Arts and Culture, Brock University.

    Visual artists Candace Couse, Catherine Parayre, Shawn Serfas, Donna Szőke, and ARTIndustria share their insights by responding to the natural environs and the features that distinguish the presence, loss or history of industry in Niagara’s landscape. A combination of hinterland, cataract and escarpment, waterways and canals, hydro-electric generators and high tension wires, manufacturing facilities, factories, subdivisions and farmland, this is the first of a series of reflections or aesthetic interpretations on the meaning of locale (genius loci).

    download poster

    Curated by Derek J.J. Knight, with a speaker series programmed by Catherine Parayre, on Saturday, March 14.

    Visit the Industrial Niagara Virtual Gallery.

    See the video produced by YourTV Niagara, on March 16, 2020.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The below event has been cancelled as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

    Rodman Hall Art Centre will host a cultural event on Saturday, March 14, 2-4 p.m. featuring readings by award-winning authors Natalee Caple and Adam Dickinson as well as short reflections by Niagara residents on their observations, research or experience, from the impact of the Welland Canal to the generation of hydro-electric power: Clark Bernat, Derek Knight, Reinhard Reitzenstein, David Sharron, Penelope Stewart, and David Vivian.

    Open to members of the public this event is organized as part of the Research Centre’s outreach and to encourage future partnerships in an ongoing series of thematic projects.

    download the program for Industrial Niagara

    The Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture acknowledges the support of Brock University: Centre for Studies in Arts and Cultures, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts, Dean’s Office in Humanities, Research Services, and Rodman Hall Art Centre.

    New research centre fosters interdisciplinary approach to arts and culture
    [brocknews, alison innes. MONDAY, MARCH 02, 2020]

    The Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture (RCIACC) establishes a network of researchers and creators across Faculties at Brock and beyond the University. The research centre is part of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC).

    “STAC has an established reputation as an interdisciplinary academic centre and it was therefore logical to home an interdisciplinary research centre in the unit,” says Associate Professor Catherine Parayre, who led the initiative with Associate Professor Derek Knight and is the Centre’s new director.

    The Centre will engage with a broad range of creative expression, including visual arts, dramatic arts, music, creative writing and translation, book and graphic design, cultural heritage, and photography.The Centre includes faculty from Arts and Culture, Visual Arts, Dramatic Arts, Music, Curatorial Studies, French Studies, English Literature, Digital Humanities, and Education.

    The centre will be doing outreach at Rodman Hall Art Centre through exhibitions and talks and in collaboration with the Willow Arts Community.

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  • Imagined Urban Gardens opens at Rodman Hall Art Centre

    Imagined Urban Gardens: Student Exhibition
    Jan. 30 – March 1, 2020

    download the poster

    Rodman Hall Art Centre
    109 St. Paul Crescent, St. Catharines, ON

    Responding to the explorations of urban architecture and its materials in Teresa Carlesimo and Michael DiRisio: more light than heat (on exhibition at the Rodman Hall Art Centre), Imagined Urban Gardens also reflects on today’s global warming and how we could live in the future.

    We dream of green spaces and pleasantly warm cities.
    Students in Visual Arts and Studies in Arts and Culture envision in text and image what could be in a livable world.

    See the YourTV Niagara video spotlight about this exhibition, featuring interviews with the artists and curators.

    Read the article by Bart Gazzola in The Sound STC.

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  • Donna Szőke presents ‘On Invisibility’, January 21 at the MIWSFPA

    On 21 January, the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture welcomes artist Donna Szőke, Chair of the Department of Visual Arts and a member of the recently created Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture, as a Walker Cultural leader for 2020.

    Szőke will present an artists’ talk “On Invisibility” at 7:00 pm at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts of Brock University (MIWSFPA). This is a free community event and everyone is welcome to attend.

    Invisibility is this year’s theme at The Small Walker Press, a small press valuing interdisciplinary cooperation and the exploration of image and text, homed in the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) at the MIWSFPA.

    Szőke creates expanded animation, media art, video, drawing, and collaborations. She investigates immanence, embodied perception, and the fluidity of lived experience.

    In her artist’s talk, she will present her work and her current book project The Dark Redacted in cooperation with author Gary Barwin, to be published in April 2020 by the Small Walker Press.

    In an excerpt from the forthcoming volume, editors Catherine Parayre and Derek Knight write:

    Donna Szőke thoughtfully investigates the fluidity of meaning and presence. Rather than elucidating a concept or an experience, she proposes a semi-abstract perusal of collective or intimate issues. Offering a reflection on the evocative instability of the biographical and the personal, and opting for an approach close to autofiction, her work constellates subtle possibilities and its scope defies the limitations of certainty. The artist is a compelling storyteller for whom the quest for meaning and the vagrancies of that search are more significant than plain facts. For The Dark Redacted Szőke proposes traces of a fragile story and never-faltering endurance. Her sequence of images alternates beautifully detailed natural life – a buffalo, intricate vegetation – and minimally sketched-out human presence and personal objects. As a result, her work addresses the viewers’ intuition and sensitivity to the environment.

    The event is presented by the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture for the Walker Cultural Leader Series, generously founded by Marilyn I. Walker. The Walker Cultural Leader series brings leading artists, performers, practitioners and academics to the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. Engaging, lively and erudite, these sessions celebrate professional achievement, artistic endeavour and the indelible role of culture in our society.

    Please join us.Join us on January 21, 2020 at 7-8:30 pm.  The presentation takes place in the Art & Val Fleming Smart Classroom (MWS 156), located on the lower level of the MIWSFPA.  Limited parking is available at the MIWSFPA, with additional parking nearby at the Garden Park/Carlisle Street Parking garage and adjacent lots.

    Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture: Walker Cultural Leader Artist’s talk
    ‘On Invisibility’, with Donna Szőke
    21 January 2020, 7-8:30 pm, MWS 156

    download the poster

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  • Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Art Practice: Candidate Research Presentations

    The Brock and wider community is invited to attend the presentations by the three Indigenous artist/researchers who are finalists for the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Art Practice at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    Our candidates are visiting the Marilyn I. Walker School in January. Each will give an hour-long presentation and engage in an additional half hour of discussion about their current research interests and focus, and about what they would hope to achieve as a Canada Research Chair at Brock University in the next five years.

    MATTHEW MACKENZIE

    Research presentation 5 – 6:30 pm,
    Friday January 10, 2020
    MWS 156

    Edmonton playwright, director and producer Matthew MacKenzie (Métis) is Artistic Director of Punctuate! Theatre, as well as the founder and an Artistic Associate with Pyretic Productions. In 2018, his play Bears won Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production, was named a co-winner of the Toronto Theatre Critics Outstanding New Canadian Play Award, and won the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt National Playwriting Award. This past fall, Punctuate! premiered MacKenzie’s play The Particulars, which was named one of the top ten productions of 2019 by The Globe and Mail.

    MARK IGLOLIORTE

    Research presentation 11:30 am – 1 pm,
    Friday January 17, 2020
    MWS 156

    Mark Igloliorte is an Inuk artist born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland with Inuit ancestry from Nunatsiavit, Labrador. His artistic work is primarily painting and drawing. Igloliorte’s work has been featured in several notable national exhibitions including the 2015 Marion McCain Exhibition of Contemporary Atlantic Canadian Art, curated by Corinna Ghaznavi; Inuit Ullumi: Inuit Today: Contemporary Art from TD Bank Group’s Inuit Collection; Beat Nation, curated by Kathleen Ritter and Tania Willard; and The Phoenix Art-The Renewed Life of Contemporary Painting, curated by Robert Enright. In addition, Igloliorte has been profiled in features in Canadian Art magazine and Inuit Art Quarterly. Igloliorte is an Assistant Professor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

    SUZANNE MORRISSETTE

    Research presentation 5 – 6:30 pm,
    Wednesday January 22, 2020
    MWS 207

    Suzanne Morrissette is a Métis artist, curator, and writer. Using various research-creation methods Morrissette addresses the philosophical roots of historical and contemporary forms of injustice facing Indigenous peoples. Her current and future research looks at the role of locally-based Indigenous knowledges within Indigenous community-based curatorial practice as a way of entering into conversations about robust and unexpected strategies for representing Indigenous art both within Canadian and international contexts. Currently she holds the position of Assistant Professor at OCAD University.r University of Art and Design.


    Please share and post this poster in your community.

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  • Creative Book Covers!

    Book design plays an important role in making its content attractive. Participants of a recent Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture workshop conducted by artist Candace Couse show their creations of unique book covers in the display window of The Write Bookshop, 285 St. Paul’s Street, until 2 December 2019.

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