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.

ELO Conference (2020)

We (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) are very happy that our project ‘Around Osprey’ has been accepted for the upcoming Electronic Literature Organization conference in Orlando, Florida, July 16-19th. The exhibit entitled ‘(gen)erations’ will be open to the public for one month at the CityArts in downtown Orlando. ‘Around Osprey’ was developed in Osprey during an artist residency with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast.

We hope that the Coronavirus will go away and not wreak havoc into all things.

More news later >>>>>>

The Electronic Literature Organization is a non-profit organization established in 1999 to promote and facilitate the writing, publishing, and reading of electronic literature.

Around Osprey (2019)

We (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) just finished our project Around Osprey. We were artists in residence in Osprey, FL from July 1 to August 15 2018. It was an incredible experience of discoveries and encounters. Again we would like to thank everyone at the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast for their help. We would also like to acknowledge artsnb and the Canada Council for the Arts for their support.

Around Osprey is comprised of 12 videos and one interactive element to be screened together.
For more information on the installation: https://ospreycaretta.wordpress.com/portfolio/installation/
and for more info on the videos: https://ospreycaretta.wordpress.com/project-type/video/

Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast – Artist in Residence (2018)

Valerie LeBlanc and I are back from our Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast residency at the Bay Preserve in Osprey, Florida.

It was an amazing experience, thanks to the CFGC staff: Christine Johnson, Suzanne Gregory, Lee Amos, Sabrina Cummings and Sam Valentin and others who helped us throughout our project. Here is the blog of our research: https://ospreycaretta.wordpress.com/

About Florida Bay (2017)

Airie Nest Exhibition: About Florida Bay
October 2017 – January 2018

We (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) are very happy that three of our Flow: Big Waters videos will be shown in the About Florida Bay exhibition.

The Florida Bay, located between the Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys, has undergone a series of ecological changes that have severely altered its natural ecosystem and resulted in a critical loss of native wildlife. This exhibition features select works which address the significance of this contested area and its precarious future, while recapturing its splendid past. AIRIE Fellows featured include Mark Dion, Valerie LeBlanc & Daniel H Dugas, Valerie George, Nick Gilmore, Jason Hedges and Magnus Sodamin.

http://airie.org/event/airie-nest-exhibition-about-florida-bay/

People Carrying Signs (2016)

People carrying signs

Two images
of people carrying signs
supporting
a refinery
Wanting
a pipeline

Then it was Seadade
A chemical plant and an oil processing temple
along the shores of Biscayne Bay

Now it’s Energy East
A continental pipeline
to be laid across the land
over rivers and rivers and rivers
until it reaches the edge of the Bay of Fundy

Two images
of people carrying signs
of old folks and kids alike

The man with the cigarette in his mouth
and the woman with the pointy glasses
never saw their dream come true

But what about the YES PIPELINE kid
Will she be part of the sacrifice?

I don’t think
they understood then
or understand now
what is at stake
the gamble at play

The sheen of oil is making us mad
when we are willing to risk everything
to ease our pains

The sheen of oil is making us mad
when we believe that this endless tube of tar is not the Moloch
to which we will have to feed our own

Daniel H Dugas
August 12, 2016

Tales of two bays

The Bay of Fundy in Canada and Biscayne Bay in Florida are separated by more than 3,000 kilometers. At first glance, they seem to be worlds apart, but looking back into archival material, we realize that these two ecosystems have a shared history with industrialization. In this drama of progress we find two key players: K. C. Irving, one of Canada’s foremost 20th century entrepreneurs and Daniel K. Ludwig, shipping magnate and businessman with numerous companies, sometimes referred to as the American Onassis.

In 1959, Ludwig began buying acreages in South Dade, Florida to build a deepwater port and a refinery on a bayfront site east of Homestead Air Force Base. The project called Seadade was approved in 1962 and was supported by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, but soon faced growing opposition from the Safe Progress Association (SPA). The SPA argued that Biscayne Bay, a warm and shallow, salt lagoon could be easily and irreversibly harmed by industrial pollution. Support for the project faded and in 1968 the American Congress passed the Biscayne National Monument Act, establishing a 96,000 acre preserve.

The industrial developments threatening Biscayne Bay are not isolated circumstances, they are happening everywhere in the world. The geological makeup of the Bay of Fundy in Canada seems to be diametrically opposite to the one of Biscayne Bay. Fundy is known to have the highest tides in the world whereas Biscayne Bay is a shallow semi-enclosed lagoon. But similarities emerge when we look at the relationship between humans and these ecosystems. The first parallel is between the historical players behind the refineries of Seadade and the Energy East project. Energy East would send its tar sands oil across a vast section of North America to Irving’s refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. The narratives arcs of the two tycoons followed similar trajectories: Ludwig was born in 1887 and Irving the founder of Irving’s empire, was also born just about the same time, in 1899. Both magnates died the same year, in 1992. The two of them were involved in a wide range of holdings, shipbuilding, pulp paper and oil refinery among other things. Their fortunes were equally formidable. In 1982, Ludwig was #1 on the first Forbes 400 “Richest Americans” list, while Fortune Magazine in 1989 listed K. C. Irving as the 11th wealthiest man on earth.

There is a second connection between Biscayne Bay and the Bay of Fundy. Both locations have nuclear plants built on their shores. The Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station was built just next to Biscayne National Park in 1973 while the construction of Point Lepreau in New Brunswick was started in1975. Both stations have had their share of safety problems in the past and are still plagued with ongoing problems today

The two bodies of water, on the Atlantic coast of North America, are magnificent. They are true natural wonders of the world. The question is why pristine areas are such magnets for big polluters? Why do they have to choose the most biologically diverse ecosystems to set up shop? If Biscayne Bay managed to avoid Seadade, can the Bay of Fundy do the same with Energy East? The two already have their own nuclear stations, their own safety, and cost management conundrums, it seems that this should be enough danger to deal with.

Daniel H Dugas
August 14, 2016

Notes

The Florida Experience: Land and Water Policy in a Growth State, Mix-up on South Bay, Luther J. Carter, RFF Press, New York, 1975p 157-192.

Daniel Ludwig, Billionaire Businessman, Dies at 95, The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/29/us/daniel-ludwig-billionaire-businessman-dies-at-95.html?pagewanted=all

K. C. Irving, 93, Industrial Tycoon Dominant in Canadian Province, The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/14/world/k-c-irving-93-industrial-tycoon-dominant-in-canadian-province.html

Study shows severe nuclear accident at Point Lepreau 40 times more likely than initially thought:
https://www.conservationcouncil.ca/study-shows-severe-nuclear-accident-at-point-lepreau-40-times-more-likely-than-initially-thought/

Evidence of salt plume under Turkey Point nuclear plant goes back years:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article73233802.html

Nuclear energy, David Suzuki:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/science/energy/nuclear-energy/
‘Nuclear power creates radioactive waste for which there is no accepted method of safely managing or storing. It is also prohibitively expensive.’

SAFE PROGRESS ASSOCIATION, INC. is a business entity formed in Florida and is a Domestic Non-Profit under local business registration regulations. Having the registration number 703668, according to the official registry, it is now Inactive. http://www.associationdatabase.org/safe-progress-association-inc

IMAGE CREDIT
Left: Pro Seadade demonstrators, January 23, 1963. South Florida History Magazine, Vol. 23, no 1, Winter 1995. / Middle: 18th-century depiction of the Moloch idol from Johann Lund’s Die Alten Jüdischen Heiligthümer (1711, 1738). / Right: Video still from CTV Atlantic ‘Pipeline arguments at NEB hearings’ by Ashley Blackford, August 8, 2016.

FLOW – Launch (2016)

FLOW: BIG WATERS by Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas – Soundmap launch today.

12 soundworks inspired by geographic locations within the Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve and surrounding regions of South Florida and featuring the voices of Rebecca Rideout and Mark McPhee are available for listening.

http://flow.basicbruegel.com/soundmap/

AnthropoScene workshop (2015)

AnthropoScene – color keying workshop
Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas, University of Miami, FL – March 2015

MOVING IN THE LANDSCAPE: VISIBLE / INVISIBLE
This exercise in visual composition offers opportunities to discuss evidence of human passage in the natural landscape. During the editing process, each person will have access to the workshop footage. This will enable Students to further collaborate on the end result, or to compose individual works. Through voiceover, text over, and added music or sound compositions, the finished works will potentially convey a variety of messages related to the AnthropoScene Conference objectives.

The group will set up a tripod and camera in a fixed position facing a lush green area. (1) An establishing view of the scene will be recorded. (2) Volunteer(s) wearing the blue or white suit(s) will stand still in the green area. Once an image of the person(s) is recorded, recording will continue and the person(s) will move out of position. Volunteers will be encouraged to try out various ways of moving slowly through the scene.

In the editing process, the footage will be layered and color keying will be used to minimize the visibility of the figure(s). The desired effect in this DIY exercise will be an imperfect removal of the figure. (i.e. the keying effect sometimes leaves edge traces and this will reveal the movement of the figure.) Overall, the finished footage should reveal the outline of a (nearly invisible) figure moving in the landscape. During the editing process, Students will make decisions on what the final work will actually convey to the viewer.

AnthropoScene Schedule (2015)

Exhibition March 4 – 24
CAS Gallery. 1210 Stanford Drive. Coral Gables, FL

Panel Discussion March 4 9am-12pm
Ungar Building 230 C/D. 1365 Memorial Drive

Lunch/Gallery Tour March 4 12:30-1:30 pm
CAS Gallery. 1210 Stanford Drive. Coral Gables, FL

Workshops March 4 2-5 pm
CAS Gallery. 1210 Stanford Drive. Coral Gables, FL

Opening Reception March 4 5:30-7:30 pm
CAS Gallery. 1210 Stanford Drive. Coral Gables, FL

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
MARCH 4

PANEL DISCUSSION
UNGAR 230 C/D. 1365 MEMORIAL DRIVE. CORAL GABLES. FL
with artists
Daniel Dugas
Felice Grodin
Valerie LeBlanc
Lucinda Linderman
Deborah Mitchell
Skip Snow
Keith Waddington

8:30 am – 9:00 am Registration/Coffee Service
9:00 am – 9:15 am Welcome and plan for day: Gina Maranto and Keith Waddington
9:15-9:45 am Opening remarks: Skip Snow
9:45-10:00 Keith Waddington
10:00-10:30 Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas
10:30-10:45 Skip Snow
10:45-11:00 Break
11:00-11:30 Deborah Mitchell
11:30-12:00 Discussion with all artists moderated by Felice Grodin and Lucinda Linderman

WORKSHOPS AND EXHIBITION OPENING
CAS GALLERY. 1210 STANFORD DRIVE. CORAL GABLES. FL
with artists
Daniel Dugas
Felice Grodin
Valerie LeBlanc
Lucinda Linderman
Susan Silas
Skip Snow
Keith Waddington

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Buffet Lunch and Tour
(Tour at 1 p.m.)
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm Concurrent workshop sessions
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm Opening reception: anthropoScene exhibition

anthropoScene is a semester-long exploration of this new era sponsored by the Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science & Policy and the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Miami with participation by Artists in Residence in the Everglades.

Miami Book Fair International (2014)

An Evening with AIRIE (Artists in Residence in Everglades)

Miami Bookfair International 2014

Tuesday, November 18th @ 7pm at The Swamp Pavillion

Look for the big tent at the southeast corner of N.E. 3rd Street and 2nd Avenue.

Science + Art:  Transformative Experiences in the Everglades

Despite its importance, abundance of wildlife, and great natural beauty, many people have never visited  the Everglades and only have a vague idea of it as a tangled swamp rife with pythons, mosquitoes and alligators.  AIRIE executive director and artist Deborah Mitchell and biologist Skip Snow will co-moderate a panel of five AIRIE artists on the transformative experience their residency in the Everglades has had on their work.  Audio composer Gustavo Matamoros, Visual artist Reed Van Brunschot, author Anne McCrary Sullivan, and multi-disciplinary Canadian artists Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas will share their recent experiences with the audience while a slide show of AIRIE art provides visual support for their moving narratives.

About the artists

LeBlanc and Dugas will debut their new project FLOW- BIG WATERS with a program of video poems. Based upon their research in the Everglades National Park, the project will continue through 2015 and will also include a series of sound walks and photographs. Researching and recording several aspects of this unique biosphere, this dynamic duo continues working on various aspects of this multi-facetted project. Using tools of writing, still and moving images and audio, the root of their desire is to share the aesthetic joy of being there in the moment. When completed, the project will be available online.

Matamoros will present Bats & Insects, a sound-scape audio composition on exhibit September 19-November 5th at the critically acclaimed Common Ground:  Artists in the Everglades at Florida Atlantic University. This Venezuelan composer is the driving force behind ISaw + Subtropics, the leading proponent of experiential music and sound art in the Southeast.

McCrary Sullivan has had poems widely published in literary and academic journals including The Gettysburg Review, the Southern Review, and Harvard Educational Review.  During and after her AIRIE residency, she accumulated thousands of hours paddling the waters of the Everglades National Park, which resulted in two books:   Ecology II: Throat Song from the Everglades and Paddling the Everglades Wilderness Waterway.

Van Brunschot is a visual artist who uses multiple mediums including sculpture, painting, performance and video.   Based on evoking memories of childhood, home life and a general commonality found in nostalgic experiences, her work examines transitions and places them in the public sphere.  Van Brunschot will discuss how her recent transformative residency experience has affected her studio practice.

About the Moderators

Biologist Skip Snow worked for the National Park Service for 38 years, the last 25 at Everglades National Park. He has evaluated the effects of water management on park wildlife, worked to reintroduce native species, and spent considerable time working on eradicating the Burmese python.  Since retiring in 2013, Skip has been pursuing a keen interest in the intersection of art and science, and continues to volunteer for the park as an emeritus wildlife biologist.

Artist and Executive Director of AIRIE, Deborah Mitchell, participated in the Artist-in-Residence program in Big Cypress in 2007.  Since then, environmental awareness and community outreach has been the focus of her multi-disciplinary work.  In addition to working with AIRIE fellows and organizing cultural programs, she curated The Preserve in 2012 and Flight: Aloft in the Everglades in 2014. Mitchell’s photographs can be seen in Swamplife, (Minnesota Press).

An evening with AIRIE in the Swamp Pavilion at the Bookfair will be an informative program which presents a nuanced look at the Everglades by letting AIRIE Fellows share their work and perspectives on the park with both local and international book lovers.

http://airie.org/2014/save-the-date-airie-at-the-book-fair-nov-18/