Category: Student Life

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Arts and Culture Student Life

Concordia Arts students collaborate to produce a brand-new exhibit out of a recycled one

Ramona Hallemans pats down straw pulp to make book paper at Concordia’s downtown campus. Photo by Julia Israel // The Concordian.

The students of the special topics art course ARTT 399 get a hands-on learning experience about sustainability in art.

On Feb. 14, a group of 45 students brought their class to Concordia’s 4th Space to work collaboratively and display the making of their project to the public. They are making a book using materials they’ve recycled from a previous Public Art and Sustainability student exhibit at Place des Arts Aiguilleurs in Griffintown.

Straw sculptures, financed by the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM), were erected near the Griffintown REM station in an original student exhibit produced by a cohort of students from multiple universities last summer. This transformation will culminate in a book of poetry and drawings in response to the original student exhibit, commemorating nature lost to city transformation in Griffintown.

Course Teaching Assistant Sabrina Rak said this process imbues the project with transformative power.

“This is really a metaphor, taking the actual straw from the other structure, boiling it with soda ash, and blending it to make paper pulp and making the basis of a book which is paper,” Rak explained.

Sabrina Rak and two students enjoy the messy process of their art over tarp floor lining at Concordia’s downtown campus. Photo by Julia Israel // The Concordian.

Studio Arts student Ramona Hallemans registered for this course to learn practical skills to work in the art industry once they graduate. The class works in collaborating teams on book design, communications, documentation, and grant writing. Hallemans describes this project as one with community collaboration as a central value. 

Ramona Hallemans pats down straw pulp to make book paper at Concordia’s downtown campus. Julia Israel // The Concordian.

The ARTT 399: The Artist as Multi-Hyphenate class will present the exhibit in Concordia’s Visual Arts Visuels (VAV) gallery from May 5 to 11. For updates, follow the course on Instagram at @45_passersby.

Categories
Arts and Culture Student Life

This week’s opportunities for fine arts students

Graphic by Carleen Looney

Check out these upcoming opportunities for emerging artists, including callouts, job listings, networking events and more! 

Discover

From March 7 through May 2, La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (4296 St-Laurent Blvd.) will be hosting Ghinwa Yassine’s new exhibition, When you pour something, it carries the memory of its mold. Yassine is a Lebanese-Canadian “anti-disciplinary” artist who, according to the exhibition text, “searches for a freedom that is a right to carry oneself safely in the world, as one is, in their own truth.” Learn more about the artist and her work at her website here.

Espace Maurice (916 Ontario St.) is currently showing Hypnos, curated by gallerist and Concordia alumnus Marie Ségolène C. Brault. The show features work from Liza Jo Eilers, Caroline Douville, and Maxwell Volkman, which is on view until March 16. Read the exhibition text, by Jeanne Randolph, at this link.

Galerie B-312 (372 Ste-Catherine West St., Space 403) will be showing Danielle Cormier’s latest exhibition Ephemerides. Learn more at the gallery’s website here.

Be sure to check out Centre PHI’s current augmented reality experience entitled Colored: The Unknown Life of Claudette Colvin. From Feb. 7 through April 28, witness the under-told story of Colvin, a 15-year-old Black teenager in the southern United States in 1955. Learn more at the centre’s website here.

Concordia alumnus Valmont “Ignite” Harnois will be presented by Tangente from March 28 through 31 as part of the line-up for their event La soirée dont vous êtes les héros, which will be hosted at Édifice Wilder (1435 Bleury St.). Harnois is a Montréal-based contemporary dance artist. Visit the event’s website here to learn more and buy tickets.

Open calls

The call for the Fibres Student Association annual fibres exhibition is open! This call is open to anyone in Concordia’s Fine Arts program. The deadline to apply will be April 2. Learn more on their instagram page and apply at the link in their bio!

Café chez Téta (227 Rachel St.) is looking for local artists to submit their work to be exhibited as part of their artist-of-the-month series! If you are interested in showcasing your work at this quaint Lebanese café in the Plateau, email melodie@cafechezteta.com. 

Montréal-based arts magazine SUKO has opened their artist call-out for their third volume! Writers, photographers, stylists, designers, activists and artists are encouraged to submit their work that speaks to the theme of “frontiers” to sukomagazine@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions will be April 1. 

Concordi’ART is looking for artists to sell their work at their upcoming student-led conference scheduled for April 2024! For Concordia students, the entrance fee to sell your work is only $10, so be sure to DM Concordi’ART on their instagram account here for more information. 

It’s not too late to submit to the FASA x ASFA x ECA Community Arts Exhibit! Apply at this link by March 12!

Opportunities at The Concordian

As always, artists who want to see their work featured in the paper are encouraged to submit to The Concordian’s Arts & Culture section! 

Our artist spotlight series provides a space for Concordia’s fine arts students to showcase their recent artwork. Send your poetry, short story, photography, digital art, film, documentation of physical works, or performance along with a brief biography (100 words) and an artist’s statement (250 words) to artsculture@theconcordian.com for a chance to be featured in print! 

Email our Arts & Culture Editor Emma Bell for more information at artsculture@theconcordian.com.

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Arts and Culture Photo Essay Student Life

Where I am Writing From

Where I am Writing From, December 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.

These are the desks I wrote my graduate thesis on.

​​Caro (Caroline) DeFrias is an emerging academic, artist, and curator currently based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. They are currently in the final stages of their graduate thesis in art history at Concordia University. Previously, they achieved a Combined Honours with Distinction from the University of King’s College in the historiography of science and technology and anthropology, with a certificate in art history and visual culture, and an unofficial minor in contemporary philosophy.

Their work, through a variety of mediums and forms, explores the embodied politics and poetics of queerness, anticolonial art histories and practices, and notions of inheritance and identity in relation to immigration and (re)settlement. As well, they maintain a critical interest in the construction of the gallery space, the politics and history of display practices, embodied and queer phenomenologies of encounter, and the ethics and pathos of the archive. 

Where I am Writing From, July 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, August 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, September 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, October 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, November 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, December 2023. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, January 2024. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Where I am Writing From, February 2024. Photo by Caro DeFrias.
Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Student Life

Artist Spotlight: Noah Rubel

"Present" the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel

Noah Rubel is a Vermont-raised artist attending Concordia University.

His practice started as a high school freshman, drawing digitally and on paper. Since 2018, he has explored various mediums, especially during his undergraduate career. 

Studying in Montreal, Noah works to understand the various cultures of his peers. Surrounded by a welcoming Latin and French community, Noah now takes inspiration from his fellow international students. Alternatively, he uses this time to understand his own Japanese identity and how to reclaim his family’s lineage through creation and research.

To see more of his work, check out @granoah_art on Instagram!

“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Rubel

Artist Statement

“Present” the Puppet is a giant marionette made entirely of resourced wood and screw hooks. I found the wood and hooks in scrap piles and resource centres. All the pieces were sanded and rounded using woodworking tools and then assembled with screw hooks and wood glue. This piece takes inspiration from the adventures of Carlo Collodi’s wooden puppet, Pinocchio. Throughout the book, Pinnochio finds himself lost and helpless, abandoned almost by the cruelties of reality. While many consequences are a by-product of his delinquent nature, plenty of punishments he faces are undeserved. As the world abandoned Pinocchio, Montreal abandoned this scrap wood.  I wanted to reclaim the wood in this city and give it a purpose, in this case, as a marionette. I gave the puppet the name “Present” because he is a gift. He gave the wood a purpose but also gave something to me. Plenty of objects have personal value, and my piece investigates the value in everything. Living or not, what do we choose to care about? What values do we assign to things? The value I hold in “Present” is a present in itself, since, for any object, the ability to exist is beautiful. 

“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel
“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel
Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Community Student Life

This week’s opportunities for fine arts students

Graphic by Olivia Shan

Looking to start building up your CV? Check out these upcoming opportunities for emerging artists, including callouts, job listings, networking events and more!

Discover

Sex and Self Concordia  has announced their upcoming Paint Night on Feb. 9 at Le Frigo Vert (1440 rue Mackay)! The event will run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. This live model painting session will be guided by art educator Zoe Dedes. Each participant will be given one canvas, once easel, one palette and access to brushes and paint. Visit the link here for tickets.

Be sure not to miss the incredible exhibits on view at Pangée (1305, avenue des Pins O.), including Concordia alumnus Trevor Baird’s Sunkissed, Concordia Fine Arts/Studio Arts Assistant Professor Delphine Hennelly’s Behind the Scenes, and Brandon Morris’s Cathedral Junkie. Read all about these shows at Pangée’s website here.

The Centre communautaire LGBTQ de Montréal (2075 rue Plessis) will be hosting a winter art market on Saturday, Feb. 10 from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. The market will feature paintings, ceramics, textiles and more for sale from local queer and trans artists. Visit the event page for more information.

Artist and curator Didier Morelli, a FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Art History at Concordia University, recently curated the show Artletics, currently on view at Artexte (2, Sainte-Catherine East, room 301) from Jan. 18 through March 30. The show brings together works from a selection of artists who “examine the world of sports through a variety of approaches: by showing bodies in action, by discussing performance and competition, by sharing skills, by creating a link to the community, by revisiting memories, by moving from the collective to the individual, or by evoking the clan, group, or family.” Read the full exhibition text here.  

From Feb. 1 through Feb. 18, multimedia artist Deline Huguet will be exhibiting her show Les corps complexes at Projet Casa (4351 Esplanade Ave). According to the gallery’s announcement of the exhibition, Huguet’s soft-sculptures, works on paper and installations reveal “the discomfort conveyed by relations of domination based on gender identities in contemporary and past space-time.”

On Feb. 16, be sure to visit the Chaos Market at the Hive Cafe from 7 to 11 p.m! There will be unique items of clothing for sale as well as prints and visuals on display. You will be able to buy some drinks at a low cost and listen to some music from underground Montréal artists. For more information, check out the Chaos Market’s Instagram.

Open Calls

Concordia’s Fine Arts Reading Room (FARR) has put out a call for submissions and jurors for their Winter 2024 publication grants. These grants are meant to fund students who would like to publish artist books, zines, exhibition catalogues, creative writing, essays and more! Any kind of book-based project is encouraged. Selected applicants will receive a stipend of $250 for materials, as well as an honorarium of $750. The submission deadline is Feb. 19. For more information, visit this link.

FARR is also accepting applications for their Winter 2024 residency, entitled “Resilient Imaginings.” Undergraduate students that identify as BIPOC and are enrolled in at least one studio arts course are welcome to submit proposals that are rooted in resistance and resilience and thoughtfully engage with the community. The chosen applicant will receive a $100 project stipend, in addition to a $1000 honorarium. The deadline to apply is Feb. 19. Details are available here.

Chouette, a Montréal-based literary magazine, is open for submissions! Send in your fiction, non-fiction, poetry and artwork by March 1. Learn more at their website here. 

Centre PHI launched a call for project proposals as part of their monthly Espaces Incarnés series. Both established and emerging performance artists and collectives whose work involves theatre, music, sound, dance, visual and performing arts are encouraged to submit before Feb. 15 at 11:59 p.m. Follow this link for more information.

Concordia’s Art Volt is now accepting applications for their annual collection! Graduating students who have applied to graduate in the Spring of 2024 and recent alumni—those who have graduated in the last five years—are eligible to submit their work for sale and rental. The submission deadline is Feb. 11 at 11:59 p.m. Visit this link to learn more about eligibility and submission requirements.

Students in Concordia’s MFA Studio Arts and the PhD Humanities programs are encouraged to submit their project proposals for the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s annual exhibition, IGNITION. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 18. Learn more about the submission requirements here.

The city of Montréal is accepting applications for their subsidy program for artists in visual arts and crafts! Professional artists who are actively creating new work in a studio space are able to access financial assistance to support their practice. The deadline to apply is March 31. Learn more about the program here.

Concordia’s FOFA Gallery has put out a call for artwork for their annual Undergraduate Student Exhibition, which is scheduled to open in early 2025. Applicants are encouraged to consider the following themes: disillusion, empathy, aspiration, taking action, resources, revolution, growth, evolution, and interconnectedness. Selected artists will receive a $200 honorarium. See the submission guidelines here.

Jobs

Concordia’s Centre for Gender Advocacy (CGA) is now hiring! They are currently looking to fill their Administrative Coordinator position, a role responsible for the general organization and smooth running of the CGA’s operations. Applicants must be fluent in both French and English in order to be eligible, have at least one year of administrative experience and ideally have lived experiences of the issues faced by the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in Canada. Visit this link for more information on eligibility criteria, job responsibilities, and the application process.

Art Volt is also hiring for two positions! Recent graduates are welcome to apply for their Web & Communication Assistant and Advisor & Sales Coordinator positions before Feb. 19.

Concordia’s Art Education Graduate Student Association (ARTEGS) is seeking workshop facilitators for their May-June 2024 edition of Les ateliers ArtEDU Workshops. Current PhD and MA students in art education are encouraged to submit their ideas for workshops that are designed to inspire established and emerging art educators. This is a paid opportunity, where selected proposals will be compensated for 50 hours at TRAC rates. For more information, visit their website here. 

Opportunities at The Concordian

As always, artists who want to see their work featured in the paper are encouraged to submit to The Concordian’s Arts & Culture section! Our artist spotlight series provides a space for Concordia’s fine arts students to showcase their recent artwork. Send your poetry, photography, digital art, films, or documentation of physical works or performances along with a brief biography (100 words) and an artist’s statement (250 words) to artsculture@theconcordian.com for a chance to be featured in print! 

Email our Arts & Culture Editor Emma Bell for more information at artsculture@theconcordian.com.

Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Student Life

Artist Spotlight: India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner, Performative Tree

India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner, Performative Tree. Photo by BeNjamyn Upshaw-Ruffner

India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner is a Black bi-racial artist, writer, curator and cultural worker from  Montreal. She is currently completing her BFA in Art History and Studio Arts at Concordia  University.

India-Lynn has previously had her writing published in the FOFA Gallery’s Undergraduate Student Exhibition Journal (USE) 2021. Most recently, her work has been shown at Fais-moi l’art gallery in May 2023 in a co-curated exhibition called “Tenderly Reminiscing.” India-Lynn was also a  facilitator/curator for the 2022 Art Matters Festival. She was the artistic and community alliances coordinator at La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse throughout 2022, producing La Centrale’s first digital publication, “[espace variable | placeholder]”. She is now a happy librarian and admin/finance coordinator at the Fine Arts Reading Room of Concordia University.

India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner, Performative Tree. Photo by BeNjamyn Upshaw-Ruffner

I walked around downtown Montreal with a small tree (money plant) in my backpack, and wore plant netting and gardening gloves. It is a commentary on urban planning and its lack of care for trees, reinserting them into cities for aesthetics rather than for their true purpose. I’m employing a playful take on the commodification of nature, asking what it means when I become a tree and wear nature as an accessory. 

India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner
India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner, Performative Tree. Photo by BeNjamyn Upshaw-Ruffner
India-Lynn Upshaw-Ruffner, Performative Tree. Photo by BeNjamyn Upshaw-Ruffner
Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Student Life

Poetry Spotlight: Jessica Wood

Detail. Graphic by Maya Robitaille-Lopez

Jessica Wood is a second-year in creative writing student at Concordia University. A writer her whole life, she particularly enjoys writing creative non-fiction, poetry, and autofiction.

Originally from Vancouver Island, BC, she has been in Montreal for a year and a half and has loved every minute of it. This is the first publication of her writing, and she hopes it will be the first of many.

Graphic by Maya Robitaille-Lopez

In the Dead of Winter (I Can Feel Okay Again!)

maybe 

in the dead of winter I can feel okay again. 

this week is already better! I’m tentatively hopeful, and defiantly confident that 

in the dead of winter, I can feel okay again. 

sure, my heating bill is higher than my friends, who warm their hands on a shared joint, shivering together like molecules as they puff and pass. 

and even though I don’t smoke, I’m standing out there too 

in the dead of winter. I can feel okay again! 

even though 

-my laundry freezes on the walk home (the laundromat dryers eat my quarters and spit out no hot air in return) 

-there’s salt water rings around my boots (I am using all of my towels to block off drafty windows) 

-I have to shovel the stairs if I want to get groceries (I pretend I’m a penguin, imploring myself to laugh when I slip on the sidewalk) 

I am hopeful. and I am confident. 

in the dead of winter, I can feel okay again.

Jessica Wood

Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Student Life

Poetry Spotlight: Steven Gao

Photo by Steven Gao

Born in Jinan, China, and now living in a small town on the west tip of the Montreal island, Steven draws inspiration from his roots and his observation of the world.

He writes his poetry in English, sometimes in Chinese. Gao currently studies history at Concordia University in history. He participated in Twigs & Leaves (a poetry reading event, now defunct) and continues to be a regular participant in another poetry/arts event, Kafé Poe. In his free time, Steven enjoys learning history and doing scale models, as well as photography.

Photo by Steven Gao

Yet Another Morning… Lost?

The sky is crooked, not like if it were smudged by clouds.

But I feel something’s off.

I see the reflection of the lake, reminding me of blinking fish scales.

At what scale?

– I don’t know.

But they flicker randomly.

Should you trust me with a pinch of salt?

My measuring is off, so is the sky, yet the light is on.

Confused indeed.

Is it another day of hallucination?

Or mental condensation?

I still see ripples dancing.

I hear the morning piano go off key.

I smell the burnt coffee.

I feel the floor quaking.

Not again,

Everything goes off the charts!

Or am I trembling?

Ah! I forgot to adjust my lenses…

Photo by Steven Gao
Photo by Steven Gao
Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Community Student Life

This week’s opportunities for fine arts students

Graphic by Olivia Shan

Looking to start building up your CV? Check out these upcoming opportunities for emerging artists, including callouts, job listings, networking events and more!

Discover

Éric Lamontagne’s “The nature of silent things” is currently on view at Art Mûr (5826, rue St-Hubert), and will be ongoing until Feb. 24. Lamontagne’s careful interventions into the surface of his landscape paintings raise some interesting questions regarding the nature of a painting as a mutable object.

OBORO gallery is currently showing “Disobedient Matter” as part of the second edition of Af-flux, Biennale transnationale noire. The group show was curated by Olivier Marboeuf and will be installed until March 16.

On Saturday, Feb. 17, the McCord Stewart museum will be hosting a fashion show, co-curated by Armando Perla, chief curator at the Textile Museum of Canada, and Jason Baerg, multidisciplinary Métis artist and Indigenous futurist, titled “kisewâtisiw myootootow—S/he is Mercifully.” The show will take place throughout the museum’s galleries and will highlight and celebrate Indigenous creativity. Tickets are only $5 for students and free for members of Indigenous communities! 

Open Calls

The Mile End’s Gallery Diagonale is inviting curators, artists and theorists to submit their work for the gallery’s 2025-2026 programming. They are particularly interested in projects concerned with fibres. Submissions will be open until Feb. 29. Learn more about their guidelines on their website here. 

C Magazine has issued an invitation for its readers to submit 100-400-word letters to the editor in response to their most recent publication, issue 156 “CRAFT.” Letters that are selected will be published in the next issue coming out in the spring, and will earn a $100 honorarium. Send your letters to pitch@cmagazine.com by Feb. 25.

The call for applications for the Summer 2024 Concordia Undergraduate Student Research Awards (CUSRA) has been announced! The award, worth $8,120 for 15 weeks of full-time research, is meant to provide students with the opportunity to spend their summer working on a project supervised by a full-time faculty member. The deadline to submit your application materials is Feb. 26, and you can find more information here.

Opportunities at The Concordian!

Want to see your artwork featured in the paper? Submit to the Concordian Arts & Culture section! Our artist spotlight series provides a space for Concordia’s fine arts students to showcase their recent artwork. Send your poetry, photography, digital art, films, or documentation of physical works or performances along with a brief biography (100 words) and an artist’s statement (250 words) to artsculture@theconcordian.com for a chance to be featured in print! 

Are you a graphic designer or illustrator? We are looking for artists to create original illustrations to accompany our creative writing submissions. If you are interested in illustrating poetry, prose, short fiction and creative nonfiction, please submit up to five examples of your work to artsculture@theconcordian.com to be considered for assignments.

Email our Arts & Culture Editor Emma Bell for more information at artsculture@theconcordian.com. 

Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Community Student Life

Student Organized Day of Screenings: Rethinking Palestine Through Films

Graphic by Caro DeFrias

Don’t miss the films screened during Concordia art history student-organised week of events for Palestine.

On the week of Jan. 29, a group of Concordian art history students organised a week of events for Palestine. Their intention was to host meaningful sites of horizontal solidarity, seeking to platform Palestinian artists and stories of resistance in conversation with decolonial art histories and artworks.

Their events included a teach-in on Jan. 29, with Palestinian artists Jenin Yaseen and Sameerah Ahmad, whose work was briefly censored from the Royal Ontario Museum’s exhibition Death: Life’s Greatest Mystery, which opened on Oct. 28, for its depictions of Muslim mourning traditions and the presence of Palestinian subjects. The works of Jewish artists were also removed from display. Following an 18-hour action of solidarity where the artists and 50 supporters rallied outside the museum to challenge its censorship, the pieces were reinstalled. However, the museum placed warnings and context panels next to the artists’ works. 

At the date of this article’s publication the group will host a Day of Film Screenings in collaboration with Raah lab, Raah, a research lab aiming to examine the intersection of migratory processes and media practices, entitled “Decolonizing Memory: Heritage, Displacement and Narratives of Resistance.” The films will screen in Raah Fab, FB. 630.17. Not sure which screening to attend, or missed one you were interested in? Here are details about each screening:

12:30-2pm: The Truth: Lost at Sea (dir. Rifat Audeh, 2017) is an award-winning film that discusses the Israeli attack on the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, consisting of a convoy of six civilian boats from various nations, including Canada, carrying humanitarian aid. The Freedom Flotilla refused Israel’s demand to turn away as they neared Gaza on international waters, and were raided by Israeli Occupation Forces in an overnight attack. Numerous unarmed civilian human rights activists were killed, and the film details the story of this attack and its resulting media coverage from the perspective of one of the survivors. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the director, moderated by Claire Begbie, a PhD candidate in film studies at Concordia. 

3-4:30pm: A series of short films by Forensic Architecture, a research agency, based in Goldsmiths, University of London, which investigates human rights violations including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations. The featured shorts focus on investigations of Palestine/Israel, including:  Conquer and Divide (2019),  Living Archeology in Gaza (2022), Executions and mass graves in Tantura, 23 May 1948 (2023), Destruction and Return in Al-Araqib (2017), Sheikh Jarrah: Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem (2021), and Herbicidal Warfair in Gaza (2019). These films employ cutting-edge techniques in spatial and architectural analysis, open source investigation, digital modelling, and immersive technologies, as well as documentary research, situated interviews, and academic collaboration to discuss the history and current situation in Palestine. The screening will be preceded by a presentation on Forensic Architecture by guest Dr. Tracy Valcourt.

5-6pm: Un-Documented: Unlearning Imperial Plunder (dir. Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, 2019) discusses the treatment of plundered objects in European museums and asylum seekers in the same European countries. Arguing these migrations are interrelated, the film juxtaposes the generous hospitality stolen objects receive by the same countries who deny entry and care to people to whom the objects truly belong. Un-Documented articulates the power of material culture as a bastion of human rights, illuminating the violence of plunder and the urgency of repatriation. This screening will be introduced by art history doctorate student, Alexandra Nordstrom.

6:30-8pm: La Piedra Ausente (The Absent Stone) (dir.  Sandra Rozental and Jesse Lerner, 2013), which details the 1964 theft of the Tlaloc stone, the largest carved stone of the Americas from the town of Coatlinchan to the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. The film explores the importance of so-called ruins of the past in the present day, to shore up the living injury of extraction, the technologies of violence, and the construction of nationalism. This screening will be introduced by art history masters candidate, Karina Roman Justo.

The remainder of the week of action include a Day of Action, including zine making and letter writing, on Jan. 31; a group gallery tour of Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal to critically engage aesthetics of resistance on Feb. 1; and a vigil in collaboration with Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) Concordia on Feb. 2. 

Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Community Student Life

This week’s opportunities for fine arts students!

Graphic by Olivia Shan

Looking to start building up your CV? Check out these upcoming opportunities for emerging artists, including callouts, job listings, networking events, and more!

Discover

First and foremost, be sure not to miss “Datura,” now on view at Espace Maurice (916 Ontario St E Suite 320) until Feb. 17! Curated by Concordia alumni Marie Ségolène C. Brault in her apartment gallery, “Datura” brings together a selection of idiosyncratic works that were created by an eclectic group of artists during a brief residency in Youngstown, Ohio in the fall of 2023. A catalog of the exhibition, beautifully designed by Brault, is now available for presale online.

Window exhibition alert! La Centrale galerie Powerhouse (4296  St Laurent Blvd) is hosting Métis artist Maria-Margaretta’s window display exhibition titled “she makes all things good;” an autobiographical exploration of motherhood and cultural identity. The installation will be on view from Dec. 15 through Jan. 28.

Emma-Kate Guimond, a performance and video artist who earned her BFA in contemporary dance from Concordia University in 2011, is currently exhibiting her show “The Plot” at Centre Clark (5455 Ave. de Gaspé, #114). Guimond’s exhibition neighbours Hédy Gobaa’s show “le devenir pizza” in the adjacent gallery space. Both exhibitions will be on view until Feb. 17.

Concordia’s FoFa gallery (Concordia EV building, ground floor)  has opened its first exhibition of 2024. Their undergraduate student exhibition, “embodied urgencies,” features the work of twelve brilliant artists from Concordia’s fine arts programs. The show will be on view until Feb. 17.   

Open Calls

Carte Blanche, an online literary magazine based in Montréal, is open for submissions for their upcoming Issue 48 until Feb. 15! The theme is open, so submit your poetry, creative nonfiction, comics, photography and more! Read more on their website here.

La Centrale galerie Powerhouse has put out a call to its members for workshop proposals as part of the gallery’s June festivities. Members are encouraged to consider the needs of Montréal’s creative community and propose workshops that will contribute both their practical and creative skills. Workshop facilitators will receive an honorarium of $350 to go toward their project! The deadline is Feb. 29 at midnight. Learn more about the open call here, and if you aren’t a member already, sign up here!

Concordia’s InARTE Journal has put out a call for submissions for their 14th issue, “Enter Play,” which poses the question of how the notion of play informs an artist’s practice or visual language. Artists are invited to submit their playfully creative work by Jan. 30. Learn more on their instagram here.  

The call for proposals for the 11th Emerging Scholars Symposium, organized by Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), now has an extended deadline! Graduate students and recent alumni now have until Jan. 26 to submit their proposals to present their research at any stage at the conference, which will take place on March 21–22. The theme for this year is “Enacting social change through storytelling.”

The Concordia Film Festival (CFF) is a student-run, non-profit festival partnered with Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema (MHSoC). They are looking for submissions for the festival’s 51st edition, due by Jan. 31. The films submitted need to have been made between May 2022 and April 2024, and cannot be longer than 15 minutes. 

Black artists from all of Concordia’s fine arts departments are encouraged to apply for the ASAC x FASA pop-up shop, which will take place in Concordia’s Webster Library  (LB Atrium) on Feb. 15 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The deadline to apply for a table is Jan. 26.

Contest

The Writers Union of Canada is accepting submissions for its 31st annual Short Prose Competition for emerging writers. The winner will be awarded a $2500 prize! The deadline to submit is Feb. 19, 2024. Visit their website to learn more.

Opportunities at The Concordian!

Want to see your artwork featured in a newspaper paper? Submit to The Concordian’s Arts & Culture section! Our artist spotlight series will be providing a space for Concordia’s fine arts students to showcase their recent artwork. Send your poetry, photography, or documentation of physical works or performances along with a brief biography (100 words) and an artist’s statement (250 words) to artsculture@theconcordian.com for a chance to be featured in print! If you are a digital artist or filmmaker, submit your work to be featured on our website! 

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Arts Arts and Culture Exhibit Student Life

Artist spotlight: Princex Naveed

View of the gallery, Princex Naveed’s “Jarring Lots,” Concordia MFA sub gallery. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian

Artist, poet, and “critical pedagogue”, Princex Naveed’s recent showcase “Jarring Lots” exhibited four multimedia installations that constituted the creation component of their MA thesis in Concordia’s INDI program.

Between Jan. 17 and Jan. 19, “Jarring Lots” was exhibited in Concordia’s MFA basement gallery in the Visual Arts building. Upon entering the gallery space during the opening night, visitors were met with a warm welcome with wine and refreshments from the artist, whose clear intention was to create a comfortable and open environment. Galleries are notoriously stuffy, quiet, and riddled with unspoken rules for proper behaviour, however, it was integral to Princex Naveed’s showcase that care was taken to resist these norms. 

View of the gallery, Princex Naveed’s “Jarring Lots,” Concordia MFA sub gallery. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian

The gallery was filled with rich, ambient sound—an untitled, immersive soundscape work by Ghent-based filmmaker and poet, Helle Monne Huisman. The white-noise quality of the sound was a welcome rupture in the more familiar radio-silence of an exhibition space.

The central work in the gallery was their mixed-media installation titled “Tea, Sis!” A rectangular table was set up in the middle of the space, and was filled with red Solo cups—each with an individual tea bag. A small pile of didactic handouts were laid on the table for visitors, on which the artist had printed a statement about the work and the scholarly research that informed it, notably, the work of French writer and poet named Édouard Glissant. 

Detail of Princex Naveed’s “Tea, Sis!” 2024, mixed-media installation. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian

“Tea, Sis! intends to counteract the sterility of the white cube by offering you a hospitable space, creating the potentiality for care_ful encounters between visitors and me,” the handout read. “The white cube” is a direct reference to Brian O’Doherty’s highly influential essay, “Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space,” which offers criticism of the aesthetic of the gallery space as a pristine white void, and how this space impacts the viewing and value of art. 

Lining the gallery walls were 9 printed photographs which documented a performance inspired by Canadian performance artist Sin Wai Kin. According to Princex Naveed, the performance “calls into question mainstream definitions of nationality and culture as well as their underlying gender norms.” Born to a Polish mother and an Irani father in northern Germany, and now based in Canada, Princex Naveed’s own personal history traverses numerous nations and identities, and this performance celebrates that state of flux. 

Lastly, a cozy video installation titled “but i’d rather be a pickle than a cyborg-goddess” was situated in the corner of the gallery. The short video offered an intimate glimpse into the artist’s performative transformation into a dill pickle. 

Princex Naveed, “but i’d rather be a pickle than a cyborg-goddess,” Concordia MFA sub gallery. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian

“It was both mundane and highly meaningful to me, as it has emerged convergently in multiple ecologies I call home (Turtle Island, Eastern Europe, the Middle East),” Naveed said.

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