Announcements

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

    Thursday, January 16, 2020 | By

    On Invisibility artwork of black pen drawing of trees by Donna Szőke

    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:On Visibility poster by Donna Szoke

    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.

    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

    Monday, January 06, 2020 | By

    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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  • Visual Art professor’s work chosen for prestigious U.K. exhibition

    Wednesday, November 06, 2019 | By

    “Wayfinding in Cold Light from the Multi-Verse Series” by Amy Friend, an Assistant Professor in Brock’s Department of Visual Arts, is one of just 55 photographs included in this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, U.K.

    (published in The Brock News TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 05, 2019 | by  )

    Nearly 4,000 portraits by more than 1,000 photographers from 70 countries were submitted, but only 55 were chosen for this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Exhibition in the United Kingdom.

    One of those portraits is by Amy Friend, an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Art.

    The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is a prestigious annual award that attracts amateur and professional photographers alike. Only 55 of the 3,700 submissions were chosen for the exhibition. Three photos are shortlisted for the top award of £15,000 (approximately $25,000 CAD).

    “Having my work included in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Exhibition is an exciting adventure in my creative practice,” said Friend. “I had been working on this long-term project for several years, so it is uplifting to see this new work recognized. The piece has personal connections, which extends this recognition in a meaningful way.”

    Friend’s series Multi-Verse draws on her own and found photographs featuring diverse subject matter and imagery from across several time periods to explore the idea of a multi-verse. The series references both the idea of alternate realities and the numerous stories or ‘verses’ the viewer encounters in the photographs.

    She uses experimental photographic methods and manual manipulation to alter photos. While they are not overtly political photographs, her works references darker elements such as floodwaters and images of soldiers.

    “I reference the past, the here and now, the visible and invisible, literally and poetically, albeit not through overtly political photographs,” said Friend. “The medium of photography has always had a currency of possibility. In this series I work to find meaning in the chaos, to be with it and to look for an alternate story from where we are — a multiverse.”

    The exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London, U.K., on Tuesday, Nov. 5 and carries through to February 2020. The exhibition will then go on tour throughout the U.K.

    In 2017, a portrait by Finnish artist Maija Tammi, who studied under Friend, won third place in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.

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  • The Italian Immigrant Experience Revealed, A Photography exhibition.

    Thursday, October 03, 2019 | By

    The Italian Immigrant Experience Revealed, A Photography exhibition by Vincenzo Pietropaolo in conjunction with the Italian Canadian Archives Project.

    The exhibit of Vincenzo Pietropaolo has been developed for the Italian Canadian Archives Project, a national conference that will be hosted by Brock University for the first time and sponsored by Modern Languages Literatures, and Cultures (MLLC) running from Oct. 25 to 27, 2019.  For more information visit icap.ca/active-conference

    exhibition:   Oct. 4 to Oct. 27, 2019

    VISA Art Gallery and Student Exhibition Space,
    Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts,
    Brock University

    The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 pm
    and for special events.

    Artist Talk – Oct. 26, 11:30 a.m. MWS 156
    Reception to follow.

    see the ExpBU calendar listing

    (From: The Brock Press, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2019 | by Emma Kirwin)

    The Italian Immigrant Experience, A Photography Exhibition by Vincenzo Pietropaolo in conjunction with the Italian Canadian Archives Project is an exhibition that was displayed at Brock’s own Marilyn I. Walker building. The exhibition celebrates Italian immigrants in Canada.

    This exhibition features 50 photographs from the books Ritual and Not Paved with Gold, by Vincenzo Pietropaolo. Many of the photographs pictured workers on construction sites and in factories. They are accompanied by 15 photographs of Italian immigrants working on the Welland Ship Canal. These photographs pay homage to the immigrant experience and showcases their hard work, religion and happiness.

    In Not Paved in Gold,  Pietropaolo writes “My father … would inevitably point out certain buildings or sites where he had worked as part of a construction crew. And, again, he would tell me yet another anecdote about the vast quantities of bricks he carried around that site; or the overtime they were required to do, pouring cement in the wintry dark days of November; and sometimes he remembered a job site where an accident occurred because of lax or non-existent safety regulations … I began to realize that my father was not merely a worker, but a builder of my new adopted country.”

    The dimly lit photographs of factory workers, both male and female, captured day to day life for Italian immigrants. The photos are from a sock factory and the workers were surrounded by towering stacks of plain white socks, reflecting the repetitive work immigrants were usually required to do.

    Along with factory workers, there were many photographs of construction workers. Men both young and old huddled around for photos, posing with their tools on their job site. Photos of railway work, steelwork and construction show the hard, labour intensive work immigrants were willing to do for their new country. Viewing these photographs reminded attendees of the importance and value of immigrant labour. Their hard work, and exploitation, has resulted in fruitful industrial sites like the Welland Ship Canal.

    Pietropaolo balanced these photographs of immigrants toiling with joyful photos showing the rich tradition of Italian immigrants. Young girls showing off their brace-filled smiles, laughing at each other and another picture of a senior couple smiling while dancing. The contrast of ages in this collection was striking and accentuated the multi-generational dynamics of immigration.

    Religion was also a featured theme in this exhibit. Many of the photographs were filled with swarms of people surrounding religious relics and crucifixes. Other photographs showcased people knelt in prayer. These pictures highlight the heavy religious importance in Italian culture, a value that they carried with them to their new home country.

    One photograph that encapsulates the exhibition is of a hand scribing a letter. The first lines read “Canada is a democracy, the govt (government) represents the people.” This captures the immigrant experience in Canada, reminding the audience of the political liberties Canadians enjoy that many others did not have in the past and are still robbed of today. Those seeking asylum often come to Canada in order to enjoy those democratic rights, as seen in the letter photographed.

    In Ritual, Pietropaolo writes, “… it is a chapter of working-class culture and immigrant history that has long been overlooked, sometimes dismissively, for its surface colour and ethnic flavour. But herein lies the power of photography: to help you bear witness, and in so doing, becoming empowered to write a history of one’s own.”

    This exhibition was a beautiful ode to Italian immigrants. Their labours that helped create Canada and the hardships that they endured to make a new life for themselves.

    “The Italian Immigrant Experience: A Photography exhibition by Vincenzo Pietropaolo in conjunction with the Italian Canadian Archives Project” will be viewable until Sunday, October 27,  2019 at 5:00 p.m. at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, VISA Gallery and Student Exhibition Space. An artist talk will take place on October 26 at 11:30 a.m. at this location.

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  • Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Indigenous Art Practice

    Wednesday, September 04, 2019 | By

    Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) invites applications for a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Indigenous Art Practice at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor.

    The CRC in Indigenous Art Practice will be appointed to one or more of the School’s academic units, depending on the successful applicant’s area(s) of knowledge and expertise. We recognize that in Indigenous art there may be no formal divisions between visual, theatrical, and musical art forms. Brock embraces diverse perspectives and pedagogical practices; it is hoped that the CRC in Indigenous Art Practice will help foster new collaborations across academic units and assist the School and university to move towards Indigenization. The CRC will be welcomed into a tight-knit, friendly, and dynamic community of artists, scholars, staff, and students that respects, promotes, and actively engages with Indigenous arts and culture within the University and Indigenous communities.

    Review of applications will begin on October 31, 2019, and will continue until the position is filled.

    For more information see the complete posting at brocku.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/brocku_careers/job/St-Catharines-Downtown-Campus/Canada-Research-Chair—Tier-2—Indigenous-Art-Practice—Assistant-Associate-Professor-Tenure-Track_JR-1002413

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  • We are hiring!

    Thursday, August 15, 2019 | By

    Two positions available:

    Marketing and Communications Officer

    full-time, this position includes full comprehensive benefits coverage, including tuition waiver.
    closing on August 24. see https://brocku.ca/careers/
    direct link: https://brocku.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/brocku_careers/job/St-Catharines-Downtown-Campus/Marketing—Communications-Officer_JR-1004102

    Communications Assistant (Coop student position)

    full-time, 9 months, beginning September 2019
    tailored for Brock students in Marketing and Communications but other disciplines should apply
    closing on August 17 or until filled. see https://careerzone.brocku.ca

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  • Students transform trash into treasure for new art exhibit

    Monday, June 24, 2019 | By

    Visual Arts major Caroline Holroyd, 67, works away at her plaster of paris sculpture for the upcoming exhibition, Material World.

    (From The Brock News, June 24, 2019 | By: Sarah Ackles)

    In a world where both packaging and products are marketed as disposable, Brock Visual Arts students have been challenged to rethink the concept of materialism.

    As part of instructor Donna Akrey’s Sculpture VISA 2F05 course, students were tasked with collecting various everyday items to be used as the basis for their final art projects.

    Everything from Styrofoam packing material to masking tape was fair game as students sculpted their works, which are featured in the upcoming exhibition Material World, on view from Friday, June 28 to Friday, July 19.

    In the process of creating, experimenting and working with their hands, students questioned society’s relationship to disposable materials. They also explored the often-overlooked aesthetics of simple, everyday objects, while being conscious of how everyday “stuff” is treated.

    Artist Caroline Holroyd, for example, repurposed an old speaker and plastic hockey stick handle for one of her pieces.

    “It’s an important topic because there’s so much waste all around us,” she said of working with found objects for this exhibition. “We’re showing creative ways to reuse that waste in this exhibition, but there is still so much more that we can do to combat this serious issue of waste in our society.”

    The 67-year-old Visual Arts major has been completing her degree on a part-time basis and said that working on projects like Material World alongside other artists is one of her favourite parts of the program.

    “They make me feel young,” she said with a laugh.

    Other participating artists in the show include Lindsay Allen, Meagan Benner, Kendra Bosse, Peri Goodman, Erica Greshuk, Rea Kelly, Ang Li, Sarah Martin, Ami Okafor, Harvind Sekhon, Taylor Sorensen, Miles Stanley, Jamie Tomao-Martin and Jessica Turk.

    Material World runs from Friday, June 28 to Friday, July 19 in the VISA Gallery and Student Exhibition Space at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    An opening reception will take place Friday, June 28, from noon to 3 p.m.

    The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

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  • Summer student employment opportunites at Rodman Hall

    Thursday, April 25, 2019 | By

    Rodman Hall Art Centre has three summer student positions available, please check the link below for details on these positions:

    https://brocku.ca/rodman-hall/community/#1556118960648-db092170-9704

    Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, In the Media, News

  • Applications being accepted for Visa Student Assistants/Monitors for Fall/Winter 2019-2020.

    Wednesday, April 17, 2019 | By

    Applications now being accepted for Visual Arts Student Assistants/Monitors for Fall/Winter 2019-2020.

    Qualifications:
    • Must be a Brock University Visual Arts major (priority given to upper year students)
    • Able to consistently lift up to 30 lbs
    • Knowledge and interest in the Arts
    • Strong communication skills
    • Team oriented, willing to support where the greatest need is
    • Flexible – hours may vary. Call-in shifts may occur

    Duties include: Monitoring/clean-up duties of assigned areas, and other related duties assigned by supervisor.
    Compensation: $14.00/hour. Apply by: Fri, April 26, 2019.

    To apply send resume & cover letter to Monika Lederich at visualarts@brocku.ca (please use your Brock student email account) with you student number, major, year of study & relevant qualifications.

    You may also apply on-line at the Brock HR page: https://brocku.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/brocku_careers/job/St-Catharines-Downtown-Campus/Student-Assistant-Monitor-Visual-Arts-Student-Monitors_JR-1002509-1

    Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Faculty & Instructors

  • Join us for an Artist Talk with Phil Irish Jan. 30

    Friday, January 25, 2019 | By

    Artist Phil Irish

    The Department of Visual Arts is pleased to welcome Phil Irish to the MIWSFPA for an artist talk on Jan. 30.

    Phil Irish, from Elora, Ontario, makes paintings that are both fierce and beautiful. He is known for cutting paintings into fragments, and installing those pieces to make architecturally scaled collages that engage your senses and your mind.  His new work is influenced by his time on an icebreaker in the Canadian arctic, with Canada C3, a 150-day expedition from Toronto to Victoria via the Northwest Passage that took place from June 1 to Oct. 28, 2017.

    He has shown in commercial galleries, artist-run centres, and public galleries, including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Guelph, Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Whyte Museum, Lonsdale Gallery and Angell Gallery, and was twice shortlisted for the Kingston Portrait Prize.

    He holds degrees from Guelph (BA) and York (MFA) and teaches studio at Redeemer University College.

    Irish will present at 1 p.m. on Jan. 30 in room 416 of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    The talk is free and open to the public.

    Registration is not required, but space is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

     

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