Eros and Thanatos, the life drive and the death drive. The impulses to eat, kiss, play, love, and live, or to sleep, surrender, die, and rest. They embody our curious attraction to both creation and destruction. In this show, artists Nomi Chi and Pandora Young turn inwards and meditate upon our own antipodal desires, and the morbidity and splendour of our humanity. 

Eros and Thanatos: New Work by Nomi Chi and Pandora Young
HOT ART Wet City
January 8 - 24, 2015
Opening Reception, Friday, January 9, 7 - 11pm

View the Facebook event page.

Nomi Chi is a Vancouver-based artist currently juggling careers as a tattoo artist and a student. Her current focus is illustration, however her creative interests span indefinitely: she paints, tattoos, sculpts and she's double-jointed.

Pandora Young is an illustrator living and working in beautiful Vancouver BC. She holds a degree in Illustration from Emily Carr University of Art + Design ('14). Her favorite food is sushi, and her favorite hobby is taking naps.

Gallery 295 has announced Francesca Szuszkiewicz ('08) as its Annual Emerging Curator Exhibition recipient for 2015. Her exhibition, it’s about time, focuses on the works of artist Michael de Courcy, former Sessional Instructor, Department of Visual Arts, Department of Media Arts at Emily Carr University.

it’s about time is an exhibition of new works by the artist Michael de Courcy, documenting tools, equipment, and supplies from the artist’s now-defunct home darkroom. Using a digital camera in his studio, the artist documents the analogue materials of his darkroom against canvas or paper backdrops. After being digitally processed, the works are printed on canvas at the maximum size output of the artist’s own printer. The works are then varnished and, with the addition of grommets at the top corners, hung by pushpins cast in sterling silver. From start to finish, the process encompasses a range of symbolic references connecting the analogue and the digital, objects and images, photography and painting, form and content, touch and sight, the darkroom and the studio, and the past and the future.

it's about time
Gallery 295
January 30 - March 14, 2015
Opening Reception | Friday, January 30, 7-9 pm

Francesca Szuszkiewicz is currently the Collections Assistant at the West Vancouver Museum, and recently received a BC Arts Council Early Career Development Grant to work as the Collections Intern at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. She has curated and written for exhibitions locally, and online.

Michale de Courcy has employed various media over the last 50 years to create community-based projects, including events, exhibitions, and site-specific installations, originating or resulting in photographic works. In his home darkroom, he developed film and prints for these projects, and for exhibition, locally, nationally, and internationally; he continues to make digital works and other works in his home studio.

MAKE RE|MAKE UN|MAKE, an exhibition at the Seymour Art Gallery in North Vancouver, highlights the work of six artists, each working in different media, whose work utilizes repetition as a device to investigate diverse ideas and themes.

Neil Chung’s ('10) video installations use repetition of sounds as well as looping to create meditative rhythms that address our relationships with technology and nature. In Suzanne Fulbrook's ('10) work repetition and disintegration are paramount; using a process of watercolour and saltwater on unprimed canvas to produce photorealistic result, the paintings are then soaked, scrubbed and run through a clothing mangle, squeezing the once vibrant image into a vestige. Yvonne Hachkowski ('09) uses traditional methods of photography that call attention to ideas about the finite and infinite, while observing and recording the state of changing landscapes as a consequence of human contact. Elizabeth MacKenzie (sessional faculty) uses repetition in her growing series of ink drawings on rice paper to consider and affirm difference through the archetypal figure of Frankenstein’s monster. Tamara Skubovius ('11) employs repetition to tell stories about the land and those who inhabit it, and through the process of casting, creates serial objects that hold cultural symbolism and contemporary significance for the Tāltān First Nation. Janice Wu’s ('13) realistic gouache paintings illustrate her habit of collecting mundane objects, and present the symbolic and sentimental qualities these objects possess that extend further than their use or worth within material culture.

A limited-edition publication accompanies the exhibition. Several of the artists reside outside of Vancouver. For this publication, each artist was asked to respond, on paper, to four questions about their artistic processes. When the artists completed this visual interview the pages were mailed to the curator and assembled for publication. The publication is a unique opportunity for the viewer to bring home part of the exhibition.

Seymour Art Gallery
4360 Gallant Ave
North Vancouver

February 12 – March 8, 2015
Opening Reception: February 15, 2015 2-4pm

In To Rebel is Justified, Chun Hua Catherine Dong ('11) revisits this dark period of Chinese history in a performative context. “To Rebel is Justified” is the slogan used by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Chun Hua Catherine Dong puts herself on stage and personifies an imaginary Red Guard. Dressed in a military uniform, the anti-revolutionary of the 21st century explores human vulnerability in the context of ritual humiliation. Reversing meaning and symbols, Chun Hua’s “Red Guard” welcomes Mao Tse-tung to a pigsty rather than Tiananmen Square. Both tied to a classroom chair and kneeling in a bathroom, the performer plays with erotic submission.

The exhibition brings together a collection of 12 photographs captured in China in 2013 and a documentation of her recent performance The Yellow Umbrella—An Unfinished Conversation.

To Rebel is to Justified
February 14 to March 21, 2015
Opening: February 14, 2015 at 3pm
MAI (Montreal, arts inerculturels)

Angell Galleryis pleased to present GAVIN LYNCH: FOR JANUS, a solo exhibition of new works by Ottawa-based painter Gavin Lynch (’09). This is Lynch’s first solo exhibition at Angell since joining the gallery’s roster in the fall of 2014.

Lynch combines experiences of the great outdoors, in his case growing up in northern British Columbia, with a studio practice that privileges interpretation over verisimilitude. Employing a collage approach to the picture plane, Lynch resists pictorial and painterly continuity in favor of unexpected and often conflicting combinations of elements, some derived from memory, others from the artist’s imagination. Sharply delineated forms are juxtaposed with fluid areas, while highly stylized rocks and trees are painted in naturalistic colours. Wavering between material flatness and pictorial depth, luminosity and darkness, and abstraction and representation, these paintings exude an energizing tension that invites extended looking.

In the current body of work, Lynch invokes Janus, a Roman god with two symmetrical faces who sees both past and present, and who is associated with safe passages through space, new beginnings and endings. “Janus is a most suitable metaphor for the act of painting, a medium and process simultaneously concerned with both its past and future,” says Lynch. In this series pairs of near-mirror image landscapes reflect the past —— a trip through the Rocky Mountains — and the present, when these memories are reconfigured in the studio. Using the framework of symmetry, Lynch engages the viewer in an enticing perceptual act of comparison, an intriguing negotiation between similarity and difference, through time and space.

Gavin Lynch holds a BFA from Emily Carr University (2009) and a MFA from the University of Ottawa (2012). He is the recipient of awards and grants from various organizations, including the Canada Council for the Arts (2014), the Ontario Arts Council (2013) and the province of Ontario (2011). In 2014 Lynch was a finalist in the RBC Painting Competition, which was exhibited at the Musée des Beaux Arts.  His work has been exhibited across Canada, featured in Canadian Art magazine and is in various collections, including Simon Fraser University, TD Canada Trust and the City of Ottawa Permanent Collection. Lynch lives and works in Ottawa.

For Janus
February 20 to March 21, 2015
Opening: February 20, 2015 at 6pm
Angell Gallery

Topographics, curated by current student Dan Brown Hozjan and alumna Zandi Dandizette (’14), opens at James Black Gallery and features work by emerging local artists, Emily Carr students and alumni. This exhibition explores landscapes of the imagination. The artists involved reflect on the wild places that we travel to in dreams or the land that exists beyond the edge of the last horizon. Landscapes are expressed through a multiplicity of disciplines, from painting and photography to sculpture and performance. Through the installation of the works, the gallery will be transformed into a stage for the strangest parts of the imagination to bleed into reality.

James Black Gallery
February 21 – 27, 2015
Opening February 21, 2015 at 7pm

At the James Black Gallery, artists-in-residence show their work, curate and run the space. The James Black Gallery is located in a heritage building in Mount Pleasant. This event is presented by arthrobscollective.

Unity Gallery is pleased to present new work by Vancouver artists Scott Bowering and Deirdre McAdams ('08).

Scott Bowering is an instructor at Emily Carr University and The School of Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University and has exhibited work in Canada and internationally. His diverse working methods are informed by an interest in the experience and psychology of perception, organization, and disorder, as both subject matter and working process. Recent exhibitions include Holding Environment (Montréal PQ) and The Constant Gallery (Los Angeles CA). In the summer of 2015 he will participate in the main exhibition of ISEA 2015 at the Audain Gallery at Simon Fraser University. He is a two time recipient of Canada Council Research and Production Grants. The work presented in ‘Remainder’ is part of a body of two dimensional work based on arbitrary and simplistic workflows. Initiated in 2002, the manufacturing processes for these works are more circular than progressive, deliberately having no starting or stopping point. Many works are identical but in varying scales, whereas others are minor ‘corrections’ or modifications in design or execution made to previous works. Scale, repeated motifs and arrangements, and intentionally duplicating or correcting mistakes are approached as restrictive yet infinitely generative avenues of production. As Bowering explains: ‘For myself, this random prioritizing of compositional elements parallels the unfixed or flowing nature of sensory experience in relation to external phenomena: at times something appears to be one way, but it’s changing even as you are trying to make sense of it. One experience does not supersede the other, but instead reveals facets of a given set of circumstances.’ ‘Remainder’ is the first public exhibition of this work in Vancouver.

Deirdre McAdams is a visual artist living and working in Vancouver, BC. She is a graduate of Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2008), and the Victoria College of Art (2003), where she studied painting. She was awarded an Honourable Mention in the 2011 RBC Painting Competition, as well as a prize in 2010 from Canadian Art Magazine for her writing on contemporary art. Her recent exhibitions include group shows at Unit/Pitt Projects, Field Contemporary, Wil Aballe Art Projects (Vancouver), Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts in Brooklyn NY, and a solo show at CSA Space in Vancouver. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo exhibition at G Gallery in Toronto. McAdams work explores the mutability of geometric abstraction and a systematic approach to minimal painting. She is interested in how a predetermined conceptual framework can support and even foster inventiveness in painting. Much of my recent work is an attempt to reconcile forethought with the incidental. Many of the works are evidence of a series of reactions to an initial decision which provokes associations. This recent body of work looks at the relationship between painting and language, and as such considers the legibility of symbols in painting, the associative possibilities of abstract form, venues for the presentation of symbolic imagery, and the notion of a painter’s vocabulary.

Unity Gallery is an ongoing collaborative project with no fixed location. It seeks to promote vital contemporary work in Vancouver.

Scott Bowering and Deirdre McAdams
Remainder
Unity Gallery
356 Powell St Vancouver
February 27 + 28
Opening Reception: Friday, February 27, 2015 at 7pm
Gallery hours: Friday Feb 27, 2015 from 7 – 11pm + Saturday Feb 28, 2015 (open by appointment)

For her second solo exhibition at MKG127 in Toronto, Liza Eurich ('10) will be presenting work that: emphasizes negative space, is hollow, has a faceted surface, contains other work(s), is concealed, is layered, has multiple components, is not a multiple, is like a drawing, incorporates text, is stationary, has reticent characteristics, is monochromatic, uses straight lines only, references Agnes Martin, is fragile, consists of more than three materials, is made of ceramic, was built, is freestanding, requires a plinth, uses keyholes, uses a French cleat, is in its third iteration, is in a series of three, is positioned adjacently, is architectural, references something from an Ikea catalogue, is functional, is recognizable, does not resemble an animal, was almost omitted.

Liza Eurich completed her BFA from Emily Carr University in 2010 and her MFA from Western University in 2012. She co-publishes the online project Moire and interned for the contemporary art magazine Fillip. Her work has been exhibited at the McIntosh Gallery, the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, the Power Plant Gallery, Neutral Ground, and Plug-In ICA. She will be participating in forthcoming shows at the Hamilton Artists Inc. and Open Studios, as well as undertaking residencies in conjunction with the Glasgow Sculpture Studio and CCA/Acme Studios in London, UK.

Either a New or Existing Character
MKG127
1445 Dundas St. W
February 14 – March 14, 2015

Deanna Fogstrom ('07) exhibits paintings of both Vancouver and Paris from her ongoing series entitled, Urban Reflections. The paintings are being shown in three venues: In Vancouver, her work is located at Cambie Village Massage Therapy and the Evergreen Community Centre. Exhibiting in Burnaby, for this weekend only, her work is being shown at the Scandinavian Cultural Centre. 

The Prism Prize recently announced the Top Ten Best Canadian Music Videos of 2014, including a nomination for Emily Carr alumnus Kheaven Lewandowski ('10), for directing "Same Temptation" by Fur Trade. Kheaven, who holds a Bachelor’s of Design degree from Emily Carr University, won the 2014 Prism Prize Audience Award for The Belle Game’s “River” last year.

The Prism Prize is voted by a jury of more than 120 industry professionals from the worlds of music, film, broadcast and web media. After viewing hundreds of music videos released in 2014, jurors selected the Prism Prize Top Ten based on originality, creativity, style, innovation and effective execution. The jury will vote once more to determine the Prism Prize winner, who will receive a $5,000 Grand Prize at the Awards Presentation on March 29, 2015 at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

THE 2015 PRISM PRIZE TOP TEN (in alphabetical order, by director name): The New Pornographers - Dancehall Domine (Directors: Scott Cudmore and Michael LeBlanc) PUP - Guilt Trip (Directors: Chandler Levack and Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux) Fur Trade - Same Temptation (Director: Kheaven Lewandowski) Rich Aucoin - Yelling in Sleep (Director: Joel Mackenzie) Ryan Hemsworth - Snow in Newark (Director: Martin C. Pariseau) Kandle - Not Up to Me (Director: Natalie Rae Robison) Kevin Drew - You in Your Were (Director: Samir Rehem) Odonis Odonis - Order in the Court (Director: Lee Stringle) Chad VanGaalen - Monster (Director: Chad VanGaalen) Timber Timbre - Beat the Drum Slowly (Director: Chad VanGaalen).

“Unlike windows, birds are disappearing in North America.”– Department of Bird Safety, 2014.

Sessional faculty member Genevieve Raiche-Savoie and alumnus Jesse Garbe ('04), are seeing spots ─ with good reason. The pair comprise The Department of Bird Safety, an art/design collective who produce socially engaged art that raises awareness about issues concering endemic migratory birds. They’re also members of the City of Vancouver’s Bird Advisory Committee and the artists-in-residence at the Queen Elizabeth Park field house.

In their latest project, which launched March 4, at the West Point Grey Community Centre, Savoie and Garbe worked with community members to apply close to 4,000 coloured dots/visual markers to the exterior of the centre's windows in an effort to deter birds from colliding with the building, whose main facade is largely composed of windows.

This temporary installation of dots takes visual notes from the artist Damian Hirst’s spot paintings with markers created by Feather Friendly, a bird collision company specializing in glass deterrent. 

Says  Raiche-Savoie, "As artists, our goal is to challenge anthropocentric concepts of viewership and to create artwork that takes into account both human and non-human viewers."

According to the City's Vancouver Bird Strategy, released in January 2015: Over 250 species of resident, migratory and over-wintering birds are regularly observed in Metro Vancouver. The high visibility and auditory presence of birds creates an experiential link with nature that can foster stewardship of the natural environment and enrich the lives of Vancouver’s citizens. Birds also provide important ecosystem services in the form of pest control, pollination and seed dispersal. However, according to The State of Canada’s Birds, 2012 report, habitat loss due to human settlement, industry and forestry has caused a 35% decline in characteristic bird species in the Pacific Coast region of Canada since 1970. Vancouver has a responsibility to reduce the impact that urbanization has on birds along the Pacific Coast.

The goal of the Vancouver Bird Strategy is to create the conditions for native birds to thrive in Vancouver. The Strategy consists of five action areas that address the biological, social and economic challenges to creating a bird friendly city. Specific activities have been identified for each action area that the City, Park Board, Tourism Vancouver and other partners are currently implementing and  recommendations to move forward. In addition, the Strategy identifies key opportunities and challenges to supporting native birds in Vancouver.'

Up next for The Department of Bird Safety ─ an expansion of their housing project with a goal of housing birds both safely and affordably. Watch for their upcoming curated exhibtion at The Roundhouse, April 11 - May 12, 2015, where they will share information on how architectes and designers can incorporate bird-friendly design into their projects. 

Stephanie Jonsson (MAA '12) is an artist working in ceramic and fabric sculpture who is currently doing a year-long residency at Canada's leading contemporary ceramics residency: Medalta in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Since graduating from the University of Alberta in 2005 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in sculpture, Stephanie’s practice has grown to include glazes and fabrics. In 2007/2008, Stephanie did a year-long residency at Harcourt House Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta, and was nominated for the Emerging Artist of the Year for the Mayor’s Evening of the Arts Awards in Edmonton.

In September 2009, Stephanie completed a two-month residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta. During 2009 she received the Award of Achievement from the Alberta Craft Council for outstanding efforts in ceramics, and was listed among Avenue Magazine’s “Top 40 Under 40” in Edmonton.

In 2012 Stephanie completed her Master of Applied Arts degree at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, BC. For the remainder of her residency at Medalta, she has partnered with Indiegogo, a crowdfunding platform, to raise funds for studio space and materials, which go towards her final exhibition.

For Stephanie's final exhibition, she is creating an installation of otherworldly, underwater-inspired sculptures that will grow from the gallery floor and climb up the walls. 

As part of Capture Photography Festival, FIELD Contemporary is presenting Patryk Stasieczek’s ('14 MAA) solo exhibition Asking for It, curated by Avalon Mott ('13).

This exhibition is the result of an ongoing photographic investigation into an embodied material practice towards the occurrence of an event. Within photography's background, an event is considered an artifactual witness of an operation, as it provides access through the delineation of a trace on some form of light sensitized material. The photograph itself becomes an extension of the body, being extended through calculated optics and limitations, as presented by the medium of photography. By looking at the photographic event in this way and accepting the limitations of the photographic practice, only a composite view is the phenomenon to which a record of things can be further examined.

Stasieczek takes the idea of an immaterial photographic production back into the darkroom and produces compositional light paintings within the disembodied space of complete darkness. He composes images through using a variety of lighting materials and digital technologies, coupled with sensitized photographic surfaces, allowing for his body to calibrate the exposure and gesture. The resulting photographic traces hold an intentionality that is a direct response to the spatial parameters of their composition, and are further informed by the legacy of production knowledge located in the body. This exhibition consists of photographic light paintings, digital c-prints capturing the interference of digital image technologies, as well as a deconstructed light box work.  

An afternoon of photographic conversation will be occurring on April 11, titled Speaking Off It. Panelists include: Karen Zalamea ('04); current fourth year student, Manuel Correa; Sean Alward; and, Patryk Stasieczek. Speaking Off It will be mediated by Avalon Mott.

The exhibit runs from March 27 to April 25, 2015. An opening will take place on March 26 from 7 to 10pm.

2nd year MDes candidate Caylee Raber (BDes '10) has been named one of the Top 25 finalists in SSHRC's 2015 Storytellers Challenge.

The annual competition challenges postsecondary students from across the country to demonstrate—in three minutes or 300 words—how SSHRC-funded research is making a difference in the lives of Canadians. The top entries this year addressed a range of issues—from water security and immigration, to social justice, education and food security—and highlighted how knowledge about the social sciences and humanities helps Canadians understand and improve the world around us.

Vancouver Art Gallery Presents BC's Most Prestigious Visual Arts Prizes on April 16, 2015

Audain Prize: Michael Morris ('65)
VIVA Award: Elizabeth Zvonar ('01)
Balkind Prize: Cate Rimmer ('86)

Three distinguished individuals in the field of visual arts in British Columbia will receive the most prestigious awards in this province: the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, the VIVA Awards and the Alvin Balkind Curator’s Prize. This year, Michael Morris is awarded the thirteenth Audain Prize, funded by the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts. Elizabeth Zvonar is the recipient of the 2015 VIVA Award, granted annually by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Foundation will also present the second biannual Alvin Balkind Curator’s Prize to Cate Rimmer and the Charles H. Scott Gallery, the institution where she works as Curator of Gallery + Exhibitions.

To mark this annual celebration with the visual arts community, a ceremony honouring the recipients will be held at 7:00 pm on Thursday, April 16 in The Great Hall of the BC Law Courts building in downtown Vancouver. This ceremony is free and open to the public.

Audain Prize honouree Michael Morris is a highly acclaimed painter, photographer, video and performance artist, and curator. His work is often media-based and collaborative. He has been a key figure of the West Coast art scene since the 1960s. Together with Vincent Trasov, he founded Image Bank–a platform for personal exchange between artists in 1969. In 1973, Morris co-founded the Western Front Society–one of Canada’s first artist-run centres–and served as co-director of the Front for seven years. In 1981, he was invited with Trasov to Berlin as guests of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm DAAD. He and Trasov founded the Morris/Trasov Archive in 1990, currently housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Morris’ work is represented in private and public collections nationally and internationally, and he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities in 2005 by Emily Carr University of Art + Design. He currently lives and works in Victoria, British Columbia.

Elizabeth Zvonar is the recipient of this year’s VIVA Award, presented by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts. Zvonar graduated from Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design (now University) with a BFA in 2001. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Vancouver at Artspeak, Malaspina Printmakers, Western Front, Contemporary Art Gallery, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, Presentation House Gallery, Exercise Projects and Simon Fraser University Galleries among others. Nationally, she has exhibited in Toronto at Daniel Faria Gallery, Oakville Galleries, Mercer Union and internationally in New York, Australia, Japan and Belgium. Zvonar received the 2009 Mayor’s Award for Emerging Visual Artist, selected by Marian Penner Bancroft. In 2011, she was presented with the Emily Award for outstanding achievement by an Emily Carr alumna. From 2012-15, Zvonar held the post of City of Vancouver Artist in Residence. She is represented by Daniel Faria Gallery in Toronto.

The recipient of the Alvin Balkind Curator’s Prize is Cate Rimmer,Curator of Gallery + Exhibitions at the Charles H. Scott Gallery where she has curated numerous group and solo exhibitions. She was the founding Director/Curator of Artspeak Gallery in Vancouver, served as Director of Truck Gallery in Calgary, and was a Curator in Residence at the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal. In 2010-11 she curated a year-long public art project for the City of Vancouver entitled Walk In/Here You Are. Her recent projects include The Voyage, or Three Years at Sea (2013), a multi-part exhibition project at the Charles H. Scott Gallery which looked at our relationship to the sea. Rimmer has a Master of Letters Degree (MLitt) with Distinction in Museum and Gallery Studies, School of Art History, University of St Andrews inScotland.

Established in 2004, The Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts has become one of Canada’s most prestigious honours. Supported by the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Audain Prize grants $30,000 annually to a senior British Columbia artist selected by an independent jury. Previous winners of the Audain Prize include Fred Herzog (2014), Takao Tanabe and Gathie Falk (2013), Marian Penner Bancroft (2012), Rodney Graham (2011), Robert Davidson (2010), Liz Magor (2009), Jeff Wall (2008), Gordon Smith (2007), Eric Metcalfe (2006), E.J. Hughes (2005) and Ann Kipling (2004).

Funded by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts, the VIVA Awards are created to nurture the advancement of the visual arts in British Columbia and their appreciation by the public. Providing $12,000 annually since 1988, these awards celebrate exemplary achievement by British Columba artists in mid-career.

Provided through the generosity of the estate of Abraham Rogatnick to honour the memory of renowned Vancouver curator Alvin Balkind, the Alvin Balkind Curator’s Prize is a biannual award that recognizes outstanding innovation, original research and critical engagement through curatorial work in the visual arts.

Recognition Ceremony presented by the Vancouver Art Gallery
April 16 at 7 PM
BC Law Courts
800 Smithe Street
For event information, please phone 604-662-4747.

The Howe Sound region of British Columbia is experiencing a remarkable ecological rebirth.  Marine life is returning after decades of low numbers. This recovery is an incredible and all too rare good news story – not just for the residents of the Sound or the urban and tourist centres around it, but also for marine scientists worldwide who want to know more about the dynamics of marine recovery.

Empowering students to become future community leaders in sustainability, the project is taught by Sarah Van Borek, Faculty of Culture + Community, as part of the university’s Social Practice and Community Engagement (SPACE) program. The project’s over-arching goal is to create public-friendly messaging through songs and music videos to promote the ecological importance of the Howe Sound region. Stories of people who live, work and play in the Sound show the connectedness of communities to a shared geographic space. The focus is on sound and the inter-relationships between music and nature sounds in the region.

Working with a sound engineer, students have married clips from their interviews with Howe Sound community members with sound effects, such as underwater recordings. The pieces are then fit with original musical recordings by local Brazilian world music guitarist, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist, Celso Machado. Students then created videos with both filmed and sourced footage to accompany the musical score to create further awareness around habitat protection and conservation.

View the student videos below.

2015 marks the third academic year , and sixth course, in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation. Previous courses include: Rewilding Vancouver (2013-14) that oversaw the creation of a virtual urban safari as part of an exhibition with the Museum of Vancouver, and Natural Capital (2012-13) - a series of short documentaries and two multimedia exhibitions presented at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery.

Heather Caldwell('12) will be exhibiting her paintings at Duthie Gallery on Salt Spring Island. These works are inspired by her five years of living in France, where she painted and exhibited as well as taught. Her paintings of Provence perfectly capture her deep appreciation of the abiding beauty of the French countryside.

The exhibit runs from May 2 to June 4, 2015, with an opening reception taking place with the artist on Saturday, May 2, 2015, from 5 to 7pm.

Created in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation, the Sobey Art Award is Canada’s preeminent award for contemporary Canadian art. The annual $50,000 prize is given to an artist under 40 who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.

The 2015 Longlist includes the following Emily Carr alumni:

West Coast
Fiona Ackerman ('02)
Sonny Assu ('02)
Raymond Boisjoly ('06)
Tiziana La Melia ('08)
Jeremy Shaw ('99)

Prairies and the North
Cedric Bomford ('03)
Kara Uzelman ('04)

The following artists on the 2015 Longlist have participated in past residencies at Emily Carr:

Prairies and the North
Sarah Anne Johnson (Artist in Residence, 2014)

Ontario
Maggie Groat (Audain Distinguished Artist in Residence, Fall 2014)

The 2015 Shortlist will be announced on June 3, 2015 with an exhibition to follow at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax from September 26, 2015 to January 3, 2016. The 2015 Sobey Art Award winner will be announced at a gala event on October 28, 2015.

The complete 2015 Sobey Art Award Longlist may be found on the Sobey Art Award website.

Alumna Janice Kerbel ('94) has been nominated for the 2015 Turner Prize for her nine part operatic performance work, DOUG, originally commissioned by the Common Guild.

The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the preceding year. The 2015 Turner Prize exhibition preview will take place September 30, 2015 at Tramway, Glasgow with a final Award Ceremony held on December 7, 2015.

Janice Kerbel is a London-based Canadian artist. Her work often explores imaginary situations through the examination of existing systems of organizing and presenting information. She borrows from and modifies the conventions of various disciplines within her work. Kerbel holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and an MFA from Goldsmith's College, University of London. She has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including solo shows at Tate Britain in 2010, Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery in Ontario in 2009, the Kunsthalle Cologne in 2008, the Moderna Museet Stockholm in 2006, and the Norwich Gallery of Art in 2003, as well as group exhibitions at The Banff Centre, KW Berlin, the ICA London, Kunsthalle Wien, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal, De Appel Contemporary Arts Centre in Amsterdam, Artists Space, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, and Baltic in Newcastle.

Janice Kerbel's forthcoming exhibition will open at Catriona Jeffries in Vancouver, BC on September 17, 2015.

Burrard Arts Foundation is pleased to present recent works by artist-in-residence Sean Mills ('10). Vancouver based artist Sean Mills’ recent practice has seen him meticulously exploring the materiality of paint to test the boundaries of its objectmaking potential. Having graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art & Design in 2010, Mills has been methodically experimenting with the laborious accumulation and layering of material to create sculptures, three-dimensional paintings and works on unconventional surfaces that examine light, space, and time. Occasionally paralleling the concerns of institutional critique, his laborious work addresses ideas of transparency in both a literal and figurative sense.

During his three month residency at Burrard Arts Foundation, Mills has been using architectural glass as a support to repeatedly layer transparent paint. Installed away from the walls, the resultant works are viewable from all angles, denying a privileged viewpoint while being able to be seen through. The works alter with their environment: activity around the paintings becomes framed as subject and they become sites for events, movement and actions while the accumulated paint acts as a lens to simultaneously allow and distort looking.

Transparent Architecture as Support
Sean Mills
Burrard Arts Foundation
108 E Broadway Exhibition
open until June 20, 2015
Hours: Tuesday- Saturday, 12-5pm 

(text by Elliat Albrecht)