On the evening of Sunday 17th November Jorge Frascara, one third of the trio responsible for founding the Visual Communication Design program at the University of Alberta, accepted the prestigious Team Icograda Achievement Award on behalf of his colleagues Walter Jungkind and Peter Bartl.
Like over sixty cities all over the globe, Edmonton is regularly host to Nerd Nite, a gathering of knowledge-seekers at a local watering hole hoping to enjoy a series of 20-min presentations on all areas of life, from topics as diverse as animal biology, mathematical phenomena, and the history of underground music.
On October 9th North Bay Ontario resident and University of Alberta Alumnus Duane Linklater was announced at the 2013 recipient of the Sobey Art Award, joining an elite dozen Canadian artists who have received the award since its inception in 2002. Duane graduated from the University of Alberta in 2003 with a BA in Native Studies and a minor in Art & Design, where he studied under the tutelage of Painting Professor Allen Ball.
The accompanying irony and host of challenges for a fine arts professor of painting being sent in to explore this literal black-and-white world of the extremely small was not lost on Allen Ball, who just finished off a year-long posting as the Scholar in Residence for Arts Research in Nanotechnology.
Eight wood block-printed sheets are displayed across the wall, composing a complete and lofty view of "all under heaven." Words printed on it flatten the gently modeled landscape from three to two-dimensions; the title, "A Complete Map of the Great Qing’s Ten-thousand Year Unified [Realm] of All Under Heaven" (大清萬年一統天下全圖) floats to the right above hump-backed waves encircling the islands of Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, and Taiwan. At the centre, on the mainland of China, cities are simple circled names. Administrative centres are picked out in white. Rivers run like veins throughout. To the far left, what might be called the "Far West," beyond the notched lines denoting the Great Wall, lie England, Holland, and the "Small" and "Great" "Western Oceans" (小西洋，大西洋).
By the time Laila Steen finished high school in Norway and later decided she was ready to attend university, she was certain of two things. She wanted to study design, and she didn't want to do it in her country.
Current MFA printmaking candidates Grace Sippy and Amanda Forrest-Chan at the University of Alberta have won significant awards this year. In addition, former printmaking graduates Matthew J. Rangel, Mitch Mitchell, Shannon Collis and Tracy Templeton have all recently been granted tenure track appointments in Canada and abroad.
(Edmonton) Sun-splashed white winters and its northern location have inspired the design of the University of Alberta's first-ever Community Connections Awards. When the winners are honoured May 23 at Edmonton City Hall, they will each take home a white snowball-shaped sculpture created by two proud U of A Faculty of Arts students.
Lianne McTavish's new book Defining the Modern Museum (published by the University of Toronto Press) explores the history of the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, as well as other organizations in Canada, the United States, and Europe, to challenge assumptions about what a museum is, what function it serves, and who partakes in its ongoing formation. In particular, McTavish focuses on the culture of exchange 'between museums,' linking economic, educational, and other interests. She has undertaken extensive archival research in order to study such themes as the commodification of museums, museums and entertainment, and the professionalization of museum workers, which are currently debated in scholarship devoted to critical museum theory and museum practice.
Josée Aubin Oullette is one of ten artists to receive a prestigious Edmonton Artists' Trust Fund Award. After completing her BFA in the University of Alberta's Art and Design department in 2007, Oullette relocated to Scotland where she continued to pursue her education. In 2012 she completed her Masters of Fine Art, Interdisciplinary Studio Practice, at the Glasgow School of Art. Ouellette has exhibited locally through Nextfest, the Works Festival and ArtsHab. From 2007-2010, she worked as the Visual Arts Curator for Nextfest and created many self-organised art projects under the name of Institute Parachute, such as The Portable Festival of Portable Art (2007-2010) and Cabinet Gallery (2007-2009).
For the last four years Blue Skys studios have provided an ideal working space for recent U of A Art and Design graduates. Blue Skys is currently the studio home of MFA graduates Kim Sala, Brenda Christiansen, Scott Cumberland, Lindsay Knox and Alma Visscher. Along with earlier tenants Sherri Chaba, Anna House and Yan Geng, these artists have found this a perfect home base where they can develop viable post graduate art practices and extend the camaraderie and artistic dialogue from their student days.
The upcoming Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art, to be held at the Art Gallery of Alberta in 2013, will be guest curated by award-winning critic and independent curator Nancy Tousley. Of the seven Edmonton-based artists included in the exhibition, four have connections with the Department of Art and Design: Alysha Creighton, Maria Whiteman, Sherri Chaba, and Gabrielle Paré.
InSight 2: Engaging the Health Humanities, an international exhibition and publication offering frameworks for examining linkages, experiences, visualisations and productive imaginings at the nexus of the health humanities, design and community engagement.