The In the Soil edition of The Bulletin:
- Piggyback by Nancy Anne McPhee > Plate Glass Gallery at NAC
- border blur reading series > Friday 7PM at NAC
- Puppet-A-Go-Go > Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery at NAC
- NAC Member Jonathan Culp’s film Taking Shelter > Film House Saturday 4PM
- NAC Member STUDIO SALE: Mori McCrae, Jim Maunder, Sandy Middleton
- In the Soil Arts Festival: Friday 29 April – Sunday 1 May
Piggyback
Nancy Anne McPhee
Plate Glass Gallery at NAC
Opens Thursday 28 April and runs until Friday 8 July
Piggyback is a black and white image of a zebra clinging to a giraffe’s back. The image uses the distinct patterns of these animals on a striped background to create an image that is playful and surreal. This work uses stripes, pattern, illusion and sheen to create an experiential situation for the viewer where the optical field is enveloping and active.
Nancy Anne McPhee‘s art practice is concerned with sight, unsettling the eye, and creating restrained images with stripes and tone-on-tone. These mediums ask something of the viewers, to reposition themselves in order for the image to become visible or to generally participate in a more active viewing process. Stripes create an effect that can appear as movement or a kind of visual buzz and thus the activation of the work is exerted onto the viewer. Common themes that run throughout the work are disparities in representation and creating an immersive atmosphere.
border blur reading series
blur blur blur: an evening of multi-disciplinary poetry + performance
FRIDAY 29 APRIL AT 7:30PM / DOORS AT 7PM
FEATURING
Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Shannon Maguire, Adrienne Gruber, Jennifer Zilm, Margaret Christakos, Eric Schmaltz and Kasia Smuga, Mark Laliberte
A one-of-a-kind interdisciplinary and collaborative event! blur blur blur brings together poets and artists who are working together for the first time to create a memorable feast for the eyes, ears, and mind. The Border Blur Reading Series is a not-for-profit cultural space committed to presenting the local Niagara community with emerging and established writers from all over Canada.
The Border Blur Reading Series is the successor to the Grey Borders Reading Series (established 2003). Operating in St. Catharines Ontario since 2014, BBRS is a not-for-profit cultural space where multiple expressions of the literary arts are channeled and given a public stage. The organization is dedicated to hosting emerging and established writers from all over Canada, specializing in experimental and avant-garde poetry, but remaining open to everything literary. BBRS is currently curated by Julia Polyck-O’Neill, and supported and informed by a diverse collective of regional poetry enthusiasts.
Part of the In the Soil Arts Festival
Puppet-A-Go-Go
Christine Cosby, Alexa Fraser, Trisha Lavoie and Clelia Scala
Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery At NAC
ON DISPLAY UNTIL FRIDAY 6 MAY
The Puppet-A-Go-Go project 1000 Finger Puppets has surpassed its goal. Artists of all ages and walks of life have attended puppet-workshops, come to puppet
making parties, mailed in their contributions from across North America, and dropped off sandwich bags of puppet goodness at our doorsteps. We have felt puppets, knitted puppets, wooden puppets, inner tube puppets, plaster puppets, paper puppets and more!
All of this work will be on display for two weeks at the Niagara Artists Centre, debuting this Saturday.
Founded by Christine Cosby, Alexa Fraser, Trisha Lavoie and Clelia Scala, Puppet-A-Go-Go aims to bring puppets to the people and the people to the puppets. In addition to the Wall Of 1000 Finger Puppets, the four artists will also be debuting puppet-based installations and performances at the opening reception.
Part of the In the Soil Arts Festival
Puppet-A-Go-Go will also be hosting drop-in workshops during the In The Soil Arts Festival, April 29 to May 1 at the Festival Hub!
All the details HERE!
TAKING SHELTER
By NAC Member Jonathan Culp
Saturday 30 April 4PM
The Film House at the PAC
Part of the In the Soil Arts Festival
A disagreeable crew of aliens invade Canada, deploying the rules of cinema as a strategy for colonial domination. Collaged from over 400 Canadian feature films.
Taking Shelter will mark its official world premiere at Vancity cinema (Vancouver) as the keynote presentation of their Canadian Film Week 2016 celebrations. Culp’s previous work includes over 40 shorts and a feature and has been screened at film festivals and events in the USA, Europe and Australia as well as two extended cross-Canada tours.
“Aliens, robots and frenzied seductresses as the missing links of Canuckfilm? That sounds like a Canadian movie classic all its own.” – Peter Howell, Toronto Star
“Culp’s dedication to this ambitious project and the spirit in which the film was made can only be admired.” – Clint Enns, Spectacular Optical
“A Masterpiece” – Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight
“One weird-ass film” – Chris Dart, Vice
Jonathan Culp (writer/producer/director/editor) has been producing underground films and videos since the late 1980s. His work ranges from feature-length comedy (“Grilled Cheese Sandwich”, shot in Grimsby ON) to hand processed super 8, but the bulk of his work has centered on found footage collage. He is also a film programmer, writer and musician.
Part of the In the Soil Arts Festival
Saturday 30 April + Sunday 1 May 11-5pm
36 James Street Oddfellow Hall 2nd floor / Across from the In the Soil Festival Hub
IN THE SOIL ARTS FESTIVAL
Friday 29 April – Sunday 1 May
Downtown St.Catharines
GET YOUR FESTIVAL PASS TODAY!
Check the schedule here
Over 650 artists will bring 150 acts/ installations to 15 venues with the care and support of over 150+ volunteers for the 8th annual In the Soil Arts Festival – an extraordinary showcase of original music, theatre, dance, spoken word, film, media art, street art and one-time performance experiences from 29 April – 1 May 2016.
Festival passes are only $40 for all access pass
(subject to venue capacity).
It has been a banner year for downtown St. Catharines with the arrival of Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts and the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre. The streets are filled with new life each day and In the Soil Arts Festival is proud to grow with new venues and partners, celebrating the rich past and bright future of the downtown St. Catharines with a lens for the unexpected and extraordinary.
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St. Catharines ON L2R 3N2
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