News

Concrete Cloud: A Brock Sculpture Class Mobile Exhibition.

Thursday, June 29, 2017 | By amcbay
Professor Donna Akrey’s Visa 2F05 sculpture class is mounting an exhibition titled Concrete Cloud: A Brock Sculpture Class Mobile Exhibition at the Niagara Artists’ Centre.

July 5 > 21
345 St. Paul Street

On July 5th, 2017, students from the Marilyn I Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts will be sharing their exhibition Concrete Cloud, on the streets of downtown St Catharines. Between 10am and 1:30pm students will be transporting their interactive sculptures to the Niagara Artists Center (354 St. Paul Street East) where they’ll be on display until July 21 2017.

see the route map for the travelling exhibit on July 5 between 10 am and 1:30 pm here

Several stops will be made along the route, as students hope to engage with the public through their sculptural works. Everyone is invited to enjoy Concrete Cloud as students tour their artworks from the MIWSFPA to NAC, by paths both playful and responsive, to anyone they encounter. This combination of performance and art walk will conclude with an opening reception at Niagara Artists Center, on July 5th from 2-5pm. The works will then be on display for the next two weeks; the exhibition is open to everyone, and gallery hours are Noon to 5 PM, Wednesday through Saturday.

Concrete Cloud is a collective of works from 16 artists, focusing on themes of information, the ‘natural world’, and public art. The sculptures are made from a diversity of materials, including wood, metal, plaster, cardboard, textiles, and found materials.

Participating student artists are: Rachel Anderson, Ahmed Bader, Renz Baluyot, Christian Bebis, Tom Denton, Syerra Jasmin, Michaela Laurie, Jess McClelland, Madison Mcfayden, Jill Newman, Anna Podvalni, Victoria Ridley, Chardon Trimble-Kirk, Amber Lee Williams, Jiahui Xu, and Jingwen Zhang.

See the Facebook event for more documentation about the mobile exhibition.

Read the article by art critic Bart Gazzola.
Tags: concrete cloud, course, donna akrey, Exhibition, Sculpture, spring course, summer course, Visual Arts
Categories: Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, Future Students
Visa Instructor and students mount exhibition in Buffalo New York.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017 | By amcbay

Visa Instructor Judy Graham and students Alex Chorny, Sam Goeree and Amber Lee Williams are mounting an exhibition titled Cloth Shells at 1045 Elmwood Gallery for the Arts in Buffalo, New York.

July 1 > July 31
Reception: Saturday, July 15th, 2 > 4pm

Categories: Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, News
Award winner stresses mountains worth climbing to capture dreams

Sunday, June 11, 2017 | By dvivian

(Source: The Brock News, Friday, June 09, 2017 | by Maryanne Firth. Photo caption: “Jessica Vickruck, Aniqah Zowmi, Annika Mazzarella and Grant Yocom were each honoured with a Board of Trustees Spirit of Brock award during Friday’s faculties of Humanities and Math and Science Convocation ceremony.”)

Annika Mazzarella’s university years were filled with many ups and downs, all which contributed to an important life lesson.

When the 22-year-old St. Catharines native focused her studies on History of Art and Visual Culture, as well as Medieval and Renaissance Studies, she encountered people along the way who were discouraging, some even disapproving, of her chosen career path.

It was her time at Brock that taught Mazzarella the importance of striving to achieve her dreams, regardless of any obstacles in her way.

The naysayers she encountered were offset by the optimistic community at Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts and at Rodman Hall Art Centre, where Mazzarella always felt included and supported to pursue her career ambitions.

The experience caused her to develop a new sense of self-confidence, refusing to back down from the goals she has set for herself.

That determination, among other impressive qualities, earned Mazzarella the Board of Trustees undergraduate student Spirit of Brock award for the Faculty of Humanities, presented during Friday’s Convocation ceremony — a joint celebration for the faculties of Humanities and Math and Science.

The morning event also saw Grant Yocom recognized as the Humanities graduate student Spirit of Brock recipient, and Aniqah Zowmi and Jessica Vickruck honoured as the undergraduate and graduate student recipients respectively for Math and Science.

Mazzarella said her Brock experience, both inside of and beyond the classroom, provided her with a “solid foundation” to support her future career path as an art curator.

In addition to studying abroad in Italy last spring through International Plus, Mazzarella joined several Brock organizations, including Brock Dance, Brock Niagara Lifesaving Club, Brock Niagara Masters, Brock Student Leadership Network, and Brock’s Medieval and Renaissance Society.

She also represented the University as a student delegate at the 2016 Canadian Conference on Student Leadership.

“With each involvement I had different experiences, however, they proved to me that you can do anything you put your mind to and that there is always something new to learn,” she said.

Mazzarella plans to move to Ottawa this fall to pursue her master’s degree in Art History with a concentration in Art Exhibition and Curatorial Practices.

Her advice for incoming students, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, is to “go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined.”

For Zowmi, earning the Spirit of Brock designation meant accomplishing her final university goal.

“I have been fortunate to have had so many great opportunities,” said the passionate advocate of youth civic engagement, who is known as a leader in the Brock community.

“One of the best things about Brock is that it is a small community and you feel very much supported,” Zowmi said. “It is also a place that encourages you to develop yourself both professionally and personally.”

Zowmi is the first Brock student to win a 3M National Student Fellowship Award for her efforts to empower youth and encourage equality in education.

She served on the University’s Human Rights Task Force, was a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation to the Commonwealth Youth Forum in Malta, where she addressed more than 700 youths at the UN Headquarters, and was a Youth Advisor to the Canadian Commission to UNESCO.

Zowmi, a National Youth Ambassador for Passages Canada, also co-founded BrockU Talks, a speaker’s series for students to promote their engagement on global issues such as peace and sustainability.

Both Spirit of Brock graduate recipients were also recognized for their hard efforts on and off campus.

Yocom has been a leader among graduate students of the new PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities in its formative years.

He twice served as the graduate student representative on the council in order to provide a student voice as the program structured its regulations and established the format for its comprehensive examinations.

Described as an inspirational leader, Yocom brought students together and has helped to make the PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities the exciting and innovative program that it has become.

Vickruck has demonstrated exemplary leadership in her research group and among graduate students in Biological Sciences.

Her Master’s of Science produced three published manuscripts on pygmy carpenter bees, and her PhD will produce four major papers on the subject.

She has also worked with a research scientist at the Canadian National Insect Collection in Ottawa, a collaboration that led to offers from scientists at several other Canadian and American universities.

Tags: convocation, Curatorial Concentration, HVAC, MARS, Spirit of Brock award, visa
Categories: Alumni, Current Students, In the Media, News
New Visual Arts Department student award announced.

Friday, May 26, 2017 | By amcbay

The “Regent Student Living Award” is selected by the VISA Faculty and presented to the Visual Arts Major with the highest overall standing in 1st or 2nd year with at least 5 full credits completed. The award is graciously donated by Regent Student Living (an all-inclusive student residence located downtown St. Catharines) and presented in May or June after the completion of the academic year.

Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, News
Brock prof earns prestigious fellowship

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 | By Nikki Prudden

(Source: The Brock News, Wednesday, April 26, 2017 | by Alison Innes. Photo caption: “Visual Arts associate professor Keri Cronin. Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals”)

The animal advocacy movement has a rich visual history, and for her ongoing contributions to the movement, Brock University art historian Keri Cronin has been made a Fellow with the prestigious Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.

The Visual Arts associate professor is particularly interested in the ways those working for animal advocacy in previous eras used images in campaigns.

“It’s really important to think about the relationships that exist between images and animal ethics because representations of animals shape how we think about them, how we treat them,” says Cronin, who is also a Faculty Affiliate in Brock’s Social Justice and Equity Studies graduate program and a founding member of the Social Justice Research Institute. “Images can have real-world consequences for actual flesh-and-blood animals.”

“My work asks people to consider what happens if we think about these images as part of the larger cultural narrative about how we treat animals, how we decide what counts as ‘cruel’ or ‘humane’ treatments and how those ideas shift over time.”

Cronin’s research has lead her to archives across North America and the U.K. in search of material such as leaflets and handbills, which often have not been catalogued or preserved in the same way as material on other topics.

The Visual Arts professor has published several books on visual culture and activism and has recently curated an exhibit, “Be Kind: The Visual History of Humane Education” for The Animal Museum.

She has also launched a new multimedia project with Jo-Anne McArther of We Animals called Unbound: Women on the Front Lines of Animal Advocacy.

Cronin’s forthcoming book, Do Not Refuse to Look at These Pictures: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy 1870-1914, is due out this year and she hopes it sparks conversation and awareness about the visual culture of early animal advocacy.

The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, now comprised of more 100 international scholars, draws together academics from the humanities and sciences, including subjects as diverse as philosophy, theology, law, biology, history, social sciences, literature and politics.

Membership is by invitation only and only a small portion of those nominated are eventually selected. The lengthy and painstaking selection process recognizes those have made outstanding contributions to the field of animal ethics.

Cronin is the second Brock professor to join the Centre; Sociology professor Lauren Corman is an Associate Fellow in recognition of her interdisciplinary work on animal rights, posthumanism, feminist, critical race, labour, and environmental theories and practices.

Tags: animal advocacy, art history, Keri Cronin, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Social Justice and Equity Studies, Social Justice Research Institute
Categories: Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News
Visual Arts Department Monitor positions for FW 2017/2018

Tuesday, April 25, 2017 | By amcbay

Positions: Visual Arts Student Monitors for Fall/Winter terms 2017/2018
Qualifications: Positions available for third and fourth-year VISA majors only.

Duties include: Monitoring and cleanup duties of the area you are assigned, perform other related duties as assigned by your supervisor (No work during Fall term and Winter term reading weeks).
Compensation: $12.00/hour

Deadline for applications: Wednesday, May 31, 2017

To apply for any of these positions please communicate only from your Brock student email account and send a resume and cover letter indicating your major, year of study, relevant qualifications and any related volunteer or paid positions along with a detailed schedule of the days/times you are available to work to: mlederich@brocku.ca
Please note that all communication must be through your Brock student email accounts and that only the applicants selected will be contacted. If you are successful, you will be assigned monitor duties to an area that the monitor hiring committee feels you are best suited for.

Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, News
Brock, SUNY art show set to open in Buffalo’s Silo City

Thursday, April 20, 2017 | By Nikki Prudden

(Source: The Brock News, Thursday, April 20, 2017 | by Maryanne Firth. Photo caption: “Buffalo’s Silo City will play host to a joint art exhibition including the work of students and faculty from Brock University and the State University of New York at Buffalo. (Photo: Derek Knight)”)

Brock University and the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo have joined forces to showcase artists on both sides of the border while also highlighting a landmark area on the Buffalo River.

After two years of planning, Post-Industrial Ephemera: Soundings, Gestures, and Poetics will open Saturday, April 22 at Buffalo’s Silo City — an industrial space filled with repurposed grain elevators and other structures built in the first half of the 20th century.

Several silos will play host to the free art exhibition until Saturday, April 29.

The exhibition’s opening reception will run from 2 to 5 p.m. and includes, in addition to the artwork of both Brock and SUNY students and faculty, performances by the Harmonia Chamber Singers, Reinhard Reitzenstein, Lauren Regier, Continuous Monument, Catherine Parayre and Jim Watkins.

Parayre, event co-curator and an associate professor in Brock’s Studies in Arts and Culture as well as Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, said the event developed from like minds coming together through networking opportunities at Brock’s Rodman Hall Art Centre.

It was co-curator Reinhard Reitzenstein, an associate professor of sculpture at SUNY-Buffalo, that introduced Parayre to Silo City, the inspiration for the showcase.

“Everyone is mesmerized because the structures there are stunning,” Parayre said of the area that is filled with buildings worn by weather and time.

The event, she said, is to encourage people to “reflect on the notion of dispersal.”

“Silos are built to maintain large networks of commodity exchange for human and animal sustenance. Here, however, the workers are gone; the buildings are exposed to inclement weather; the projects we bring with us will disappear, be dispersed or displaced.”

Silo City, she said, invites visitors to “become more perceptive to the transience of human endeavours.”

The exhibition is an opportunity to reflect on the aging structures, their history and nature’s efforts to reclaim the partially vacant space, she said.

Participating artists come from various disciplines including sculpture, arts, comparative literature, English studies, visual arts, studies in arts and culture, and French studies.

The showcase features an array of installations, neon signs, readings, paintings, prints, videos and sculptures.

Brock provided funding for the project through a longstanding research agreement in place between the two institutions, in addition to funding provided through Brock’s Dean of Humanities office.

“We’re very grateful for Brock’s support,” Parayre said.

Parking for the event is available onsite and guests are advised to dress warmly as temperatures within the silos remain brisk.

More information on participating artists and performance schedules for the opening reception is available online.

A one-day symposium held to relive the exhibition is scheduled to take place in September at Rodman Hall Art Centre in St. Catharines.

Tags: Brock University, Buffalo, Buffalo River, Catherine Parayre, derek knight, Exhibition, Lauren Regier, Post-Industrial Ephemera: Soundings Gestures and Poetics, Rodman Hall Art Centre, Silo-City, St. Catharines, State University of New York, SUNY
Categories: Announcements, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News
VISA alumna to co-host session at the SHIFT Professional Development Conference

Tuesday, April 18, 2017 | By Nikki Prudden

ARTS AND CULTURE: CAREER CONVERSATIONS

Date/Time: April 28, 2017, 3 pm – 4:15 pm
Location: Plaza Rm. 410, Brock University

VISA alumna Shauna Daley will feature at the SHIFT Professional Development Conference for graduate students alongside DART alumna Victoria Mountain with their session, “ARTS AND CULTURE: CAREER CONVERSATIONS”. From the conference website: “A modern cultural worker can thrive in variety of careers in education, media and the arts. The reach and satisfaction of creative practice can be the cusp of personal freedom and a condition for seeking satisfying work. How do we negotiate and harness creative energies within professions that embrace those creative forces? Join our conversation!”

Shauna is an artist, teacher and business woman. She graduated with an Honours degree in Visual Arts, a B.Ed and a Master’s Degree in Art Education from Brock University, and is also Upper Elementary Montessori certified. Shauna owns and operates her own art studio in Grimsby Ontario, as well as a worldly gift shop that supports local and international artists and their work. She exhibits her artwork throughout the region, and her art studio sees approximately three hundred students from the Niagara community cycling through her visual art programs yearly.

Tags: alumni, arts and culture: career conversations, Shauna Daley, SHIFT Professional Development Conference
Categories: Alumni, Announcements, News
VISA graduate Lauren Regier & Rodman Hall’s Marcie Bronson nominated for St. Catharines Arts Awards!

Tuesday, April 18, 2017 | By Nikki Prudden

The Department of Visual Arts is proud to announce that VISA graduate Lauren Regier has been nominated for an Emerging Artist Award at the 2017 St. Catharines Arts Awards! Lauren’s work explores the relationships between plants and machines through her photography. (Brock University Humanities featured her on their blog and in Brock News earlier this year.)

Marcie Bronson, acting director and curator of Rodman Hall Art Centre, has also been nominated for the “Making a Difference” award for “playing a central role in the transformation of Rodman Hall into a nationally recognized institution of excellence that promotes local artists.”

More information can be found at this news entry on the main MIWSFPA website. Congratulations to both of you, and good luck!

Tags: alumni, Emerging Artist award, Lauren Regier, Making a Difference award, Marcie Bronson, Rodman Hall, St. Catharines Arts Awards
Categories: Alumni, Announcements, News
Visa Instructor exhibition: DEAD DAD Donna Akrey & Yvette Poorter.

Monday, April 10, 2017 | By amcbay

Donna Akrey and Yvette Poorter are a collaborative duo that have been making/continue to make work together when they can since the 1990s (or since they jumped off a cliff into Muskoka water at age 17). Their work is multi-media and often involves easily found and/or scavenged materials. They are interested in getting lost while realizing the rarity of such a thing. So they make work to get lost in. Poorter and Akrey have been collecting stories and images from people who have a dead dad. They use these snippets of other people’s memories, as fuel to create a morphing landscape installation. Yes, the exhibition is about dads—dead dads at that—but it is also a rumination on memory and the size and viscosity of memory. A vague longing.

Categories: Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, News