Visa Instructor Irene Loughlin will participate in a panel discussion on the work of Guatemalan artist Regina Galindo on Friday, November 17, 7-9PM. Galindo’s performance Diverting Rivers investigates the impact of Canadian Mining Companies and takes place Thursday, November 16, 7:30-8:30PM. Both events take place at Sur Gallery, 100-39 Queens Quay East, Toronto (East of Yonge Street).
The artwork of Brock Fine Arts Assistant Professor Amy Friend is being featured on the international tour of renowned Canadian musician Diana Krall.
(Source: The Brock News, Thursday, November 2, 2017 | By: Maryanne Firth)
When the e-mail popped into Amy Friend’s inbox, she was certain it couldn’t be real.
But a feeling inside prompted the Brock Fine Arts assistant professor to respond to the inquiry, which asked about her artwork and whether she’d consider collaborating with renowned Canadian musician Diana Krall.
It was soon after that Friend found herself on the phone with the Grammy Award winner discussing possibilities for her upcoming tour.
Friend’s experimental photography has since helped Krall to set the scene on stage, acting as her backdrop as she captivates crowds in venues across North America and Europe.
Brock University Fine Arts Assistant Professor Amy Friend.
Friend’s work has been featured on the jazz singer’s international tour since June and the partnership is expected to continue through to the summer.
The project, which includes art pieces from three different bodies of work, has been “particularly fulfilling,” Friend said.
She has enjoyed the challenge of working with Krall to find pieces that fit the mood and message of individual songs, while also complementing the title of the tour and Krall’s most recent album, Turn Up the Quiet.
“It’s about trying to respect your own work, while also seeing how you can accommodate a vision that will fit within the repertoire they’re working with,” she said.
Friend is currently working to select new pieces for Krall’s Canadian tour dates, including a Nov. 24 show at Massey Hall in Toronto that she plans to attend.
“I’m looking forward to seeing her perform and to seeing my work filling the stage in a concert hall where I have heard musicians like Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Nick Cave perform,” she said.
Krall’s latest repertoire will include a cover of Bob Dylan’s Simple Twist of Fate, which Friend is particularly excited to find a piece to accompany.
“Much of my work revolves around ideas of memory, impermanence, history and time,” said Friend, who has worked at Brock for the past decade. “I am less concerned with capturing a ‘concrete’ reality. Instead, I aim to use photography as a medium that offers the possibility of exploring the relationship between what is visible and non-visible.”
Work featured on the tour includes hand-manipulated photographs, pieces featuring floating handkerchiefs once belonging to Friend’s grandparents, and artwork inspired by snippets of film from her childhood.
Over the past few months, Friend and Krall have shared many inspiring conversations about family, creativity and women in the arts.
“She has been so great to work with, you could almost forget her status in the music world,” Friend said.
Krall often emphasized the need to respect Friend’s work and always checks in with the artist to ensure she’s pleased with the end results of each tour stop.
Friend called it “refreshing” to be able to engage with other artists.
“It exposes you to experiences that have commonalities and, at times, interesting variances,” she said. “It’s also wonderful to see how my work found a place to exist far beyond my initial intentions.”
The team responsible for the on-stage initiative also included Judy Jacob, a video and visual content director, and Paul Normandale, a lighting designer, who Friend said “took the project to the next level.”
In addition to her work with the tour, Friend has been busy over the past year with international exhibitions in Spain, Korea, Poland, Portugal and France. She has shows coming up in Boston and Italy and plans to release a new book in the near future.
The artwork of Brock Fine Arts Assistant Professor Amy Friend is being featured on the international tour of renowned Canadian musician Diana Krall.
Charmaine Nelson, far right, spoke on Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance on Oct. 19 as part of the Walker Cultural Leader Series. She is pictured here with Department of Visual Arts Professors and event organizers, pictured from left, Keri Cronin, Linda Steer and Amy Friend.
(Source: The Brock News, Thursday, October 26, 2017 | by: Alison Innes)
The renowned scholar, known for her groundbreaking contributions in the fields of black Canadian studies, visual culture of slavery, and race and representation, delivered the first 2017-18 public lecture of Brock’s Walker Cultural Leader Series on Oct. 19.
Her address drew more than 150 people who gathered at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines to listen to her presentation, Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance: Examining the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Fugitive Slave Archive in Canada and Jamaica.
A professor of Art History at McGill University, Nelson has published seven books and held a number of prestigious research chairs across North America. She is currently the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University for 2017-18.
As the first and currently only black professor within the discipline of Art History at a Canadian university, Nelson, through her website, is an advocate for the field of Black Canadian Studies.
Her latest research, which she shared in her talk, attempts to understand the black experience in Canada by examining fugitive slave advertisements for details about the process of creolization in slave minority (temperate) and slave majority (tropical) locations in the British Empire.
Nelson explained how she reconceptualizes fugitive slave ads — once produced by slave owners seeking to recapture their runaways — as portraits of enslaved people. The ads can provide information on a group of people who often leave no record of their own, she said.
These portraits, however, are imperfect, since the subject is an unwilling participant and the depiction is written by the white slave owner. In addition, only slaves considered sufficiently valuable were pursued through advertising.
Fugitive slave ads provided detailed racialized descriptions of enslaved people, including complexion, hairstyle, clothing, language, accents and bodily marks. In some cases, the ads offered rewards for the recapture of a fugitive slave, encouraging white participation in the criminalization of fugitive slaves.
While the ads provide a portrait of enslaved people, they are also a lop-sided truth, Nelson explained. Some owners maligned fugitives with sweeping generalizations about their character, while others detailed specific crimes the enslaved person was alleged to have committed. Such descriptions helped associate blackness with slavery and criminality.
Nelson draws on a variety of archival sources in her research to flesh out these portraits, tracing fugitive slave stories through estate ledgers, bills of sale, poll tax records and workhouse and jail ledgers.
Nelson’s talk also explored the link between print and slave culture. Printed newspaper ads in the 18th and 19th century permitted white slave owners to assert their ownership over long distances.
Although printers facilitated slavery by asserting rights of white people to own slaves, the abolitionist movement eventually used the same fugitive slave ads, with their references to injuries, scars and branding, to show the horror of slavery.
As Nelson pointed out, many Canadians are unaware of Canada’s history of enslaving black and indigenous peoples.
“Slavery is not a black history,” she explained, “but a multi-racial, transatlantic history. Who were the slave owners, the ships’ captains, the printers, the jailers?”
The narrative of the Underground Railway, which Canadians eagerly embrace, spanned a period of about only 30 years, Nelson explained. She went on to challenge listeners to consider why the preceding two centuries of slavery in Canada have been erased from history.
In concluding her talk, Nelson encouraged the audience to change the lens through which they see history. The opportunities in the field of Canadian slavery history are immense, she said, while directing her words to students. Since so few people are studying the black Canadian experience, there are many contributions to be made.
The talk is part of the 2017-18 Walker Cultural Leaders Series, organized by Professors Keri Cronin, Linda Steer and Amy Friend the Department of Visual Arts and funded by the generous legacy of Marilyn I. Walker.
The author, Alison Innes, has assembled her live tweets about the lecture at Storify.
Associate Professor and Visual Arts Department Chair Donna Szoke’s work is discussed in the on-line journal New Media Caucus in an article by Lisa Moren, Professor of Visual Art and Graduate Program Director of Intermedia + Digital Art, MFA Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County [UMBC]. Her interactive video installation and all watched over by machines of loving grace is a humorous intervention in the dystopian reality of contemporary dataveillance and societies of control.
Image courtesy of Tim Nohe.
Visa Instructor Donna Akrey is part of two collectives with projects being mounted in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Windsor this fall:
Downtown/s: Urban Renewals Today for Tomorrow, The 2017 Windsor-Essex Triennial of Contemporary Art.
Art Gallery of Windsor
October 21 to January 28, 2018
(F)NOR
(L)Herbes Other Rivers
October 20, 7pm
In/Terminus Research Colective & the Hamilton Perambulatory Unit (Lee Rodney, Michael Daroch, Taien Ng-Chan & Donna Akrey)
Reconnaissance, Heart + Soul: the Windsor Armouries
October 20, 7pm
Walker Cultural Leader Series and Canada 150 present:
Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance: Examining the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Fugitive Slave Archive in Canada and Jamaica,
a public lecture, reception and book signing by Dr. Charmaine Nelson
Dr. Charmaine Nelson is a Professor of Art History at McGill University. Her current research project juxtaposes fugitive slave advertisements, portraiture, and genre studies from Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Jamaica, to examine differences in the visual dimensions of creolization between slave minority and slave majority sites of the British Atlantic world. In 2016, she was named as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Most recently, Nelson has been appointed the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University for the 2017 – 2018 academic year. Dr. Nelson will present her research in a public lecture as a part of Visual Arts’ Walker Cultural Leader Series programming.
The lecture abstract and presenter’s bio is available at Eventbrite.
See the article in the Brock News.
Thursday October 19, 2017
Lecture Time: 7:00 pm.
Note: The lecture will be followed by a reception and book signing at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.
Location: The FilmHouse, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines
This is a free community event. Reserve your seat with tickets available at Eventbrite.
Groups are welcome! Contact Professor Linda Steer lsteer@brocku.ca for orders of more than 10 tickets.
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The event is presented by the Department of Visual Arts 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. This education program is generously founded by Marilyn I. Walker.
La Magaria #1
Brock Visual Arts student Lisette Costanzo presents an exhibition consisting of paintings, drawings, and installations that were inspired by La Magaria (Italian for witchcraft), metaphysics, and the divine. This is the first student art exhibition in the Visual Arts Exhibition Space for the 2017-18 season at the MIWSFPA.
Exhibition: Wednesday October 11, 2017 to Tuesday October 31, 2017
Regular visiting hours for the Exhibition Space are Tuesday through Saturday from 1-5 pm
For additional times see: the Gallery webpage or the Gallery Facebook page
Closing Reception: Tuesday October 31, 2017
Time: 5:00 – 10:00 pm
Location: Visual Arts Exhibition Space, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University
A free community event.
Recent Brock Alumni, Katie Mazi & Jenn Judson are mounting an exhibition of their new collaborative photo series, ‘Cooler Than Cool.’ Join the artists at their opening reception this upcoming Saturday Sept. 23 from 7-10PM at the Niagara Artists Centre. There will be good food, drinks, prizes, surprises and prints for sale.
Reception is September 23rd and the show is on from Sept. 23 – Oct. 13th at NAC.
Daphne Odjig (Odawa – Potawatomi) “In touch with her spirit”
Opening Reception – Thursday 7 September at 7pm
An exhibition of one women’s journey to empower and support Indigenous arts in Canada and globally through a collection of paintings, mixed media, sculpture, and personal objects.
Never before exhibited original works including: Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Carl Beam, Roy Thomas, Vince Bomberry, Simon Brascoupe, Bruce King, and more. Curator’s Talk with Samuel Thomas on Sunday 10 September at 1pm.
Awakening Her Spirit is part of Celebration of Nations, a gathering of indigenous arts, culture and tradition set for Sept. 8-10. The gathering features ticketed performances by Buffy Sainte-Marie, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, DJ Shub as well as free workshops, performances and teachings all weekend long. The full schedule is available at www.celebrationofnations.ca
The exhibit continues through Sept. 30 at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts located at 15 Artists’ Common in downtown St. Catharines. Situated on the lower level of the MIWSFPA, regular hours of the Art Gallery are Tuesday through Friday from 1-5 p.m. Additional open hours for Celebration of Nations include:
Thursday, Sept. 7 from 6-9 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 8 from 1-8 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 9 from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 10 from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 30 from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
* Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970
About Samuel Thomas (Curator)
Samuel Thomas is a member of the Lower Cayuga Band of the Iroquois Nation. He lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario. For nearly 40 years, Sam has worked to resurrect beadwork styles from the 18th and 19th centuries. He has recovered several “lost” techniques, and in the process, has garnered international respect for Iroquois beadwork.
Sam’s meticulous style is self-taught, based on his extensive study of museum/collector pieces, books and illustrations. He further developed his technique by training with tanner Juliette Meness-Ferguson, beadworker Faith DuBuc, and Royal Ontario Museum curator Dr. Trudy Nicks.
Sam endeavours to bring people together and break down cultural divisions through sharing knowledge and the arts. He has led collaborative beading workshops involving over 800 people across two continents, as well as cross-cultural initiatives with East African beadwork artists.
Sam’s current projects include Opening the Doors to Dialogue, a reconciliation-focused series of collaborative sessions. Residential school survivors, their descendants and members of the public learn beadwork techniques, which they then apply to doors salvaged from former residential schools. The creative process of these sessions provides a forum for open dialogue, in turn facilitating the healing process for participants.
Sam is deeply dedicated not only to his art, but also to its endurance beyond his own time. As president of the arts service organization Neto Hatinakwe Onkwehowe Native Arts, he works to ensure Aboriginal artists in the Niagara region have access to training, mentorship and professional services.
Sam’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the British Museum, the Canadian Museum of History, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Smithsonian Institution, along with museum, gallery and private collections in the Netherlands, Germany and Australia.
Récits Photographiques
August 24 > September 30, 2017
Abbaye De Silvacane, La Roque D’Antheron
Les Terrasses Du Chateau, Lauris
Provence, France
https://www.facebook.com/recitsphotographiques/