Juried Featured Artist Researchers
Celeste Snowber
Series Title: Tidal Poems
Medium: Dance and Poetry Link to more information: www.celestesnowber.com www.bodypsalms.com. |
Biography
Celeste Snowber, PhD is a dancer, poet and educator who is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She has authored many essays, poetry and books and creates site- specific performance of dance and poetry. She is also the Artist in Residence in the UBC Botanical . |
Abstract
Tidal Poems was a site-specific public performance of poetry & dance which took place in Montague Harbour Marine Trail on Galiano Island, British Columbia, Canada. I explore the relationship between a physical and spiritual practice of walking and dancing within borders between sea and land and how the arts can emerge as both a form of expression, process, and creation. I invite the audience to walk the trail with me in silence as I offer the performance of poetry and dance emerging out of the site and shifting the stage to one which roams and is outside. This performative and poetic inquiry celebrates the relationship with ocean, land, sky and ourselves. Embodied connections between the inner and outer landscape are explored and address how site-specific work has the capacity to shift an understanding to ourselves and the earth.
Tidal Poems
The ocean’s edge teaches the beauty of randomness. Like no other landscapes, the borders of the sea possess natural jewels – clam and oyster shells, pieces of seaweed, weathered sea glass, stones of all shapes and textures, wood caressed by salt hearkens us to drop time. Listen for her daily lessons – random beauty is her curriculum. Here are nutrients for the soul, vitamins for the body. In the simple act of walking her torso, picking and releasing sea jewels centers one re/members and rebodys what matters. The ocean unfolds the invisible through the visible. As we walk together, may we be invited to see the path as for the very first time, letting the sensuous knowledge of sea and land speak deeply to us.
Tidal Poems from Body Psalms on Vimeo.
George Belliveau
Title: Brothers
Medium: A monologue |
Biography
George Belliveau is Professor of Theatre/Drama Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a professionally trained actor and he has appeared in numerous stage productions. He also directs and writes for the stage. On the academic side, his research has been published in various arts and theatre education research journals and books. He has written four books, including a co-edited one with Graham Lea, Research-based Theatre as Methodology An Artistic Approach to Research (Intellect, 2016). |
Abstract
The monologue “Brothers” that is shared below was developed for a keynote presentation at the Artistry, Performance and Scholarly Inquiry Symposium in Melbourne, Australia in July 2014. The intent of creating the monologue was to explore my artistic identity using an autobiographical and theatre-based inquiry approach. I hoped through the process to explore my cultural heritage, examining how family and community shaped my artist, teacher, and scholar identities. To develop the monologue I engaged in a reflexive drama-based process to generate, analyze, and disseminate my understandings. Specifically, I used photo-albums, letters, journals, newspaper clippings, along with social media (i.e., Facebook) to provide data and stimuli in my journey to revisit the past to better understand my present.
The monologue “Brothers” that is shared below was developed for a keynote presentation at the Artistry, Performance and Scholarly Inquiry Symposium in Melbourne, Australia in July 2014. The intent of creating the monologue was to explore my artistic identity using an autobiographical and theatre-based inquiry approach. I hoped through the process to explore my cultural heritage, examining how family and community shaped my artist, teacher, and scholar identities. To develop the monologue I engaged in a reflexive drama-based process to generate, analyze, and disseminate my understandings. Specifically, I used photo-albums, letters, journals, newspaper clippings, along with social media (i.e., Facebook) to provide data and stimuli in my journey to revisit the past to better understand my present.
Michael Hayes
Title: I Stay Here
Medium: Documentary |
Biography
Michael Hayes is an Associate Professor at the University of Hawai`i at West Oahu. His research is focused on the generative and imaginative capacities of citizenship in a local and global context. His research methods include documentary filmmaking, and he has conducted three ethnographic research projects as feature length documentaries. |
Abstract
We have grown accustomed to a constant stream of bad news from Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. I stay here offers a message of hope and possibility from Palestinians engaging in non violent resistance to Israel’s decades long occupation of Palestine. I Stay Here documents individuals and groups who have resisted the occupation through non violent actions. Sometimes this means engaging in protests, at others times it means building alternatives, and still others it simply means making do within the confines of oppressive conditions. This film represents the fears and frustrations, hopes and dreams of those working towards peace, justice and a meaningful life for Palestinians.
We have grown accustomed to a constant stream of bad news from Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. I stay here offers a message of hope and possibility from Palestinians engaging in non violent resistance to Israel’s decades long occupation of Palestine. I Stay Here documents individuals and groups who have resisted the occupation through non violent actions. Sometimes this means engaging in protests, at others times it means building alternatives, and still others it simply means making do within the confines of oppressive conditions. This film represents the fears and frustrations, hopes and dreams of those working towards peace, justice and a meaningful life for Palestinians.
I Stay Here from Michael Hayes on Vimeo.
Kedrick James & Giorgio Magnanensi
Series Title: Incessant Spring Medium: Transformed video data and stills University of British Columbia, Vancouver New Music, Laboratio Arts Society, and Vancouver Community College Link to more information: http://www.kedrickjames.net http://giorgiomagnanensi.com/ |
Biographies
Kedrick James uses procedural techniques to create poetry in text, sound, image, video, and environmental installation formats. With a focus on ecological sustainability and poetics of information environments, his work treats raw data to processes of cultural recycling, regeneration and iterative remix. He works at the University of British Columbia. Giorgio Magnanensi is a composer and conductor. His diverse artistic practice includes electroacoustic improvisation, circuit–bending and video art. He is artistic director of Vancouver New Music, Laboratorio Arts Society and lecturer at the School of Music of The Vancouver Community College. |
Abstract
Incessant Spring is a collaborative project inspired by natural spring water. Using video footage of a spring head, this digital imagery is transformed through a variety of processes in order to visualize the life force of natural water. Conveying the notion of data transformation as an aesthetic practice, our work follows data through multiple iterative remixes, the breakdown and reconstruction of mediated expression. As an ecological art form within the context of digital environments, this project examines how water as image data can be aesthetically transformed in the same way that water as a molecular substance can be biologically transformed.
Incessant Spring is a collaborative project inspired by natural spring water. Using video footage of a spring head, this digital imagery is transformed through a variety of processes in order to visualize the life force of natural water. Conveying the notion of data transformation as an aesthetic practice, our work follows data through multiple iterative remixes, the breakdown and reconstruction of mediated expression. As an ecological art form within the context of digital environments, this project examines how water as image data can be aesthetically transformed in the same way that water as a molecular substance can be biologically transformed.
About the Musical Soundscape
The music accompanying this video was collaboratively composed by Giorgio Magnanensi and Kedrick James. One evening, while visiting Giorgio at his home on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, we were discussing poetry, the music of the human voice as it appears in print and if it would be possible to get the mood and tone of a poem across in a way that transcends the semantic load of the lyrics. I (Kedrick) had brought with me a well-loved and worn copy of the Axion Esti by Odysseas Elytis (1972), a poem that I first was introduced to by my father who was of Greek heritage. I had previously recorded my seriously ill father reading this poem in Greek, but had lost the recording when my computer was stolen shortly thereafter. So we decided to record me reading it in English using his intonations. We began with “Sixth Reading: Prophetic” and Giorgio began to work his electro-alchemical magic, using various processors, including the granular synthesis software created by another close friend, Chris Rolfe. Although some of the versions we produced that night bore closer relation to the actual text, this one, I feel, accomplished what we set out to do. It stirs up memories for me: memory is a key theme of the poem, and also the key motivation of why we were reading and reworking that poem in particular. It is also the memory-scape that came to light while I was creating the original images that Giorgio processed and are incorporated in the video. The video, created by Pauline Sameshima, allows these sounds and images to articulate, like the hinges of a door that swings open both ways, to the past and to the future, to recall and to remix.
The music accompanying this video was collaboratively composed by Giorgio Magnanensi and Kedrick James. One evening, while visiting Giorgio at his home on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, we were discussing poetry, the music of the human voice as it appears in print and if it would be possible to get the mood and tone of a poem across in a way that transcends the semantic load of the lyrics. I (Kedrick) had brought with me a well-loved and worn copy of the Axion Esti by Odysseas Elytis (1972), a poem that I first was introduced to by my father who was of Greek heritage. I had previously recorded my seriously ill father reading this poem in Greek, but had lost the recording when my computer was stolen shortly thereafter. So we decided to record me reading it in English using his intonations. We began with “Sixth Reading: Prophetic” and Giorgio began to work his electro-alchemical magic, using various processors, including the granular synthesis software created by another close friend, Chris Rolfe. Although some of the versions we produced that night bore closer relation to the actual text, this one, I feel, accomplished what we set out to do. It stirs up memories for me: memory is a key theme of the poem, and also the key motivation of why we were reading and reworking that poem in particular. It is also the memory-scape that came to light while I was creating the original images that Giorgio processed and are incorporated in the video. The video, created by Pauline Sameshima, allows these sounds and images to articulate, like the hinges of a door that swings open both ways, to the past and to the future, to recall and to remix.
Nané Jordan
Series Title: The Placenta Project
Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Medium: Textile Art, Photographic installation, Sculpture, Eco-art Affiliation: University of Paris 8, France Link to more information: http://redthreadprojects.blogspot.ca/ |
Biography
Nané Jordan is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Paris 8, France. She has an interdisciplinary art practice in textiles, photography, performance, and collaborative practice. The topic of birth has been central to Nané’s arts- and life- based inquiries. |
Abstract
The placenta project is a trans-disciplinary arts-integrated research project that explores the hidden power and ecology of gestation and birth. Working across education, midwifery practice, and autobiographic storytelling, this project re-evaluates understandings of birth, towards transformative social philosophies and education. Using dyed red wool, the artist-researcher felted and spun a series of placental forms. These placentas were playfully placed in natural settings, in umbilical-like contact with earthy elements of trees, branches, and water. Through installation, the placentas acted as visual markers that communicate/commune with natural elements, and express notions of relationship, community, and ecological interconnection.
This inquiry originated in an empowerment model of women-centred birth-care, which values women’s integrity and birth choices. In exploring birth stories and midwifery practices, the placenta emerged as a body parable for the life-giving, ecological forces of birth, rooted in our bodies, and originating in maternal relations. More then just the ‘refuse’ of birth, the placenta is the primary interface for nourishment between mother and baby in early human growth in the womb. The placental structure resembles a tree, having roots (placental mass), a trunk (umbilical cord), and fruits and flowers (baby).
The placenta project is a trans-disciplinary arts-integrated research project that explores the hidden power and ecology of gestation and birth. Working across education, midwifery practice, and autobiographic storytelling, this project re-evaluates understandings of birth, towards transformative social philosophies and education. Using dyed red wool, the artist-researcher felted and spun a series of placental forms. These placentas were playfully placed in natural settings, in umbilical-like contact with earthy elements of trees, branches, and water. Through installation, the placentas acted as visual markers that communicate/commune with natural elements, and express notions of relationship, community, and ecological interconnection.
This inquiry originated in an empowerment model of women-centred birth-care, which values women’s integrity and birth choices. In exploring birth stories and midwifery practices, the placenta emerged as a body parable for the life-giving, ecological forces of birth, rooted in our bodies, and originating in maternal relations. More then just the ‘refuse’ of birth, the placenta is the primary interface for nourishment between mother and baby in early human growth in the womb. The placental structure resembles a tree, having roots (placental mass), a trunk (umbilical cord), and fruits and flowers (baby).