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Maria Whiteman's Exhibition continues at Latitude 53

Taken in the University of Alberta's Museum of Zoology and Paris' La Musée Fragonard, these large-format photographs of pickled animals and their display settings is driven by questions about how we display and discuss animals. Maria Whiteman examines the rapidly-changing world of scientific classification where very old ideas-complicated hierarchical cate- gories built on careful observation-are being reexamined in an age of genetic catalogues.

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Printmaking technicians give their program continuity, wisdom

The University of Alberta's printmaking program is known the world over as one of the top programs of its kind. When students leave the U of A, they are not only academically versed in the history and theories behind the art form, but also among the most technically sound.

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Art and Design Professor, Robert Lederer, shares expertise with students and staff of Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM Campus) Guadalajara, Mexico

The Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM Campus) and the University of Alberta have joined to develop a program called "The Academic Leaders of the University of Alberta at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara". This program enhances the quality of ITESM students' academic experience and it reaffirms ITESM's commitment to developing and sharing knowledge within the university and in the greater community. The program consists in identifying prominent professors at the University of Alberta and inviting them to the Tecnológico de Monterrey campus in order to share their knowledge and experience with the students and professors in different programs.

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Sean Caulfield & Royden Mills : Separation Point

In the latest installation by Sean Caulfield and Royden Mills, an implied future meets an observed past. As if in a lab experiment, the moment is suspended and movement forward or back seems possible. The scientists - or were they artists? - have disappeared; the project sits in limbo. Rich visual evidence of biological and technological processes awaits discovery.

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U of A artists take Manhattan

It was the kind of opening artists dream about: a chic gallery in the heart of New York's art district, hundreds of people dazzled by the works on display, editors from some of the news organizations picking up on the buzz and even an appearance by international singing star Josh Groban.

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"Tricycle" Group Installs Public Sculpture in Sherwood Park

Department of Art and Design Contract Instructors Catherine Burgess, Royden Mills and Professor Emeritus Walter Jule, artists collectively known as Tricycle, recently completed a public art sculpture commission in Sherwood Park. Titled "Momentum", the installation took place this summer in front of the new multi-purpose civic facility, Centre in the Park.

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Call for Papers: Instability in Visual and Material Cultures

The Art and Design Graduate Student Association (ADGSA) at the University of Alberta currently seeks proposals for a joint graduate student symposium and exhibition on the topic of instability in art and design. We are interested in academic and creative projects that address the role of inconstancy, unpredictability, degradation, oscillation, and/or transformation in cultural production. Together, the two events will promote an understanding of instability not as a hindrance or limitation, but as a pervasive condition that can be exposed and even harnessed to productive critical ends.

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Art and Design Students Intern at Sculpture Residency

This year Carly Greene and Jessica McCoy were chosen to intern at the Franconia Sculpture Park in Minneapolis. Offering a unique blend of work, residence and exhibition space since 1996, Franconia brings together local, national and international artists. The 20-acre park features a rotating collection of over 85 sculptures, and has established a leading reputation as an innovative sculpture park.

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Department Members Honored at Awards Ceremony

Professors representing all areas of research in the Department of Art and Design were presented with awards at the recent Celebrate! Teaching. Learning. Research ceremony held at the Myer Horowitz Theatre. Formerly held bi-annually, the celebrations have been collapsed this year and reinvented as a singular grand event.

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Wave Project celebrates 100th anniversary of Marshall McLuhan

July 21st this year marked the centenary of Marshall McLuhan's birth in Edmonton. The popular thinker and media theorist, famous for his slogan "the medium is the message" and coining the phrase "global village", has had a profound impact on how we think about mass media and communication technologies. The Wave Project, an ongoing art and media installation, invites viewers to participate in exploring the "tribal and immersive character of new media."

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Fine Arts Professor and official Canadian War Artist, Allen Ball, presents exhibition at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital

Organized around Remembrance Day Observances on November 11, 2011, the Blue Curve Gallery presents Ode of Remembrance: Art at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital by Allen Ball. This solo exhibition combines a montage of images drawn from Ball's series of works developed on a tour of duty as an official Canadian War Artist in El Gorah, Egypt. This work brings together his interests in the potential of digitally mediated imagery and poetry, incorporating the text to Laurence Binyon's Ode of Remembrance, from his poem For the Fallen. With this large-scale installation, Ball interrogates how an artist can represent the experience of modern warfare, directly engaging with the recognized challenges of documenting global conflict in our image-saturated context.

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HADVC Wins Approval for PhD Program

This week the Minister of Advanced Education granted formal approval for the long awaited PhD program in the History of Art, Design and Visual Culture.

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Fine Arts Professor featured in the journal Public: Art, Culture, Ideas

Maria Whiteman, assistant professor of Drawing and Intermedia, presents her photographic series Hiking the Suburbs. The current issue of Public explores the suburbs as dwelling in transition, as utopian vision, a way of life, a built form and as a significant economic and political dimension of the global phenomenon of urbanization.

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Centennial professor to take printmaking program to new heights

A forthcoming international visual arts and dance exhibition, led by University of Alberta printmaking professor Sean Caulfield, will raise questions about how issues in Canadian society--such as how the emergence of new technologies, biomedical research and an aging population--impact contemporary perceptions of the body.

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Art and Design Professor Gets Ripped for Research

Lianne McTavish, a 43-year-old Professor of the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture recently participated in a bodybuilding competition. She pumped iron, dieted down, and donned a blinged-out bikini in order to analyze the visual culture of bodybuilding as an insider. She blogs about the experience on feministfiguregirl.com.

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Multimedia art exhibit captures Edmonton-born technology thinker's complex critical ideas

The Marshall McLuhan Edmonton Centenary celebrates the life and works of one of Edmonton's most influential and legendary scholars. As part of the celebrations, a new exhibition that brought artists from as far away as Paris has opened in Edmonton.

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Nextfest 2011 features the visual art of Department of Art and Design students

Annual Edmonton Theater festival, Nextfest, is an important presenter of visual art in Edmonton. Like their counterparts in theatre, young visual artists -- many of them affiliated with the U of A Department of Art and Design -- present work that is edgy, multi-disciplinary and boundary pushing.

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Matthew Arrigo's art work at the International Print Centre New York's 2011 Summer exhibition

Current Art and Design graduate student Matthew Arrigo will exhibit work in the prestigious International Print Centre New York's New Prints 2011/Summer exhibition.

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BDes student Iwona Faferek wins top Society of Graphic Designers of Canada scholarship

Bachelor of Design student Iwona Faferek has been awarded the top scholarship offered by the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. The Competition recognizes Canadian design achievement and funds deserving students, allowing them to expand their understanding of the design profession.

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Work by Art and Design professors Sue Colberg and Sean Caulfield featured in exhibition in Houston, Texas

Art League Houston's main gallery features the exhibition Darkfire, a unique collaborative project by artist Sean Caulfield, designer Sue Colberg and writer Jonathan Hart. Darkfire is a series of intaglio prints and poems inspired by passages of text from Dante's epic poem, The Divine Comedy.

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Allen Ball: Photography in a State of Exception: Documents of Contemporary War

Official war art in Canada dates back to 1916. Over its history, some of Canada's most highly recognized and influential artists have participated in the various Canadian war artists programs. Allen Ball's project departs from historical approaches to Canadian war art and, in particular, from the valorization of battle scenes, mythologic depictions of the war machine, and the heroic nature of much of its portraiture. Instead, Photography in a State of Exception offers a critical counter-point that will serve as the basis for an interdisciplinary panel discussion.

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'Life-enriching' design exhibition highlights the best of the discipline

Imagine not having to give up your home to take up residency in an assisted-living facility simply because of old age, or having seamless access to buildings and services while using a wheelchair. What about a health-care system where computer scientists, designers, architects, pharmacists and a host of other professionals work together to provide the ultimate care?

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Leaving a permanent life-sized water mark on Alberta

Liz Ingram has a curious fascination with water. Her interest in our relationship with the element, its healing values and importance to our being, influences much of her artwork. Perhaps in keeping with that inquisitiveness, her latest work, Confluence Through the Looking Glass, sees water at its core.

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Cabinets of Curiosity: A display by M.Des students from the Department of Art & Design

This is the beginning of an ongoing collaboration between Edmonton Public Library and the Department of Art & Design.

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New Visiting Scholar in Art and Design

Yasser Abdelrahim joins the Department of Art and Design for a year as Visiting Scholar. Dr. Abdelrahim received a Ph.D. in communication from the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University in 2006 and has recently worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Balamand, Lebanon. Dr. Abdelrahim also worked as Art Director of the Egyptian Armed Forces newspaper.

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Koichi Yamamoto Exhibition Opens at the Coker Gallery

And exhibition of prints by Koichi Yamamoto is featured at the Cecelia Coker Bell Gallery at Coker College in Hartsville, South Carolina. Yamamoto, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee School of Art, is a graduate of the University of Alberta Department of Art and Design (MFA 1999).

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Mitch Mitchell Prize Winner at the Boston Printmakers Biennial Exhibit

Mitch Mitchell, a graduate of the University of Alberta Department of Art and Design (MFA 2009), has been awarded The Otis Philbrick Memorial Prize at the Boston Printmakers Biennial, a prize that includes a purchase award and inclusion of the work in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Gordana Zivkovic Awarded AFA Visual Arts Project Grant

Contract academic instructor in the Department of Art & Design, Gordana Zivkovic, has been awarded an Alberta Foundation for the Arts Project Grant for a project entitled "Cinecitta", a series of large scale paintings that relate to the cinematic experience.

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Perceptions of Promise Opens at the Glenbow Museum

The exhibition Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology, Society and Art opened at Calgary's Glenbow museum on January 6. This important exhibition features the work of a number of U of A professors of Art and Design.