#Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

[dilanensemble]

The last three weeks of incredible residency in January 2025 were full of creativities, musical activities and communications in a diverse art community. I was privileged to meet and work with over fifty artists, faculties, and Banff members including Kronos Quartet at the dreamy Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in the heart of the mountains which has filled me with inspiration and joyfulness every moment I spent there.

👉 I performed two separate performances; one was a SOLD OUT show at Rolston Recital Hall on Jan 17th and the Open Studios for the public on Jan 23rd, as well as a 20-minute talk and discussions on Kurdish Music “Sharing Circle” during my residency. 🔥 There are many new music that will be coming out this year some created in the mountains of Banff.

Many thanks to the Banff Centre for Arts And Creativity for giving me this phenomenal opportunity to be an artist resident in the heart of the Banff Natural Park for three weeks. 💚🌺

👉 The painting on the background photo by: Dara Aram

📸: Marina Hasselberg

[princessanneftw]

🤠 Princess Anne, President of The Duke of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Study Conferences, attending the Opening Plenary of the Commonwealth Study Conference at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada on 4 June 2023

[aimeedaisies]

The Princess Royal’s Official Engagements in June 2023

01/06 As Colonel-in-Chief of The Royal Logistic Corps, Princess Anne attended the Freedom of the City of Winchester Parade at the Guildhall to mark the 30th Anniversary of the Corps, followed by a Service of Thanksgiving in Winchester Cathedral. 🫡

03/06 Princess Anne departed from Heathrow Airport for Canada and was received at Calgary International Airport by the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta. 🇨🇦

As President of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences, HRH met with delegates and later attended a Dinner at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. 🌍

04/06 As President of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences, HRH attended the Opening Plenary of the Commonwealth Study Conference. She departed Calgary Airport for the United Kingdom and arrived back on 05/06 🇨🇦

06/06 As Royal Patron of Motor Neurone Disease Association, attended a Care Forum at Boughton House, Kettering. 🦠

As Master of the Corporation of Trinity House, HRH attended a Younger Brethrens’ Dinner at Trinity House, Tower Hill, London EC3. 🍽️

07/06 As Master of the Corporation of Trinity House, HRH attended the Trinitytide Anniversary Annual Court Meeting, Church Service and Luncheon at Trinity House. 🥗

The Princess Royal attended the Canadian Armed Forces Day Reception at the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom, Canada House, Trafalgar Square. 🇨🇦

08/06 The Princess Royal, as Honorary Air Commodore of Royal Air Force Brize Norton, attended a Parade to mark the retirement of C-130J Hercules and the disbandment of 47 Squadron at Royal Air Force Brize Norton. ✈️

Her Royal Highness, As Royal Patron of the Security Institute, HRH attended a Careers Fair at the Victory Services Club 💼

As Patron, International Students House, attended a Reception. 👨‍🎓

12/06 As Patron, of the British Nutrition Foundation, Princess Anne visited Washingborough Academy in Lincoln, to mark the 11th Healthy Eating Week for Schools. 🍎

As President of Carers Trust, HRH visited the new Facilities for Carers at the Carers’ Support Service at the Old Waterworks Office in Grimsby. 🩺

As Chairman of the International Olympic Committee Members Election Commission, HRH held a Dinner at St James’s Palace. 🍽️

13/06 Held an Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. 🎖️

The Princess Royal, As Chairman of the International Olympic Committee Members Election Commission, held a Members Election Commission Meeting. 🤸‍♀️

14/06 Held two Investiture ceremonies at Windsor Castle. 🎖️

Received His Excellency Sir Rodney Williams (Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda) and Lady Williams. 🇦🇬

15/06 The Princess Royal as Colonel of The Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) carried out the following engagements;

Attended the parading of the new Sovereign’s Standard to the Regiment followed by a Reception at Hyde Park Barracks.💂‍♂️

Attended a Household Cavalry Council Meeting at Hyde Park Barracks. 🐴

The new Sovereign’s Standard to The Blues and Royals was presented by HRH to HM in the Quadrangle of Buckingham Palace and was received with a Royal Salute. After the new Standard was consecrated, The Parade subsequently ranked past HM and HRH. 🚩

As President of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, attended the Fellows’ Reception at the Royal Geographical Society. 🌍

16/06 The Princess Royal, as Colonel of The Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons), presided over a Conference attended by the Colonels of the Regiments of the Household Division. HRH subsequently attended the Senior Colonels’ Dinner at Clarence House. 🫡

17/06 In her role as Colonel-in-Chief of the Blues and Royals and Gold Stick in Waiting, the Princess Royal along with Sir Tim and other members of the royal family attended King Charles first Trooping the Colour Parade as monarch. 💂‍♂️

His Majesty was followed by The Prince of Wales (Colonel, Welsh Guards), The Princess Royal (Colonel, The Blues and Royals, Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) and The Duke of Edinburgh (Royal Honorary Colonel, 1st Battalion London Guards) on horseback down the Mall towards Horse Guards Parade. Duchess Sophie, Sir Tim and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester travelled in carriages and the Duke of Kent (Colonel, Scots Guards) followed by car. 🐎

The troops on Parade, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Livesey, Welsh Guards (Field Officer in Brigade Waiting), received The King with a Royal Salute. 🫡

After the Parade, the RF rode back to Buckingham Palace on horseback, in carriages and by car. The Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment and The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery ranked past The King on arrival at Buckingham Palace. 🐴

The royal family stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace and witnessed a fly-past by aircraft of the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force. ✈️

19/06 The Princess Royal and Sir Tim with other members of the royal family and other members of the Garter attended a Chapter of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the Throne Room, Windsor Castle.

They all later attended a Luncheon Party for the Companions of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. 🥪

An Installation Service was held in St George’s Chapel at which two new members were installed in the order. 🪶

20/06 As Colonel, The Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons), attended a Dinner at Drapers’ Hall. 🍽️

Unofficial Attended day one of Royal Ascot with Zara and Mike Tindall, Peter Phillips and Lindsay Wallace 🐎

21/06 Unofficial Princess Anne, Sir Tim, Zara & Mike Tindall and other members of the RF attended day two of Royal Ascot. 🐴

22/06 Unofficial Princess Anne, Sir Tim, Zara & Mike Tindall and other members of the RF attended Ladies Day, day three of Royal Ascot. 🐴

23/06 Visited the Royal Highland Show at the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh where she met exhibitors, farmers, animals and sampled local food and drink. 🐮🐑🧀🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

24/06 Attended the Icelandic Horse Society British Championships and Summer Festival at Washbrook Farm, Aston le Walls. 🇮🇸🐎

27/06 Attended the opening ceremony of the World Equestrian Festival, CHIO Aachen, Germany. 🇩🇪🐎

28/06 Toured behind the scenes and met team GB at the World Equestrian Festival, CHIO Aachen, Germany. 🇩🇪🇬🇧

29/06 The Princess Royal, as President of Carers Trust, accompanied by Sir Tim, attended a Reception in London SW1. 🦽

Princess Anne as Patron of United Kingdom Sailing Academy, accompanied by Sir Tim, attended a Founders’ Club Dinner at the Corporation of Trinity House. ⛵️

30/06 The Princess Royal presented Prize Day awards at the Royal School Haslemere. 🏆

Total official engagements for Anne in June: 40

2023 total so far: 262

Total official engagements accompanied by Tim in June : 6

2023 total so far: 56

[seositetool]

Three-day film festival featuring outdoor adventure films coming to Idaho Falls

A preview of the 2024-25 Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour. | Courtesy Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Youtube IDAHO FALLS — A popular film festival dedicated to celebrating achievements in outdoor storytelling and filmmaking worldwide is returning to Idaho Falls. The Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour will take place Jan. 23 to 25 at the Colonial Theater, located at…

[thaoworra]

I’ll be presenting at LITERARY BRIDGES, on May 7, 2023 starting at 2:00 PM at Next Chapter Booksellers, located at 38 S. Snelling Avenue, St. Paul.

“Well April snowstorms bring May?…” says Stan Kusunoki, co-host/curator of the Literary Bridges reading series. “…May poets, of course! This month’s roster promises a wide-ranging, yet interconnected group of writers. It will be fun to chase all the threads of connection—in other words, a classic Literary Bridges!”

The roster includes: Claire Wahmanholm is the author of Wilder (Milkweed Editions 2018), Redmouth (Tinderbox Editions 2019), and most recently, Meltwater (Milkweed Editions 2023). Her work has most recently appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Cream City Review, TriQuarterly, Sierra, Ninth Letter, Blackbird, Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She was a 2020-2021 McKnight Writing Fellow, and her poem, “Glacier,” won the 2022 Montreal International Poetry Prize.

Lynette Reini-Grandell is the author of Wild Things: A Trans Glam Punk Rock Love Story, (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023) and the poetry collections Wild Verge (Holy Cow! Press, 2018); Approaching the Gate (Holy Cow! Press, 2014), winner of the 2015 Northeastern Minnesota book award for poetry. She teaches English and creative writing at Normandale Community College and the Loft and has received support for her work from the Finlandia Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. A multidisciplinary collaborator, she performs at spoken word venues with the Bosso Poetry Company and the jazz collective, Sonoglyph, and her poetry is part of a permanent installation at the Carlton Arms Art Hotel in Manhattan. She lives in Minneapolis on the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people. Bryan Thao Worra presents internationally on science fiction poetry and the Southeast Asian diaspora. He has presented at the Singapore Writers Festival, the Smithsonian Asian American Literature Festival, the Library of Congress, the League of Minnesota Poets, Poets House, Kearny Street Workshop, the 2012 London Summer Games, and more. His newest collection is American Laodyssey (2023) from Sahtu Press as his community marks 50 years since the end of CIA Secret War in Laos.

Marion Gómez is a poet and teaching artist based in Minneapolis. She has been awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Loft Literary Center. Her work has appeared in La Bloga, Mizna, Waterstone Review, Saint Paul Almanac among others. She is a member of the Latinx spoken word collective Palabristas.

Moheb Soliman is an interdisciplinary poet from Egypt and the Midwest who’s presented work at literary, art, and public spaces in the US, Canada, and abroad with support from the Joyce Foundation, Banff Centre, Minnesota State Arts Board, and diverse other institutions. He has degrees from The New School for Social Research and University of Toronto and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he was Program Director for the Arab American lit and film organization Mizna before receiving a multi-year Tulsa Artist Fellowship and this year a Milkweed Editions fellowship. His debut poetry collection HOMES (Coffee House Press, 2021), explores nature, modernity, identity, belonging, and sublimity through the site of the Great Lakes bioregion / borderland. Moheb has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards, Heartland Booksellers Award, and others, and was showcased in Ecotone’s annual indie press shortlist and the Poets & Writers annual 10 debut poets feature. See more of his work at www.mohebsoliman.info.

[banffcentrelibraryandarchives]

Artists’ Book Display for the week of June 24th, 2019

[ozfactsblog]

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity – Vice President, Development and External Relations

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity – Vice President, Development and External Relations

[sudsana]

Where disability meets art

"Medication 4", "Medication 3", "Medication 2". 2018. 24x18 in., 18x24 in., 18x24 in. Acrylic on Canvas.

“‘Disability aesthetics’ is this term that is really loose but points to where we can find disability as the space that informs an artistic practice. When I say ‘disability arts’ or ‘disabled artistry,’ it’s [referring to] artists who have an experience of disability or illness and use that as a space that is generative and that is not hidden from the practice.”  — Ezra Benus, artist, educator, and curator

Just consider the arts. Imagine being physically impaired and trying to make a large-scale piece of art while having limited movement, or imagining attending a crowded art exhibit with nowhere to sit. People without disabilities might take these things for granted, but artist and curator Ezra Benus does not.

Ezra is half of Brothers Sick, a sibling collaborative with his brother, Noah, who is also a disabled artist. (They currently have their largest commission for an exhibition, Kingdom of the Ill , at Museion in Bolzano, Italy.) Ezra is also an artist in residence at BRIC  and works at United States Artists , where he helped to build and still manages the Disability Futures Fellowship , the first and largest unrestricted award to support disabled creatives in the country. He talks to TheCuratedArt over at Flipboard.

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

Focusing on disabled art, artists and narratives

The definition of “disability aesthetics”

How the art world could be more accessible

What other curators can take away from disabled ones

Disabled artists more people should know

Artists he recommends:

Shannon Finnegan is a multidisciplinary artist making work about accessibility and disability culture. They have done projects with Banff Centre, Friends of the High Line, Tallinn Art Hall, Nook Gallery, and the Wassaic Project.

Against Accommodation: Park McArthur

The work of Park McArthur urges change in the systems that see the presence of individuals with disabilities as a mere act of accommodation.

[barbarabickelart]

An artist residency at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity for 6 weeks was a restorative gift and a reunion for me. An emotional reunion with my full time art practice and living and working in Banff in the cradle of the Rocky Mountains where I had lived and work as a young woman almost 35 years ago. From my third floor corner studio, with its sentinel pine tree ever present, I could look out to three mountains and the Bow River. Although I was in residency with more than 30 other visual artists and met many musicians during this time I spent much time alone in my studio, riding my bike and on walks. Coming out mainly to eat and attend performances. I got to know numerous beautiful musicians and their passionate work - Yantra de Vilder, Aya Ueda and Julia Mortyakova and a diversity of visual artists. The second half of the residency I began to invite more artists into my studio and visited their studios. Two open studio events brought visitors and locals in to see the work being created and offered opportunity for many conversations about my video art collage project and trance-based practice from which my work is sourced. I was fortunate to have visits with curators organized by the program; Sean Lynch (Ireland), Jesse Birch (Nanaimo Art Gallery), Shawna Thompson (Esker Foundation) and Heidi Rabben (independent curator).

The Universities Art Association of Canada conference took place at the Banff Center while I was there, and my partner Michael and I co-presented on Matrixial Com-passion in a double panel that focused On Compassion in teaching art in the academy that was organized by Art Historian Dr. Susan Cahill from the University of Calgary. This was a highlight and was a rich and broad conversation on the need for compassion through art in teaching and learning spaces.

Artist residencies and conferences have been a source of significant nourishment for me as I travel this journey as an artist, researcher, writer and educator. They are co-events of intense immersion with myself, the particular environment, and others. An opportunity to look inward and focus but to also reach out and connect with others committed to a practice of life-long inquiry, creating and learning.

I’ll post next about the closing open studio and the studio installation of my work.

[indigenouscontemporaryart]

Kablusiak | Untitled (That's A-Mori). 2016

Kablusiak is an Inuvialuk artist and curator based in Alberta and holds a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design. They recently completed the Indigenous Curatorial Research Practicum at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The lighthearted nature of their practice extends gestures of empathy and solidarity; these interests invite a reconsideration of the perceptions of contemporary Indigeneity.

[yegarts]

EAC celebrates the Outstanding Achievements of 20 Local Professional Artists

The Edmonton Arts Council, City of Edmonton and Edmonton Community Foundation are pleased to announce the 2020 recipients of the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund awards.

“We are delighted to celebrate 20 remarkable local artists that call the Edmonton region home” said Sanjay Shahani, Executive Director of the Edmonton Arts Council. “These artists excel in their disciplines and are constantly working to broaden and promote the Edmonton arts community. The recipients help make Edmonton a vibrant and engaging city, alive with arts and culture.”

“Congratulations to this year’s recipients,” said Martin Garber-Conrad, CEO of Edmonton Community Foundation. “We look forward to watching these artists’ careers grow as they continue shaping our city.”

The Edmonton Artists' Trust Fund (EATF) recognizes an artist’s work and contribution to the community. The $15,000 awards provide financial stability for artists to renew, develop, create or experiment. These awards are supported by the proceeds from the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund, held by the Edmonton Community Foundation. In 2017 the Eldon and Anne Foote family fund began making contributions directly, to allow for an increased value and number of awards. This stands now at $120,000 annually, committed through 2021. In addition, in the fall of 2020 an anonymous, private donation of $100,000 was received via the Edmonton Community Foundation to invest directly in artists though the EATF process.

More information about the Edmonton Arts Council’s grants and award programs can be found at: grants.edmontonarts.ca 

Recipients of the 2020 Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Award:

Former Edmonton Poet Laureate Ahmed Ali, AKA Knowmadic, is a community organizer, public speaker, youth worker, poet and musician who strives to empower diverse communities across the globe. Knowmadic is co-founder and former Artistic Director of Edmonton’s only spoken word collective, Breath In Poetry.

Alma Visscher is an installation artist whose actions and built environments are inserted into the landscape. Her work is influenced by traditional dye methods, notions of vastness and intermediary spaces, and surface architecture.

Andrea Bellegarde-Courchene is a skilled fiber artist from Little Black Bear First Nation in Treaty 4 who truly brings vision to form. Through her traditional star blankets and ribbon skirts she transmits her gift of artistic expression and a healing resurgence of her Cree/Ojibway culture.

A long-time fixture in the Edmonton music scene, Cam Neufeld has played his own style of fiddle music in clubs and festivals across the prairies and around the world. From the street to the concert hall, his musical journey has spanned the gamut of styles from traditional fiddling to jazz.

Celeigh Cardinal is a multi-award-winning Métis singer-songwriter. With numerous accolades to her name, several highlights include taking home awards at the 2020 Juno Awards, the 2018 Western Canadian Music Awards, multiple Edmonton Music Awards, and recently she received two nominations for the 2020 Western Canadian Music Awards for Indigenous Artist of the Year and Songwriter of the Year.

As a musician and sound designer, Dave Clarke has composed and produced music and sound designs for over 500 projects in theatre, film, dance and multi-media. He is also a playwright, whose multi-award-winning Theatre for Young Audiences piece, Songs My Mother Never Sung Me, draws on his experience growing up as a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults).

Josh Languedoc is an Anishinaabe playwright, theatre artist, and educator. Josh has toured across Canada with his solo storytelling show Rocko and Nakota: Tales From the Land, and is currently studying at the University of Alberta, working on his Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre Practices with a research interest in Indigenous playwriting and storytelling.

Kristi Hansen is a prolific theatre artist whose work includes dramaturgy, direction, stage management, administration, and teaching. She is also the co-founder of Edmonton’s all-female theatre company, The Maggie Tree, whose mandate is to support the development and visibility of female-identifying humans in creative leadership roles in the arts, and was until recently the co-Artistic Producer with Azimuth Theatre.

Leona Brausen is a multi-talented actor, writer, costume designer, and improviser. As a costume designer, she has worked for Mayfield Theatre, Citadel Theatre, Shadow Theatre and Teatro La Quindicina where she's an Artistic Associate. Her work has garnered her both Sterling nominations and awards.

Marty Chan is a children's author with a background in theatre, radio, and television. Using a combination of storytelling, improv, humour, and stage magic, he shares his love of words with audiences young and old, inspiring the next generation of lifelong readers and writers.

Matthew MacKenzie is a multi-award-winning Métis playwright. MacKenzie founded Pyretic Productions in Edmonton in 2008, which produces new works with strong socio-political themes. In 2018, his play Bears won Doras for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production, was named a co-winner of the Toronto Theatre Critics Outstanding New Canadian Play Award and won the Playwright Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt National Playwriting Award.

Matthew Stepanic is a freelance writer, poet, editor of The Glass Buffalo, and poetry editor for Eighteen Bridges. Stepanic also co-manages Glass Bookshop, Edmonton’s newest bookstore that focuses on Canadian writing with special attention paid to LGBTQ2SIA and IBPOC writers, as well as the independent publishers who help to produce their work.

Matthew Wood, AKA Creeasian, is an entrepreneur, youth educator, dancer, DJ, producer, and tours as a dancer with the Juno Award winning group A Tribe Called Red. He is committed to bridging hip-hop and Indigenous culture, using the arts to empower and unite youth.  

Megan Dart is a playwright, poet, and the co-Artistic Producer of the award-winning indie company Catch the Keys Productions, best known for its site-specific, immersive theatre creations. Dart is also the co-Artistic Producer of Common Ground Arts Society, the Communications Specialist with Fringe Theatre, and a member of The Edmonton Poetry Brothel.

Swiss native Michael Zaugg is the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the professional chamber choir Pro Coro Canada. A passionate pedagogue, Zaugg is strongly committed to his work with choirs and emerging artists.

Michele Vance Hehir is an accomplished playwright. She won first place in the 2017 annual Alberta Playwrights’ Network competition for her full-length play, The Blue Hour, which received its premiere production at Edmonton’s Skirts Afire Festival in 2020.

Shannon Blanchet has appeared on stages across Canada, off-Broadway and in London's West End.  Off the stage, Blanchet is a teacher and coach with the University of Alberta’s Department of Drama and has recently completed a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Voice Pedagogy at the University of Alberta, where her interdisciplinary research focused on the neurological correlates of Voice and Speech Training.

Sharmila Mathur is the Director of the Indian Music Ensemble in the Department of Music at the University of Alberta and the founder of the Indian Music Academy. Through her music instruction and performances, she shares the rich tradition of classical Indian music, and continues to collaborate with musicians from other cultures to create fusion music showcasing the diversity of our community.

For over two decades, Timothy Bowling’s fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has been regularly published and recognized for its excellence, garnering numerous national, provincial and civic honours. In 2008, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded Bowling a fellowship recognizing his entire body of work. As an active member of Edmonton’s literary community Bowling has worked closely with many local writers as a mentor, writer-in-residence and Sessional instructor in literature and creative writing.

Zach Polis is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer, and former Poet Laureate of St. Albert. He has performed in New York City, as well as on CBC Radio. His poems have been recognized on Vogue Italia’s PhotoVogue, and he recently completed a spoken word residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 4

Guided by Voices just dropped record #30!

We enter April wishing all of you good health and financial solvency, though we know that many of the musicians and artists and appreciators that visit our site are in very dire circumstances. Our own crew is, so far, not infected, though we are coping with varying degrees of success to the new normal. Some are writing more. Others are struggling. Almost all of us are listening hard to the music that sustains us, and hope that you are likewise finding some solace. This edition of Dust is a big one, as a lot of us have the attention span for shorter, but not longer pieces. Enjoy it in good health. Contributors included Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Andrew Forell and Tim Clarke.

Aara — En Ergô Einai (Debemur Morti Productions)

En Ergô Einai by Aara

Swiss black metal band Aara offers a very high-concept LP, investigating the European Enlightenment, and the period’s complex and conflicting discourses on human rationality. In some ways, the historical period was enormously optimistic, featuring thinkers like Ben Franklin and Rousseau, who were committed to modes of thought that were scientifically rigorous and grounded in egalitarian ethics. But at the same time, European coloniality ramped up significantly, and capital became a rapacious, world consuming engine, churning out massive wealth and even more massive human suffering. Aara investigate that — or anyways that’s their claim. They haven’t published the lyrics to these songs, and the vocal stylings of singer Fluss are so brittle, so horrendously shrieked, that it’s impossible to decipher the words. The music is suggestive, however. It’s infused with a grand sensibility, and also charged with black metal’s negative intensities. The influence of Blut Aus Nord’s romantic Memoria Vetusta records is strongly present — and Vindsval, Blut Aus Nord’s principal composer, plays guitar on “Arkanum,” first track on this record. Its grandiosity is in tune with the philosophical enthusiasms of the Enlightenment. But it’s pretty cold stuff, like rationality itself.

Jonathan Shaw

 Ryoko Akama / Apartment House — Dial 45-21-95 (2019) (Another Timbre)

Dial 45-21-95 by Ryoko Akama

The one time I saw Ryoko Akama’s music performed, the visual poetry of the concert was at least as compelling as the music that was made. During one piece she, Joseph Clayton Mills and Adam Sonderberg walked calmly up and down a line of tables loaded with instruments and knick-knacks she picked up during her visit to Chicago, making timely sounds that seemed to accent their movements rather than issue from them. While it sounded nothing like the music on Dial 45-21-95 (2019), this album is likewise the work of sympathetic musicians expressing a composer’s impressions of a place and all that comes with it. The source material this time comes from Akama’s visit to the archive of filmmaker Krzystof Kieslowski. Objects she saw, words that she read, and the episodic pacing of his works all became part of this cycle of leisurely, gentle movements of music that is small in scale, but not exactly minimalist. The musicians, in this case the English new music ensemble Apartment House, often seem to be passing phrases from one to another, each recipient conveying a reaction to what they’ve heard rather than the same information. In this way they impart the experience of a story without telling one.

Bill Meyer

 Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II (Karlrecords)

Invisible Cities II by Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis

What better time than when we’re all forbidden by pandemic to spend time in the company of others to listen to some quality sonic landscaping instead? Nadja’s ever-prolific Aidan Baker second duo collaboration with bass clarinetist Gareth Davis follows on the first Invisible Cities with a similar structure; Baker, credited on that first LP with just “guitar”, somehow summons up vast or subtle cloudbanks of hissing ambience, covert drones, even sometimes harsh blares (check out “The Dead” here) while Davis plays his clarinet like he’s carefully picking his way across a perilous set of ruins. Whether elegiac like the opening “Hidden” or more mysterious like the fading pulses threading around Davis’s work on “Eyes”, the result is a vividly evocative set of involving ambient music made using slightly unusual materials. Even though Baker and Davis fall into a set of background/foreground roles, both clearly contribute equally to what makes Invisible Cities II work so well (honestly, a little better than their fine debut as a duo), and although unintentional, the result can serve to give us temporary shut ins plenty of mental fodder as well.  

Ian Mathers  

 The Bobby Lees — Skin Suit (Alive)

The Bobby Lees may be from Woodstock, but they definitely do not have flowers in their hair. Skin Suit, the band’s second album, is a blistering onslaught of garage rock fury, at least as heated as last year’s Hank Wood and the Hammerheads S-T, but tighter, nearly surgically precise. Singer/guitarist Sam Quartin has a magnetic, unflappable presence, whether issuing threats sotto voce (“Coin”), insinuating sexual heat (“Redroom”) or crooning the blues. But everyone in the band is more than up to the job, whether Macky Bowman knocking the kit sidewise in the most disciplined way, Kendall Windall jacking the pressure with thundering bass or Nick Casa lighting off Molotov cocktails of guitar sound. Video (above) suggests that the record isn’t the half of it, but the record is pretty damned good. Jon Spencer produced and makes a characteristically unhinged cameo in “Ranch Baby.” Two covers ought to be a misfire—can anybody improve on Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation,” or add anything further to the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man”? — but instead bring the fire. Helluva a band, probably even better live.

Jennifer Kelly

 Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby — Offering (Snailbongbong Records)

Offering by Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby

Sometimes when one musician gets top billing, that just means they ponied up for the session fees. But on Offering, the words “Rob Clutton with” signal that the Canadian double bassist conceived of a sound situation and procured material suited to that concept. Clutton is well acquainted with the American soprano and tenor saxophonist, Tony Malaby. Their association dates back two decades, when both men were resident artists at the Banff Centre For Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada, and they’re both members of drummer Nick Fraser’s band. That common ground gets the nod on “Sketch #11,” a Fraser tune that occasions some of the most swinging music on this wide-ranging and thoroughly satisfying session. But elsewhere the genesis of the material lies in Clutton’s own improvisations, which he recorded, transcribed and analyzed in order to locate nuggets of musical intelligence worth developing into discreet melodies — or further improvisations. Either way, Malaby isn’t just the guy on hand to play the horn parts, but a known musical quantity to be either be written for or set up to set loose. Clutton must have had his tone, alternately ample and pungent on soprano, and his imaginative responsiveness to the melodic, rhythmic, and emotional implications of a theme in mind, for his own purposeful perambulations seem designed to give Malaby plenty to wrap around and climb upon. While the music is ever spare, it’s never wanting.

Bill Meyer

 Pia Fraus — Empty Parks (Seksound)

Empty Parks by Pia Fraus

Empty Parks, the latest album from Estonian neo-shoegazers Pia Fraus, deftly soundtracks crisp, blue-skied, late winter days when buds are emerging on bare trees and the promise of warmer days beckons. The Tallinn based band comprising Eve Komp (vocals, synth), Kärt Ojavee (synth), Rein Fuks (guitar, vocals, synth, percussion), Reijo Tagapere (bass), Joosep Volk (drums, electronic percussion) and Kristel Eplik (backing vocals) traffics in layered harmonies, swathes of synth and roving guitar lines over a solid, propulsive rhythm section. Most of the songs move along at a good clip with a great sense of dynamics and a focus on atmospherics. Sometimes one wishes they would let go a little and explore the hints of noise on standout tracks “Mr. Land Freezer,” “Nice And Clever” and “Australian Boots” which have traces of grit that, if given more prominence, may have elevated Empty Parks as a whole from enjoyable to compelling.  

Andrew Forell  

 Stephen Gauci / Sandy Ewen / Adam Lane / Kevin Shea — Live at the Bushwick Series (Gaucimusic)

Gauci/Ewen/Lane/Shea, Live at the Bushwick Series by gaucimusic

The cultural losses inflicted by the current pandemic situation are so immense that no record review is going to hold the whole story. But this one might clue you in to one culture under unique threat, and also shine a light on the spirit that may bring it back again. Since the summer of 2017, tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci has been organizing a concert series at the Bushwick Public House in Brooklyn, NY. Each Monday starting at 7 PM up to half a dozen individuals or ensembles will play some variant of jazz or improvised music. This album is the first in a series of five titles, all released as either downloads or CDRs with nicely done sleeves, and each documenting a set that was part of the series. Live at the Bushwick Series is a forceful argument for the mixing of aesthetics. You might know drummer Kevin Shea from the conceptually comedic jazz band, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, or Gauci and Lane from the many recordings that showcase each man’s impassioned playing and rigorous compositions. Maybe you know guitarist Sandy Ewen as a started-from-scratch free improviser. But when you hear this recording, you’ll know that they are a band, one that makes cohesive and ferocious music on full of tectonic friction and fluid role-swapping on the fly. When the quarantines expire, there may or may not be a concert series, or a Bushwick Public House to host it. But it’ll take the kind of commitment and invention heard here to get things rolling again.

Bill Meyer

 Vincent Glanzmann / Gerry Hemingway — Composition O (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Composition O by Vincent Glanzmann / Gerry Hemingway

A composition is both an ending and a beginning. It establishes some parameters, however specifically, to guide musicians’ interactions. But the publishing of a piece can also provoke many different interpretations, especially when the composition itself is designed to be a work in progress. Percussionists Vincent Glanzmann and Gerry Hemingway developed Composition O with the intent to revise each time they play it, so that while there is a graphic score guiding them, it is subject to change. So, don’t expect this music to have the locked-in quality of, say, Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians, any more than you might expect it to evince the self-creating form of a free improvisation. It proceeds quite deliberately through sections of athletic stick-craft, sonorous rubbing, and eerie extensions beyond the percussive realm enabled by the distorting properties of microphones and the deeply human communication of Hemingway’s vocalizations, which are filtered by a harmonica. The score keeps things organized; the concept means that this music will evolve and change.

Bill Meyer

 Magnus Granberg / Insub Meta Orchestra — Als alle Vögel sangen mein Sehnen und Verlangen (Insub)

Als alle Vögel sangen mein Sehnen und Verlangen by MAGNUS GRANBERG / INSUB META ORCHESTRA

In a previous review for Dusted, I characterized Magnus Grandberg’s sound world as “unemphatic.” The same applies here, and the accomplishment of that effect is in direct inverse to the size of the ensemble playing this album-length piece. For this performance, the Insub Meta Orchestra numbers 27 musicians, but it rarely sounds like more than four or five of them are playing at any time. The ensemble is well equipped to represent whatever Granberg suggests. In addition to conventional orchestra instrumentation, you’ll find antique instruments such as spinet, traverso and viola da gamba, as well as newcomers like the analog synthesizer and laptop computer. Granberg selects discerningly from centuries of compositional and performative approaches. The piece’s title, which translates to “When all the birds sang my longing and desire,” tips the hat to Schubert, but the way that timbres offset one another shows a working knowledge with contemporary free improvisation. It takes restraint on the part of the players as well as the composer to make a group this big sound so small in contrast to the silence that contains its music.

Bill Meyer    

 Ivar Grydeland / Henry Kaiser — In The Arctic Dreamtime (Rune Grammofon)

If Ivar Gyrdeland (Danes les Arbres, Huntsville) and Henry Kaiser had first met in an airport lounge or a green room somewhere, you might not be able to hold this CD in your hands. They’d have sat down, started talking about strings or pick-ups or their favorite Terje Rypdal records, and who knows where that might have led. But they met in an Oslo studio, and one of them had some means of projecting Roald Amundsen — Lincoln Ellsworth’s Flyveekspedisjon 1925, a documentary of an unsuccessful and nearly fatal attempt to fly two airplanes over the North Pole. So, they set up their guitars and improvised a soundtrack to the film on the spot, which became the contents of this CD. Neither man regards the guitar’s conventional sounds as obligatory boundaries, and much of the music here delves into other available options. Resonant swells, looped harmonics, and flickering backwards sounds alternate with shimmering strums, skeins of feedback, and unabashed shredding, radiating with an icy brightness that corresponds to the unending polar sunlight that shone down on the expeditionaries as they hand-carved a runway out of the ice.

Bill Meyer

 Guided By Voices — ‘Surrender Your Poppy Field’ (GBV, Inc.)

Surrender Your Poppy Field by Guided By Voices

The ever productive Robert Pollard kicks off a new decade with a louder, more distorted brand of rock, his characteristic hooky melodies buzzing with guitar feedback. He’s supported by the same band as on last year’s Sweating the Plague— Doug Gillard, Kevin March, Bobby Bare, Jr. and Mark Shue, who like Pollard are lifers to a man. Songs run short and feverish with only a couple breaking the three- minute mark and the chamber-pop “Whoa Nelly,” clocking in at 61 seconds. And yet, who can pack more into a couple of minutes than the godfather of lofi? “Queen Parking Lot” ramps up the dissonance around the most fetching sort of melody, which curves organically around modal curves. “Steely Dodger,” layers rattling textures of percussive sound (drums, strummed guitars) around a dreaming psychedelic tune. The words make no sense, but tap into subconscious fancies. This is Guided by Voices 30th album. Here’s to the next 30.

Jennifer Kelly

 Zachary Hay — Zachary Hay (Scissor Tail)

Zachary Hay by Zachary Hay

Zachary Hay is an American acoustic guitarist, but please, put aside the associative baggage that comes with those words. If you do so, that’ll put you closer to the spirit that informed the making of this LP’s ten un-named tracks. Like Jon Collin, Hay seems to be intent upon capturing the mood and environment of a particular moment. The sound of the room, or someone turning on a tap while he’s recording — these become elements of the music every bit as much as his patient note choices. Hay likes melodies, but he doesn’t feel bound to repeat them, which imparts a sense of motion to the music. Things change a bit towards the end, when he puts down his guitar and stretches out for a spell on banjo and squeezebox, humming along with the latter like a man who knows that he must be his own company.

Bill Meyer  

 Egil Kalman & Fredrik Rasten — Weaving a Fabric of Winds (Shhpuma)

Weaving a Fabric of Winds by Egil Kalman & Fredrik Rasten

Some music is born out of commercial or communicative aspirations, or philosophical structural prescriptions. One suspects that this music originates from some agreement about what sounds good, compounded by other ideas about the right way to do things. Fredrik Rasten is a guitarist who splits his time between Berlin and Oslo, shuttling between improvised and composed musical situations; he has an album out on Wandelweiser, which should tell you a bit about his aesthetics. Egil Kalman plays modular synthesizer on this record, but he is also a double bassist from Sweden who lives in Copenhagen, and he keeps busy playing in folk, jazz and free improv settings; one hopes that someday, we’ll hear some recordings by his touring project, Alasdair Roberts & Völvur. But in the meantime, give a listen to this record, which patiently scrutinizes a space bounded by string harmonics and electronic resonance. Rasten uses just intonation to maximize the radiance of his sounds and re-tunes while playing to subtly manage the harmonic proximity between his vibrations and Kalman’s long tones. The synth supplies a bit of slow-motion melody. The album’s two pieces were performed in real time, and the effort involved in maintaining precise harmonic distance gives the music a subtle but undeniable charge. The title mentions winds, but this music feels more like a sonic representation of slight but steady breezes.

Bill Meyer

Matt Karmil — STS371 (Smalltown Supersound)

STS371 by Matt Karmil

UK producer Matt Karmil’s latest release STS371 mines a lode of straight ahead acid house and techno laced with enough glitch and twitch to appeal to the head as much as the body. Lead single “PB” is a maximalist concoction of ricocheting hi-hat, blurting bass, the panting of the short distance runner and an undercurrent of soft white noise. Karmil uses just a few simple elements to build his tracks which foreground the beats. Hi-hat and kick drums drop on tracks like “SR/WB” to highlight woozy synth washes. It’s just enough to let you breathe before the high energy tempos return and the strobes flash once more. STS371 touches on Force Inc clicks and cuts and ~scape minimalism beneath the rhythms but most of all Karmil is interested in keeping you on your feet. Mission accomplished.  

Andrew Forell

 Kevin Krauter — Full Hand (Bayonet Records)

Full Hand by Kevin Krauter

Indiana musician Kevin Krauter’s sophomore album Full Hand floats by like a summer breeze. The Hoops bassist plumbs 1980s AOR and coats it in an agreeable fuzz to produce 12 tracks of gossamer dream pop heavy on atmosphere if not always individually memorable. Lyrically Krauter mines his memories and experiences growing up in a religious household, self-discovery and coming of age with poetic grace that his delivers over drum machines, hazy synths, delicate layers of guitar, and low-key yearning vocals.

At his most direct on the title track and “Pretty Boy”, Krauter explores queer identity and his wish to be himself and express his desire. “Green Eyes” and “How” confront the dilemmas of doing just that. The songs are less confessional or revelatory than the sound of Krauter working things out in real time, allowing his audience the privilege of listening as he does so. There are no “big” moments but one comes away inspired by his words and warmed by his music.

Andrew Forell

 Nap Eyes — Snapshot of a Beginner (Jagjaguwar)

Album number four sees Nap Eyes open up to take in broader, sleeker vistas. For the most part, lackadaisical country-rock’n’roll is nudged towards expansiveness by spacey guitars borrowed from My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything. Nigel Chapman steps forward into his front man role with more aplomb than on preceding albums, marshalling his bandmates around him to explore more colorful musical territories. Most successful are the singles, especially opener “So Tired,” plus the canny repurposing of the “Paint It Black” riff on “Real Thoughts,” and the deft guitar work on “Dark Link.” Sometimes there’s a loss of focus, a feeling of stretching for something just beyond reach. But that’s OK; after all, the shrugging acceptance of their shortcomings is right there in the album title.

Tim Clarke

 Peel Dream Magazine — Agitprop Alterna (Slumberland / Tough Love)

Agitprop Alterna by Peel Dream Magazine

On second album Agitprop Alterna, Peel Dream Magazine sound just like early Stereolab, with occasional blasts of shoe-gazey guitar thrown in for good measure. It may come across as reductive, even dismissive, to make such an overt comparison, but there’s no getting round it. With Stereolab’s comeback reminding everyone how beloved the band is, it’s heartening that there are new bands carrying the torch of their glorious aesthetic. To anyone who grew up in the 1990s listening to this stuff, it’ll no doubt be startling how well Joe Stevens has pulled this off. It’s a love letter to the sound of droning organs, guitars hammering away at major sevenths, driving rhythms and zoned-out but tuneful vocals. It’s derivative, sure, but it’s so well done, and the song writing is so solid that the appeal is undeniable. A recording of John Peel’s reassuringly deadpan radio patter even makes an appearance on “Wood Paneling Pt 2,” midway through the album, as if posthumously giving the band his blessing. I can’t argue with that.  

Tim Clarke

 Sign of Evil — Psychodelic Horror (Caligari Records)

Psychodelic Horror by SIGN OF EVIL

Maybe music this astoundingly stupid shouldn’t be quite so fun. But Sign of Evil, a one-man-black-metal-psychobilly-mash-up from Chile, makes a racket that’s so oddly deranged that it’s hard not to be charmed. Imagine if Link Wray somehow managed to walk into a Dark Throne practice session, c. 1995, and decided to jam, and you might conjure some of the strangeness you’ll encounter on the doltishly titled Psychodelic Horror. It’s fitting that the best song on the tape is simply called “Horror.” Nuff said. But check out the whacko piano that Witchfucker (yep) gamely pounds through the song’s first 30 seconds, and then the wheezy guitar tone he abuses your ear with when the metal portion of the song starts. These are not the sounds of a well-adjusted intelligence. Nor are they the sorts of sounds made by jackasses that cynically profess misanthropic allegiance to Satan, even as they enjoy decades-long careers in the music industry. Watain and Gorgoroth and Dark Funeral only wish they could be this legitimately unhinged. It helps that Witchfucker isn’t a loathsome racist. Rock on, you weirdo.

Jonathan Shaw

 Tré Burt — Caught It From the Rye (Oh Boy)

Caught It From The Rye by Tre Burt

Tré Burt has a rough-edged voice and fiery way with the harmonica that can’t help but remind of a certain Nobel Prize winning songwriter, though his words are less oblique. This debut album has a raspy, down-home charm, framed by raucous acoustic strumming and forthright Americana melodies. The winner here is the title track, which glancingly references the J.D. Salinger classic, but mostly reflects a soulful, restless search for meaning in art and life and music. “All my favorite paintings/ they keep on fallin' down/And I need savin' by the grace of god/But I know he's off creatin' /another one like me,” croons Burt with sandy sincerity. It’s a resilient sort of music, where Burt’s yowling voice plumbs emotional depths, but his rambling guitar line maintains a steady cheer. Burt got his big chance from John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, and as that songwriter hovers near death, it’s a good time to celebrate his legacy of leaving the ladder up.

Jennifer Kelly

 Michael Vallera — Window In (Denovali)

Window In by Michael Vallera

Chicago photographer, musician and composer Michael Vallera releases Window In, a four-track album of ambient manipulated guitar and electronic drone. Vallera works in a liminal space between actuality and potential, with continual, albeit almost imperceptible, shifts from the general and the hyper-specific. He brings a photographic eye to his compositions. They are the aural equivalent of seascapes in which one basks before one is drawn to details and the secrets beneath. Vallera’s tracks float by on luxurious oceanic swells with undercurrents of hiss, subaquatic rumbles, the blips and bleeps of luminescent trench dwellers. In the process the source, the guitar, is rendered unrecognizable, erased from the results leaving only disembodied sounds that ironically feel anchored in the real. Fans of Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas project, Fennesz’ guitar based ambient music or Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops will find much to appreciate here. Window In is a meditation on stillness and calm in the eye of powerful natural forces, something we always need but more so now.

Andrew Forell

 Windy & Carl — Allegiance and Conviction (Kranky)

Allegiance and Conviction by Windy & Carl

Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren have been creating ambient space-rock for nearly 30 years now. The couple’s cosmic yet intimate output may have slowed — this is their first album since 2012’s We Will Always Be — but their sound possesses a timeless resonance. Stepping into their river of watery guitar and bass drones in 2020 feels like little has changed since we last left them — and yet, strangely, everything is new. Windy’s voice makes tentative yet emotionally insistent appearances on five of these six tracks, her words hinting at small-scale revolutions (“In the underground, we’ve got a job to do” — “The Stranger”). “Will I See the Dawn” is the only wordless piece, where electric piano and tape hiss manage to speak volumes. At only 38 minutes, this is a short album for Windy & Carl, but one that has enough shadowy depths to qualify as a worthwhile addition to their intimidating discography.  

Tim Clarke

[conversationsincontemporaryart]

Aaron McIntosh

Friday, October 25 at 6:00pm Concordia University, VA-114 1395 René-Lévesque Blvd W. aaronmcintosh.com

This conversation is a meander through interspecies relationality. What are the implications for queer “worldmaking” as it encounters the heteronormative, colonialist understandings of nature and ecology? Aaron McIntosh’s own upbringing by generations of farmers impressed upon him a clear distinction between cultivation and ferality. Linking the very human-centered concept of “weeds” with xenophobia and homophobia, he launched the Invasive Queer Kudzu project, which destigmatizes and reclaims the invasive kudzu vine to exponential grow LGBTQ2+ visibility across the Southern United States. Informed by critical readings in queer history, nature studies, queer ecology and ethnobotany, this conversation asks us to imagine queerness entangled with nature-based undercurrents, more akin to the sexually-expressive and gender-variant dynamisms of the plant world.   Bio Aaron McIntosh is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work mines the intersections of material culture, family tradition, sexual desire and identity politics in a range of works including quilts, sculpture, collage, and writing. His exhibition record includes numerous solo and group exhibitions and his residencies include Haystack Mountain School of Craft, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and Banff Centre for Creative Arts. His critical writing has been published in the Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, Surface Design Journal, and the Journal of Modern Craft. He currently lives and works in Montréal, where he is Associate Professor of Fibres & Material Practices at Concordia University. Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art (CICA) events is free and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve and the lectures are held in English. To learn more about CICA and to access recordings of previous lectures, please visit our website. concordia.ca/cica

___ Cette conversation est une flânerie des relations inter-espèce. Quelles sont les implications de la création d’un monde queer en terme d’hétéronormativité et de conceptions coloniale de la nature et de l’écologie? Pour Aaron McIntosh, élevé par des générations d’agriculteurs, la distinction entre cultivation et féralité a été inculqué à un très jeune âge. Reliant le concept de «mauvaises herbes» à la xénophobie et à l'homophobie, il a lancé le projet Invasive Queer Kudzu, qui vise à déstigmatiser et à récupérer le kudzu, une plante envahissante, afin d'accroître la visibilité des LGBTQ2+ dans le Sud des États-Unis. S'appuyant sur des analyses critiques de l'histoire queer, d’histoire naturelle, de l'écologie queer et de l'ethnobotanique, cette conversation nous demande d'imaginer que les vies queer entremêlées avec le naturel. Peut-être en tant qu’humains nous sommes plus reliés aux différents modes d’expression de genre et sexualité propres au monde végétal que ce que l’on pense.   Biographie Aaron McIntosh est un artiste interdisciplinaire dont le travail explore les intersections de la culture matérielle, de la tradition familiale, du désir sexuel et de la politique identitaire dans diverses œuvres, notamment des quilts, sculptures, collages ainsi que des essais. Il a exposé internationalement dans de nombreuses expositions de groupe ainsi que plusieurs expositions individuelles aux Etats-Unis. Ses résidences incluent Haystack Mountain School of Craft, le Virginia Center for Creative Arts et le Banff Centre. Ses écrits critiques ont été publiés dans le Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, Surface Design Journal et The Journal of Modern Craft. Il vit et travaille à Montréal, où il est professeur agrégé en Fibres & Pratiques Matérielles à l'Université Concordia. Gratuites et ouvertes au public, toutes les activités du Cycle de conversations sur l’art contemporain (Conversations in Contemporary Art ou CICA) sont tenues en anglais. Premiers arrivés, premiers servis! Pour en savoir plus sur le CICA et regarder les conversations des années précédentes, consultez la page concordia.ca/cica. concordia.ca/cica

[justinplayscello]

Ending my @banffcentre residency by taking down the last of my #solargraphy cameras, this time a two week exposure from the peak of tunnel mountain! (at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3f4sbighyi/?igshid=13rg1kmtybge4

[fuckyeahyonicsymbols]

The Cave

Images from Young Joon Kwak's collaborative exhibition, The Cave, at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

I recommend going to Kwak's portfolio site to read the artist's statement because there is a lot going on here. Principally, the exhibition takes its name from the a natural feature of Banff, Alberta, the Cave and Basin site, which was the first site in Canada to be designated as a National Park. The cave is significant for a number of other reasons, particularly its sacred uses by the Stoney Nakota nation, and the fact that it is the only home of the Banff Snail, a tiny gastropod found nowhere else in the world.  

Most of the included pieces abstract or distort conventional ideas of sex, gender, and sexuality.  The ones which I found most striking, once I knew what they were (and there is no signage - I was just lucky enough to be able to attend a curator’s tour), were the objects on the pillars.  These sculptures are made of the melted and distorted parts of fleshlights (a masturbation toy designed for use with a penis, for those of you happily in ignorance), in one case turned inside-out.  In this inverted form, the remains of the fleshlights become even more alien, deeply unsettling, a bodily/non-bodily horror.  The melted metal parts, shaped into almost a human hand, take on an ethereal, fungoid life of their own.

Kwak encounters and reacts to the “social concepts of nature and outdoor culture” which are a part of the atmosphere of Banff the town, Banff the park, Banff the natural space, and Banff the popular, fictionalized image.  Subverted here also is the idea of a “man cave,”  and the natural world as a rigidly masculinized space.  The gauzy, tawdry drapery of the tent piece particularly drags this notion out in absurd style.  Rather than a practical shelter, the tent becomes a diaphanous cocoon, more illusion and instagram than haven.

In this way, it almost seems that Kwak is maintaining their exclusion from the outdoor world, imposing their body on the space, but ultimately remaining inimical to it.  In the main video piece, Kwak and Ye wander through the urban and natural spaces of Banff, alternately ethereal and grotesque, seemingly desperate for belonging, or at least survival.  Of course, I am not unaware of my own subject position in viewing all of this, particularly my position as an outdoor educator and a female person in the context of the wilderness.  Watching the pair hike up mountain slopes in heels, dragging wheeled luggage and draping tinsel from trees causes me almost visceral sympathetic pain.  But with this is in some ways how we all approach first experiences - with discomfort and struggle, clinging to the things which are familiar and comfortable to us.

However, this struggle and exclusion does not seem to be a comment on femininity and non-masculine identity being at odds with the natural space.  One of my old favourite video art pieces, the Lesbian National Parks and Services: A Force of Nature by Shawna Dempsey and Lori Millan, which is also set in Banff and radically rearranges the assumption of female and feminized bodies in the wilderness setting.  Adrian Stimson’s Buffalo Boy’s Why Not?, another video piece, also tackles expectations of gender, but focuses on the commodification of the First Nations experience by tourism, and the places this intersects with gender and sexuality.

Overall, The Cave is a hodge-podge, a space weirdly alien, at least to me.  Every piece included by Kwak was absolutely part of the overall theme, but I think that the net was cast too broadly for such a small exhibition and led to a confusion of voices.  Perhaps this confusion is the real take-away from the exhibition; in trying to fit themselves into the space of Banff, or Banff into themselves, Kwak has created an unresolved, limbo-like space.  It is not a destination, but a question. I can’t say that I figured out what that was.

Other artists who contributed or lent their work to this piece included Marvin Astorga, Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Adrian Stimson, and Kim Ye.  Most of these artists were included for their own prior interpretations of the site of Banff, either physically or ideologically.

Photo credit: 'twas I.

[banffcentrelibraryandarchives]

Artists’ book display for the week of November 19th, 2018

Revelations by Louise Odes Neaderland- Accord, NY : Bone Hollow, 1996

Letters patterns structures  by Andrew Torel, Mayne Island, British Columbia : Perro Verlag Books by Artists, 2010

World Unknown by Dean McNeil, 1995

Domesticated site contested terrain by Kathy Constantinides- Ann Arbor, MI : On Site Press, 1989