Articles tagged with: Visual Arts

  • Audio tour explores historic art of Mackenzie Chown Complex

    Lesley Bell (BA ’88), former Learning Commons Co-ordinator at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA), has researched the history of Michael Snow’s Timed Images installation at Brock. She is pictured here with Frame Three, which now hangs in the School.

    posted on the Brock News on TUESDAY, MAY 09, 2023 | by 

    Getting lost in Mackenzie Chown Complex is a familiar experience for many Brock students, and it’s easy to miss the artistic significance of the building in the rush to get to class on time.

    A new self-guided audio tour produced by Foreword, a podcast from the Faculty of Humanities, hopes to encourage a new appreciation for a complicated space and the art it contains on the 50th anniversary of its installation.

    The audio tour guides the listener through the various locations of Michael Snow’s 1972-73 art installation Time Images and considers how the building’s unique architecture plays with the space and light.

    Snow was invited by renowned architect Raymond Moriyama to create an art installation as part of the design for Brock’s new Academic Staging Building, now called the Mackenzie Chown Complex. His installation consisted of a series of mirrors, still images and live video situated throughout the building from Pond Inlet to A Block.

    Elements of the installation can still be seen, and the audio tour has an accompanying web page featuring historic photographs, artist sketches and architectural plans collected by Lesley Bell (BA ’88), an artist and retired support staff for Brock’s Department of Visual Arts, during her research on Snow.

    Snow, who died in January, was a widely acclaimed Canadian artist. His many honours included Officer of the Order of Canada (1981), Governor General’s Award in Media Arts (2000) and an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Brock University (1974). He is also known for his Canada geese sculpture, Flight Stop (1979), that hangs in Toronto’s Eaton Centre and his piece The Audience (1989) on the exterior of the Rogers Centre.

    The Foreword podcast’s two-part final episode of series four also features an interview with Bell by host Alison Innes, Strategic Initiatives and Outreach Officer in the Faculty of Humanities. Bell became interested in Snow’s art at Brock while she was working with the Department of Visual Arts. She went on to research and produce a short documentary on Snow and his collaboration with Moriyama at Brock with Tracy Van Oosten (BA ’10) in 2021.

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  • Public invited to explore Brock’s downtown arts school Saturday

    Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.


    Originally published in The Brock News | TUESDAY, AUG. 18, 2022 | by

    The Niagara community will have the chance to explore Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) this weekend while learning about the building’s past and present.

    The downtown St. Catharines facility, which houses Brock’s Departments of Dramatic Arts, Music and Visual Arts as well as the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC), will host a series of guided tours as part of Doors Open St. Catharines on Saturday, Aug. 20. Tours will take place at 10 and 11:30 a.m., and 1 and 2:30 p.m., with no registration required.

    Adapted from the historic Canada Hair Cloth Building, the MIWSFPA is a state-of-the-art learning facility that acts as a creative cultural hub for St. Catharines and surrounding areas.

    As part of this weekend’s event, STAC will have a collection of publications on display by the Small Walker Press (SWP). SWP publishes collaborative work that brings together authors and artists from the Niagara region as well as from Canadian or international contexts.

    The works explore all disciplines and creative practices taught and researched at the MIWSFPA (arts and culture, visual arts, music and dramatic arts) as well as creative writing. For more information about the SWP and publications available at Doors Open St. Catharines, please visit the STAC website.

    A full list of places participating in Doors Open St. Catharines is available on the event’s website.

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  • First Studies in Arts and Culture certificate recipient making mark in industry

    Skye Rogers, the first recipient of Brock University’s Certificate in Arts and Culture Studies, will debut her project ‘PLAYGROUNDS: a joyful happening’ on Saturday, July 16 at In the Soil Arts Festival.


    Originally published in The Brock News | WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2022 | by 

    For the first recipient of Brock University’s Certificate in Arts and Culture Studies, the sky’s the limit.

    Skye Rogers, who received the first certificate from the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) this spring, has been using the knowledge she amassed at Brock to further her career.

    The one-year certificate program was a draw for the St. Catharines native, who returned to her hometown in spring 2021 upon completing her studies at Randolph College for the Performing Arts in Toronto.

    “It was a perfect time to get some more learning under my belt,” Rogers says. “The STAC program really allowed me to dive deeper into my interests in art history and the flexibility that I had in my course selection allowed me to continue my more hands-on learning in dramatic and visual arts.”

    Rogers says she found her time with STAC “academically enriching.”

    “The program set me up well with more of the entrepreneurial skills needed to be an artist,” she says. “Applying my knowledge was really significant for me and getting to research my own interests for our final project was crucial.”

    With her newly acquired skills and knowledge, Rogers is now flourishing professionally.

    “I’m so excited to be involved in some artist residencies this summer, including the Nest Residency with Suitcase in Point and In the Soil Arts Festival,” she says. “I’ve been developing a project called ‘PLAYGROUND: a joyful happening’ that’s centred around rekindling childlike joy, connecting with strangers, and reclaiming city spaces through play.”

    Her new project will debut at Nest Fest on Saturday, July 16 as part of the In the Soil Festival Summer Series. Nest Fest will also include participants from Suitcase in Point’s Electric Innovations Theatre Intensive. This two-week intensive theatre program will be hosted at Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in downtown St. Catharines.

    Reflecting on her studies, Rogers says it’s the connections she made during her time at Brock that she cherishes most.

    “All of my in-person group projects were especially profound. Art is all about connection for me, and that element must be kept sacred,” she says. “I could chat with a classmate, or even a professor, and develop a friendship with our shared interests.”

    More information on the Certificate in Arts and Culture Studies program is available on the STAC website.

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  • STAC and VISA students explore curation with arts industry experts

    Brock University students from the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) and Visual Arts (VISA) at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) are having important conversations with arts professionals around the curatorial function of museums, galleries, and cultural organizations.

    Students enrolled in STAC/VISA 3P42 Methods and Principles of Curating will be participating in a field trip to the Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum and upcoming classroom discussions with professionals from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and Yale University Art Gallery.

    The events are led by Instructor Sonya de Lazzer, Gallery Coordinator at the Visual Arts Gallery & Student Exhibition Space at the MIWSFPA. Sonya is an alumni of the Visual Arts Program at Brock (BA Honours). In 2013, she obtained her M.A. in Art History from University at Buffalo, The State University of New York and is currently completing her PhD in Art and Visual Culture at Western University. Sonya brings extensive experience from the museum and art gallery world, where she worked as a Programming and Curatorial Assistant at a local art gallery and museum for several years, developing her exhibition writing and installation skillsets.


    Upcoming class events (not open to the public):

    March 7 – Exploring Experiences: Conversations Around Curating
    Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum: Shawna Butts, Assistant Curator & Education Programming
    Students will be toured through the historical society and view current exhibitions and learn about the way in which these sites collect and care for their collection(s).

    March 21 – Exploring Experiences: Conversations Around Curating
    Nick Clemens, Preparator, Royal Ontario Museum
    Preparator and museum professional Nick Clemens will be joining the classroom to share his many experiences working with art/artefacts/objects at the Royal Ontario Museum. The class will explore the need for mindfulness and respect for the object as it relates to the curatorial practice, and the care that goes into curating and presenting a work to an audience.

    March 28 – Exploring Experiences: Conversations Around Curating
    Where Collections Live: Roksana Filipowska PhD, Wurtele Study Center Programs and Outreach Manager, Yale university Art Gallery
    Dr. Roksana Filipowska joins the classroom for a virtual exploration and conversation on open and visible storage. Filipowska works as Programs and Outreach Manager at the Wurtele Study Centre, Yale University Art Gallery. Students will engage in discussing the importance of collection visibility, as well as learn about the many challenges that many collections face regarding storage.

    These events are supported by an Experiential Education grant from the Co-op, Career & Experiential Education Office.

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  • Celebrated Canadian artist Michael Snow’s contribution to Brock revisited in new documentary

    A still image from the new documentary short Timed Images premiering Friday, Aug. 20 at the Mighty Niagara Film Fest. The film was produced and researched by Lesley Bell with video work and direction by Tracy Van Oosten.

    WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2021 | The Brock News | by 

    The legacy and impact of artwork created for Brock University in 1972 by internationally regarded Canadian artist Michael Snow has been captured on film and is being premiered Friday, Aug. 20 at a local film festival.

    Part of the Mighty Niagara Film Fest presented by Niagara Artists Centre (NAC), Timed Images is a new documentary that intimately explores two works of public art created by Snow when he was engaged by Brock University and architect Raymond Moriyama during the construction of Brock’s Mackenzie Chown Complex in 1972. Snow holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brock University received in 1974.

    The short documentary is produced and researched by Lesley Bell, artist and retired support staff for the Department of Visual Arts (VISA) at Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA), and directed by Brock graduate Tracy Van Oosten (BA ’10), artist, filmmaker and current VISA Instructor at the MIWSFPA.

    Bell, who managed Brock’s Fine Art Collection for 18 years, was drawn to Snow’s work and wanted to uncover the story behind his pieces and appreciate how they found their home in St. Catharines.

    Bell and Van Oosten, a filmmaker and artist who works with text, video and installations and explores moving images within immersive contexts, collaborated to create an artistic documentary that retraces Snow’s innovative art that delighted the University population in 1972.

    “In order to tell the story about these two artworks by Snow, I envisioned a video document. I had no understanding of the process,” Bell said. “With patience and skill, Tracy Van Oosten crafted the information that I found into an intelligent and visually stimulating artistic video work. This has been a satisfying collaboration.”

    Timed Images screens Friday, Aug. 20 at the RiverBrink Art Museum in Queenston, Niagara-on-the-Lake. Doors open at 8 p.m., with the screening scheduled to start at sunset. The documentary is part of an art-inspired program at NAC’s film fest called ‘An Ode to Escarpment School Films.

    For more information about Timed Images and to purchase tickets, visit the Mighty Niagara Film Fest website.

    This project is supported by David Vivian, the Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, and Dean Carol Merriam of the Faculty of Humanities, through the Dean’s Discretionary Fund (2020). An installation for the public to view Timed Images at the MIWSFPA and online is currently in development.


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  • Soft Walls – Virtual exhibit opening at City Hall

    VIRTUAL EXHBIT OPENING
    Soft Walls
    Originally aired: Friday, June 18, 7 p.m.

    Watch the Soft Walls Opening Reception on the City of St. Catharines YouTube channel.

    The Corresponding Visual and Literary Arts Exhibit On View: June 17 to July 22, 2021
    Third Floor, St. Catharines City Hall, 50 Church St.

    Please note that in-person viewing of the exhibit may be impacted due to facility access. Please visit our exhibits web page (linked below) for details.

    The hallways of City Hall lead us from busy streets to busy meeting rooms and offices. This exhibition imagines that they also offer visitors a restful transitional space.

    Paintings using soft floral and figurative patterns that are both complex and soothing create a relaxed, pleasant atmosphere. Inspired by decorative art practices, they are intended to suggest a meditative and carefree environment and are accompanied by soft-spoken fragments of text. In a place where important, at times difficult decisions are made and where city life is shaped, the “Soft Walls” in the hallway invite visitors to enjoy a quiet, introspective moment while letting their eyes linger on delicate structures and engaging colour associations.

    Presented by Studies in Arts and Culture, and Visual Arts, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, Brock University in Partnership with the City of St. Catharines Cultural Services Office (Community, Recreation, and Culture Department).

    Curated By: Catherine Paryare and Shawn Serfas
    Opening reception hosted By: Olivia Hope, St. Catharines Culture Coordinator

    Participating Artists: Hannah Holmes and Lindsay Liboiron.
    Written Works: Alicia Armacinski, Janelle Barretto, Alyssa Campbell, Sarah Cecchini, Iris Ciu, Justin Co, David Figueroa, Malcolm Gear, Giuliana Gervasio, Clive Green, Dominik Hekiert, Jim Kershaw, Kiera King, Kalista Mackisey, Maria Maletta, Emma McLachlan, Maya Meyerman, Ariana Mota, Quinn O’Brien, Sarah Pastore, Tony Payment, Vanessa Pereira, Emily Purkis, Jessie Richard, Jessica Smith, Jamie Tomao-Martin, Charlotte Vann, Blake Wilson and Simon Xu.

    For the most up-do-date information on viewing this exhibit please visit: www.stcatharines.ca/exhibits

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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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  • 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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  • Students exhibit at Die Bäckerei in Innsbruck, Austria UPDATED

    We are very excited to announce an exhibition by the students of the MIWSFPA in Innsbruck, Austria!

    see photographs from the exhibition, below.

    Geographies of Process

    presented at …

    Die Baeckerei

    13 June – 6 July 2018 (Opening 13 June 2018, 19:00)

    Learning is process. Students in Visual Arts at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University, Canada put together a series of paintings to illustrate the process of abstraction at work in referencing urban, industrial, domestic, and natural landscapes. Students in Arts and Culture and French Studies continue the process of abstraction through the creation of written texts responding to their peers’ paintings.

    Curators: Catherine Parayre and Shawn Serfas

    With the generous support of the Canadian Studies Centre, University of Innsbruck

    Geographien als Prozess

    Lernen ist ein Prozess. Studierende der bildenden Kunst der Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts an der Brock University (Kanada) haben eine Reihe von Bildern zusammengestellt, um den Prozess des Abstrahierens zu illustrieren, der abläuft, wenn auf städtische, industrielle, häusliche und natürliche Landschaften Bezug genommen wird. Studierende der Fächer Kunst, Kultur und Französisch setzen diesen Prozess fort, indem sie Texte verfassen, die auf die Bilder ihrer KollegInnen
    reagieren.

    KuratorIn: Catherine Parayre und Shawn Serfas (Brock University)

    Eröffnung: 13. Juni 2018, 19:00 Uhr

    13. Juni – 6. Juli 2018
    Bäckerei Innsbruck, Dreiheiligenstraße 21a, 6020 Innsbruck

    Geographien als Prozess / Geographies of Process / Géographies en formation

    Lernen ist ein Prozess. Studierende der bildenden Kunst der Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts an der Brock University (Kanada) haben ein Reihe von Bildern zusammengestellt, um den Prozess des Abstrahierens zu illustrieren, der abläuft, wenn auf städtische, industrielle, häusliche und natürliche Landschaften Bezug genommen wird. Studierende der Fächer Kunst, Kultur und Französisch setzen diesen Prozess fort, indem sie Texte verfassen, die auf die Bilder ihrer KollegInnen reagieren.

    Learning is process. Students in Visual Arts at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University, Canada put together a series of paintings to illustrate the process of abstraction at work in referencing urban, industrial, domestic, and natural landscapes. Students in Arts and Culture and French Studies continue the process of abstraction through the creation of written texts responding to their peers’ paintings.

    Tout apprentissage est un processus. Des étudiant.e.s en Arts visuels de l’Ecole des beaux-arts et arts du spectacle Marilyn I. Walker à l’Université Brock au Canada assemblent une série de peintures illustrant un processus d’abstraction faisant référence à des paysages urbains, industriels, domestiques et naturels. Poursuivant cet enchainement vers l’abstraction, des étudiant.e.s d’Arts et Culture et d’Etudes en français répondent aux œuvres de leurs collègues par la création de textes.

    KuratorIn / Curators / Commissaires: Catherine Parayre / Shawn Serfas

    Mit der Unterstützung des Zentrums für Kanadastudien der Universität Innsbruck
    With the generous support of the Canadian Studies Centre, University of Innsbruck
    Avec le généreux appui du Centre d’Etudes canadiennes de l’Université d’Innsbruck

    KünstlerIn / Artists / Artistes

    Gianna Aceto
    Jessica Angelevski
    Elizabeth Angotti
    Denise Apostolatos
    Teresa Badgley
    Renz Baluyot
    Chris Belanger
    Marilyn Blanchette
    Brandon Boudreau
    Hannah Brown
    Andrea Caruso
    Maddy Cugini
    Thomas Denton
    Chelsea Dietrich
    Amy Doan
    Hannah Dobbie
    Isabella Domaradski
    Mariah Dubeau
    Amandine Faivre
    Alex Finlayson
    Dailia Frigault
    Jill Greer
    Stefanie Gugliucciello
    Kylie Haveron
    Gail Higenell
    Samantha Hilton
    Aimee Hu
    Syerra Jasmin
    Gabriella Jones
    Phuong Le
    Laura Levesque
    Brendan Long
    Craig Maltais
    Sarah Martin
    Jim Maunder
    Katie McGinness
    Kaitlyn Michie
    Avery Mikolic-O’Rourke
    Andrey Mintchev
    Jennie Montes
    Victoria Morinello
    Jaclyn Morse
    Lauren Mucciarone
    Michelle Nazari
    Alona Nyforovska
    Joseph Opara
    Lillianna Pagliaro
    Connor Playfair
    Anna Podvalni
    Jacob Primeau
    Brittany Reitzel
    Curt Richard
    Jessie Richard
    Cynthia Richards
    Keira Robertson-Worden
    Abby Rollo
    Kourtney Spadoni
    Samantha Stein
    Sophia Strachan
    Charlotte Tarr
    Evan Weins
    Zachary White
    Amber Lee Williams

    LISTEN to an interview (in German) by Sarah von Karger with Co-Curator Catherine Parayre for “KulturTon”, Freirad Radio, Innsbruck, Austria, 2 Juli 2018

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