Notice Board

February 2016 Kudos Report!

Showing and sharing was the theme for February!  From fundraising efforts to showcasing skills home and across Canada, the Fine Arts crew show no signs of slowing down as the weather warms up!

COLLABORATIONS

• Dr. Brian Black (Music) recorded The Lyric Muse in the U of L Studio 1.  The CD artwork was created by Sarah Hilliard (BA – Art ’10, Admin Support Art and Drama).  Recording Engineer was Yangke Li   (MMus ’16).  All the proceeds from CD sales support the extended Syrian refugee family that the University is assisting.

MUSIC

• Chee Meng Low (Music) just got back from Calgary for the Alberta International Band Festival from February 17-23. He was part of the adjudicator team for 7 days, listening to 12,000 young musicians from across Alberta and BC.

• Rolf Boon’s (Music/DAA) composition Voices of the Spirits was one of three choral works selected by the Vancouver Chamber Choir's Interplay: Interactive Workshops for Composers in Edmonton on February 29.  The experimental work for SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) choir tells the story of the Ojibway Nation’s First Vision during which “one goes into the skies, past the moon and the sun and beyond the stars, until [one comes] into the presence of the sky spirits, the patrons of music and echoes.” The piece juxtaposes the beauty of the Ojibway language with English translations in efforts to bring new meaning and understanding of their ritual and narrative through collective voices.

DRAMA

• The Tighty Whities, in cooperation with Theatre BSMT, presented their award winning show Smee’s Secret again in Calgary March 3 - 6 at the Mamdani Opera Centre.  The production includes lots of U of L Drama alums: Emma Sinclair (BFA ’12), Kelly Malcolm (BFA ’12), and Kathryn Smith (BFA ’12) are The Tighty Whities, while Ryan Reese (BFA ’13) and Kyle Schulte (BFA ‘13) are artistic producers for Theatre BSMT.  “We are very proud to be producing our own work,” says Malcolm.  The Tighty Whities also performed at Abbondanza 2016 in January and were a big hit. 

ART

Art Now and Architecture & Design Now lectures this week focus on faculty, a sessional and an alumnus.  Names link to more info.

• Michael Campbell (Art) & Janice Rahn (Music Ed) –  Art NOW  |   12 pm, March 7 (University Recital Hall)
• Tanya Doody (Art - sessional) – Architecture & Design NOW  |  6 pm, March 7 (C610)
• Brian D. McKenna  (BFA Multidisciplinary  ’02) – Art NOW  |  12 pm, March 11 (University Recital Hall)
• Glen MacKinnon  (Art) – Art NOW  |  12 pm, March 9 (University Recital Hall)

• Pending … : Annual Student Art Exhibition opened Saturday March 5 at the Dr. Foster James Penny Building.  The exhibition of work by Art students explores themes of identity and transition, united around the common student experience that everything is pending.  The exhibition is curated by students in the Museum Studies internship program, under the direction of Dr. Anne Dymond. The exhibition runs until March 18th.

• Michael Campbell (Art), Glen MacKinnon (Art), and Kevin Sehn (Art Technician) presented Thunk, a group exhibition.  In the Main Gallery at Casa, Thunk brings together the diverse and eclectic work of the three artists and bring a unique perspective to their art. This group exhibition features examples from their individual art practices, as well as a series of collaborative sculptures. Formal concern, technical facility, and the limits of the imagination are all celebrated in this showing of sculpture, photography and installation art.  The exhibition runs from March 5-April 22

• Mary Kavanagh (Art), Michael Campbell (Art) and Catherine Ross (Senior Fine Arts Tech) were recently awarded Individual Project Grants in Visual and Media Arts from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. These peer reviewed grants support the development and exhibition of independent creative practice.

• Mary Kavanagh (Art) presented her research on the panel, "Nuclear Light: Revelation and Apocalypse," at the "Inventions of Light Conference | Les inventions de la lumiere," February 24-26 at the School of Image Arts, Ryerson University, Toronto. This bilingual international conference is the 6th edition of the Toronto/Montreal/Lille biennial of artistic exchange. Titled "The Inventions of Light / Les Inventions de la Lumière," and focused on what light makes possible in the parallel realms of perception and creative imagination. As part of the conference, there was the launch of the new short film festival, Moving–Image-Arts, and various light-related exhibitions in the School of Image Arts. The overall goal of the three-day conference was to explore the “inventions of light” collectively and to develop an interdisciplinary approach to the many inventions that light has generated in painting, photography, cinema, animation, and digital arts.

• Michael Campbell (Art), Janice Rahn (Art-Education), and Jarrett Duncan (Art Technician) guest curated the exhibition “Blue Line” on at SAAG until April 17. 

NEW MEDIA

• Ryan Harper-Brown’s (New Media) first web series, Dollar Cinema, just won “Best Web Series” in the Direct Short Online Film Festival and “Special Mention” as second best film in the Direct Monthly Online Film Festival.  Dollar Cinema centres on Amita DiSilva, a young Indo-Canadian woman who must fly across the country to save the family’s beloved movie theatre from the wrecking ball of an ambitious real estate developer. 

• Aaron Taylor (New Media) was recently appointed as a University of Lethbridge Teaching Fellow. His two-year term with the Teaching Centre begins July 1, 2017.

If you know of any U of L alumni, student, staff, or faculty member with research, creative works, or achievements that deserve recognition, please forward any article or release to Katherine Wasiak at katherine.wasiak@uleth.ca