ABC: Art, Biodiversity and Condos (2022)

A recent article in the Toronto Star about a new mural installed in front of a luxury condo prompted me to reflect on art and biodiversity. My first reaction:

I admit I should have said celebrating instead of enhancing. I reread the article trying to make sense of it all, to remain open minded, and I tried to understand the motivations of both the artist and the developers. I cannot.

If biodiversity is the quality or state of having a large number of plant and animal species in an area, any new buildings that use that specific area, have direct impacts in terms of destruction of habitats and more subtle effects on biodiversity such as disturbance and fragmentation.[1]

There are many problems with the placement of this artwork. First, biodiversity and luxury condos don’t go hand in hand. There is a disjunction between the two even if the developers would like us to think otherwise. If biodiversity is for everyone, luxury condos are not. Moreover, there is a direct link between the loss of biodiversity and economic inequalities.[2] In other words, economic inequality predicts biodiversity loss. [3] I don’t know if a mural on the shady side of the building might remind us of flourishing biodiversity, or is it more likely a memento mori for it. Are we supposed to consider the biodiversity of Lake Ontario and its waterfront parks before or after the mural was put up?

The artist tells us that she was thinking of horizons, the way light reflects on water at different times of day and season. It’s too bad that the mural is facing the highway. The ones who have lakeside view apartments, would be more in tune to this than the ones who gaze inland. For those driving by, in the shadow of the building, it might be a wishful reminder that everything is excellent.

On the bright side, I am happy to read that the panels are recyclable, but it is a quality that remains obscure when we talk about permanent sculpture.

New condo celebrates lakefront biodiversity with 120-metre mural along the Gardiner (February 2, 2022)

[1] http://www.businessandbiodiversity.org/construction.html

[2] https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/biodiversity-loss-linked-economic-inequality-worldwide-25398

[3] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000444

Mirabella Luxury Condominiums

February 7, 2022

Couverture du rapport annuel (2021)

La joie de voir une de nos œuvres sur la couverture du rapport annuel de l’AAAPNB (dont l’AGA a lieu la semaine prochaine). L’œuvre fait partie de notre exposition FUNDY qui se tiendra du 13 novembre au 17 décembre 2021 à la galerie d’art de l’Université Mount Saint Vincent, à Halifax, en Nouvelle-Écosse.

The joy of seeing one of our works on the cover of the AAAPNB’s annual report (whose AGM is next week). The work is part of our FUNDY exhibition which runs from November 13 to December 17, 2021, at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax, NS.

Habitat (2020)

Nous sommes (Valerie LeBlanc et Daniel H. Dugas) super contents d’exposer HABITAT à la Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen dans le cadre du Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie. L’exposition ouvre demain (le 6 novembre) et il y aura un vernissage le 18 novembre de 16 à 18 h. Au plaisir de vous y rencontrer !

HABITAT est une trilogie de projets vidéo et audio qui ont été réalisés dans le cadre de résidences artistiques dans diverses réserves naturelles dans le sud de la Floride. « Nous avons exploré tour à tour chacune de ces régions avec nos caméras et nos enregistreuses, souvent en accompagnant les biologistes et les botanistes dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions. Nous avons tenté de comprendre la réalité de ces lieux en nous laissant envahir par l’esprit qui les habite. »

Jonathan Lamy, commissaire, explique la pratique privilégiée par les artistes dans cette exposition, soit la vidéopoésie : « Les créations présentées dans Habitat ne sont ni des films, ni du cinéma, mais de la vidéopoésie. Une pratique hybride, un genre en soi, qui efface la frontière entre la vidéo et la poésie. » Les œuvres de l’exposition se manifestent donc dans un amalgame d’images et de textes qui s’entrecroisent dans un même espace et qui font état de la place de l’humain dans la nature.

We are super happy to be showing HABITAT at the Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen as part of the Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie. HABITAT will be presented from November 6 to December 20, 2020 and the opening will be held on November 18, from 4 to 6 PM. We hope to see you there!

HABITAT is a trilogy of video, audio and photo projects that have been produced in the context of artistic residencies in various nature reserves in South Florida. “We explored each of these areas with our cameras and audio recorders, often accompanying biologists and botanists in the performance of their duties. “ We tried to understand the reality of these places by remaining open to the spirits that inhabit them.”

Curator Jonathan Lamy explains the artists’ primary practice in this exhibition, videopoetry: “The artworks presented in HABITAT are neither film nor cinema, but videopoetry, a hybrid practice, a genre which erases the boundary between video and poetry.” The works in the exhibition thus manifest themselves in an association of images and texts that intermingle in the same space, and point to the place of human beings in nature.

In the Middle of the Mictlān (2019)

In Aztec mythology, the Mictlān was the region of the underworld where most people went. The belief was that when dead warriors arrived there, they reincarnated as hummingbirds and butterflies.

In the Middle of the Mictlān has been created on the occasion of Jared Kushner being awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle by Mexico in 2018. This award, the highest given to foreigners, is said to be awarded to individuals who have done a great service for Mexico or for humanity.

The video has been constructed using a series of close-ups of Donald Trump’s mouth, taken during his 2018 State of the Union Address.

VIMEO: https://player.vimeo.com/video/333300148
Password required

Location – Migration (2019)

location, location, location: we are getting closer (May 22-26, 2002), was a portable webcam project carried out as our participation in the Atlantic Cultural Space Conference, Moncton, NB. For the project, we travelled east to the Conference from Calgary, Alberta. Flying into cities along the way, we worked in connection with the artist run centres: Videopool, Winnipeg, Saw Video, Ottawa and EMMEDIA, Calgary. Setting out with a portable/wireless apparatus, we communicated between the centres while conducting street interviews with anyone who wanted to talk about the quality of life in her/his city.

Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas

https://locationlocationlocationwearegettingcloser.wordpress.com/

Interface (2018)

Our – Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas – video Dreams, which is part of our project Oasis has been shown at INTERFACE|Video Art Event, IXth edition in Romania

Three stills from Dreams, 4k, 5:58 sec.

VisualContainer selection:
Lino Strangis, The dance of wired emotions, 5:15, 2016
Barbara Brugola, Loop, 8:38, 2017
Lucia Veronesi, Seduti nell’oscurità è tutto più chiaro, 4:00, 2017
Flavio Scutti, Rides, 5:26, 2016
Debora Hirsch, ETIX, 1:33, 2003
Cristobal Catalan, Space Scream, 8:00, 2017
Sonia Armaniaco, Disturbed glance, 2:48, 2015

Conflux selection:
Basic Bruegel (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas), Dreams, 05:58, Canada;
Blas Payri, Three glances at Bacome, 04:40, 2016, Spain;
Christian Merrill, Collapse, Replace, Rebuild, 01:21, 2018, United States;
Damon Mohl, Night Clerk, 01:35, 2017, United States;
Daniel Antal Ary, Sequence, 2018, Universitatea Creștină Parțium, Romania;
David Webber, Letter I, 02:01, 2018, United States;
Eija Temisevä, And suddenly – you realize, 02:32, 2017, Finland;
Guli Silberstein, Impressure, 04:34, 2017, Israel;
Jenny Herrick, Duel, 05:00, 2018, United States;
Juan Carlos García-Sampedro Ferrero, I have come, 04:45, 2018, Spain;
Juliane Saul, Regression, 02:50, 2017, Germany;
Kai Welf Hoyme, Skeleton, 04:34, 2016, Germany;
Kimberly Burleigh, Periphery, 04:53, 2016, United States;
M. Dianela Torres, Uno no es tan débil como para sucumbir ante situaciones así, 04:36, 2017, Mexico;
M. Kardinal, Silencers, 04:57, 2017, Germany;
Marcela Alcalde, Audacia del Tiempo, 03:07, 2017, Argentina;
Mark Freeman, Body/Bag, 02:45, 2017, United States;
Michael Lyons, Film Loop 31: Shisendo, 01:30, Canada/U.K;
Nataša Prosenc Stearns, Untitled (Torso), 03:35, 2016, United States;
Oguzhan Kaya, Propaganda, 03:20,2017, Turkey;
Pierre Ajavon, Full Moon, 02:40,  2018, France;
Pierre Villemin, Glacies, 08:00, 2017, France;
Rafel Arnal, Ferran, 03:07, 2018, Spain;
Robert Sirvent, Dynamic within static (Dinámico en estático), 03:07, 2018, Spain;
Romain Claris, Cousins of clouds, 01:00, 2017, France;
Sevcan Sönmez, I feel like, 03:26, 2017, Turkey;
Steven Fraser, What It Feels Like, 03:00, 2018, United Kingdom;
Tereza M.Matza. Nyctophobia, 2018, Romania;
Theodora Prassa, Lavyrinthos, 02:45, 2017, Greece;
Vasilica Roman, Beyond the Limit.The Quest, 03:39, 2018, University of Oradea, Romania;
Vojtech Domlatil, Waves, 03:00, Czech Republic;
Zlatko Cosic, Story 2: Scenes 1-9, 05:00, 2017, Yugoslavia.

Being able to tridimensionally process images on digital devices allows the video artist to materialize his/her ideas through philosophical approaches of the virtual space, approaches that consider reality the base for future premises.

The interface must be understood not pejoratively, as a superficial surface or a simulation without any conceptual consistency, but as a succession of images representing the same object of reference, transformed in different ways by the artist without losing the concept.

Our proposal is to create hypothetical universes, alternative realities characterized by flexibility and conexions simultaneous to the imaginary world; realities that elude physical, ideological, aesthetic restrictions.

In this manner, the artist selects from the environment and its belonging phenomena, certain features that he/she will eventually either simplify or enrich with abstract elements belonging to the virtual space. Using diverse digital instruments, the artist delivers the idea that dominates the concept of the video project.

The result is an Interface that structures access to the succession of the created video images, that does not depend upon the researched reality because it evolves differently based on the video artist’s subjective and autoreferential choices.

Thus, two apparently contradictory worlds fusion and meet in the world of ideas and they become encrypted, transformed and reinterpreted inside the features and the concept of the future video art film. Although the reality we refer to hallmarks the artistic/aesthetic concept depending on the artist’s choices and attitudes, on his/her perspective on the referential element, the mark that is based on reality will not be visible any longer and therefore, the new image questions the credibility aspect.

The thus created video art brings into discussion the issue of promoting through images the way of perceiving reality through subjectivity, game, scenario, multiple hyper-realities and simulation inside the created virtual space. The end is the destruction of overused conventions on image interpreting; the traditional way of thinking is changed and prejudices about the image itself, about the relation between real and imaginary space, are broken.

We discover, therefore, a virtual labyrinth of ideas that counts on the numerous self-referential elements, apparently simultaneous and arbitrary, dominated by an aesthetic, conceptual chaotic diversity; contrary to this, the video image is an interface between reality and the artist’s video-conceptual subject.

Curator׃ Associate Professor Dr. Gabriela Diana Bohnstedt Gavrilaș

INTERFACE |Video Art Event,  IX^th edition will be presented from 05. 19-20, 2018 from 19-02 PM at the White Night of Museums to The Museum of “Ţǎrii Crişurilor“ in Oradea within “The days of Țării Crișurilor Muzeum“,  University of Oradea, Visual Arts Department, Faculty of Arts, Romania and in June in Italy at visualcontainer.org, visualcontainer.tv, box Videoart Project Space Milano, dotbox.it.

https://videoartevent.wordpress.com/

Images cliquables (2018)

Vous pouvez lire et voir « Images cliquables », un projet texte/image dans le nouveau numéro de Voix Plurielles, la Revue de l’Association des Professeur-e-s de Français des Universités et Collèges Canadiens (APFUCC). https://brock.scholarsportal.info/journals/voixplurielles/article/view/1765/1543

Merci à Catherine Parayre !

Fonds Cohen (2017)

Insomnie (édition limitée à 10 exemplaires, numérotés et signés) a été sélectionnée par le comité du Fonds Cohen pour la collection de la Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen. Voici la chose en images :

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La Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen est située au Pavillon Clément-Cormier. On y offre une programmation annuelle d’expositions d’art contemporain, des visites guidées, des conférences, des acitvités de création, des films, des conférences et des performances d’artistes. La Galerie met de l’avant une production résolument contemporaine, contribuant à la formation d’une identité acadienne ancrée dans la modernité et ouverte sur le monde. La collection compte aujourd’hui plus de 900 œuvres mises à la disposition de d’autres institutions et du personnel universitaire par l’entremise d’un service de prêt.

http://www.umoncton.ca/umcm-ga/

Insomnie – English subtitles (2012) from Daniel H. Dugas on Vimeo.

Output-Input/EMMEDIA (2017)

Our (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) collaborative videos Illumination (2016) and Work and Love (1990 – part of Slices of Life) have been selected for the Output-Input exhibition. EMMEDIA Member’s Retrospective Exhibition runs: July 14 – August 26, 2017.

EMMEDIA has been a place where media arts lives for almost 40 years! Having recently moved into our new location with two new presentation spaces, we will be featuring work by past and current members and artists, showcasing the rich history of media arts at EMMEDIA. A group exhibition will be featuring established media artists who have laid the groundwork and foundation, alongside emerging media artists that will be shaping the future of EMMEDIA. A formal screening will be presented during the opening reception featuring works from the 1980s – present, with some produced right here at EMMEDIA. We end the night with live performances by prominent audio artists in our community. The exhibition runs until August 26 with the screening available for viewing on the digital screens at EMMEDIA. Come celebrate the media arts community in our new location!

Opening Reception Schedule:
Doors @ 7PM
Screening @ 7:30PM
Artist Q&A @ 8:30PM
Live Performances @ 9:30PM

Peformances by:
Chris Dadge + TBA
Whitney Ota + TBA

Installations by:
Tom Andriuk
Noel Bégin
faxingmyfriends (Teresa Tam, Jadda Tsui, and Sandrine Weltzin)
Lowell Smith
Sandra Vida

Screenings by:
Daniel Dugas & Valerie LeBlanc
Colleen Kerr
Greg Marshall
Lon Parker
Aran Wilkinson-Blanc

http://emmedia.ca/2017/07/output-input-2017/

New Brunswick Art Bank acquisitions exhibition (2017)

The Moncton Times and Transcript
Entertainment, Saturday, January 28, 2017, p. E4

New Brunswick Art Bank acquisitions exhibition on until Feb. 6
Margaret Patricia Eaton

Every two years, the New Brunswick Art Bank presents a touring exhibition of its recent purchases. It opened at the Dieppe Arts & Culture Centre on Jan. 12 and will remain until Feb. 6, after which it moves on to Fredericton, Florenceville, Edmundston, St. Andrew’s, Saint John and Campbellton, wrapping up in October in Miramichi.

When the tour ends the 18 acquired works will become part of the permanent collection of the Province of New Brunswick, which was established in 1968 to celebrate and promote outstanding contemporary art. As such, they’ll be displayed in government offices, boardrooms and public spaces in provincial government buildings. Some of the works may also be included in the VanGo Program, a series of exhibitions which tours public schools throughout the province.

This biannual exhibition is one I enjoying as it provides an opportunity to see the work of artists from across the province. More than half of the artists represented ­ 11 of 18 ­ are from southeast New Brunswick, suggesting there is something special going on in the art scene in our region. Out of the five selection collection members only one is from Moncton, Jean­Dénis Boudreau.

The evening presented an opportunity for me to get caught up with some of the artists I’ve profiled in the past, including Dominik Robichaud, who’s completing her degree in art therapy and will be mounting a major exhibition at the Dieppe Arts & Culture Centre on Feb. 11. It was also an opportunity to meet other local artists that I knew of, but hadn’t met. As a result I was able to speak briefly with internationally acclaimed fibre artist Anna Torma and the multidisciplinary team of Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas, who told me about a recent journey to Kenya where they were invited to read poetry. I’m hoping that within the next few months I’ll have an opportunity to get to know them better and feature them here.

The Artists
Marjolaine Bourgeois, Moncton, fibre arts, printmaking;
Marsha Clark, Fredericton, paint and mixed media on Mylar;
Daniel H. Dugas, Moncton, literary arts, media arts, digital technology;
Alexandrya Eaton, Sackville, painting;
Paul Griffin, Sackville, sculpture/photography;
Denis Lanteigne, Caraquet, installations, photography;
André LaPointe, Moncton, sculpture/ land art, photography;
Valerie LeBlanc, Moncton, visual, film and digital arts;
Mario LeBlanc, Moncton, sculpture; Mathieu Léger, Moncton, photography, video and installation work; Ann Manuel, Fredericton/St. Andrew’s, multidisciplinary;
Paul Mathieson, Saint John, painting;
Shane Perley­Dutcher, Nekootkook (Tobique) First Nation, weaving, wood carving, silver work; Dominik Robichaud, Moncton, painting;
Neil Rough, New Brunswick born, Toronto­based, photography;
Karen Stentaford, Sackville, photography;
Anna Torma, Baie Verte, fibre arts;
Jennifer Lee Weibe, Fredericton, painter.

The Selection Committee

Ned Bear, Fredericton. During his 35­year career as an Aboriginal artist, Bear has focused on contemporary interpretations of traditional spiritual beliefs as expressed through masks and sculptures. He is a graduate of the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design, NSCADU and UNB. He is also the recipient of a 2006 fellowship from the Smithsonian Institute.

Jean­Denis Boudreau, Moncton. After studying animation before graduating with a visual arts degree from l’Université de Moncton, Boudreau was the Atlantic region finalist for the 2007 Sobey Art Award and has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions.

Élisabeth Marier, Caraquet. Marier holds a degree in graphic arts, worked for over 20 years in glassmaking in Montreal at Éspace Verre and is a founding member of Caraquet’s Constellation bleu, an artist­run centre.

Michael McEwing, Carlton County. McEwing holds fine arts, multimedia and education degrees and is co­founder of the River Valley Arts Alliance and Woodstock’s annual DoorYard Arts Festival.

Jean Rooney, Fredericton. Rooney achieved a Master of Arts in Ireland, has exhibited internationally and in addition to her studio practice is an instructor at the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design.

Margaret Patricia Eaton Margareteaton16@gmail.com A freelance writer, photographer and poet, Margaret’s weekly column focuses on artists, galleries and art issues in southeast New Brunswick.