Thursday 23 September 2010 @ 7 PM @ Aqua Books 274 Garry Street

László Moholy-Nagy and Feminism: The Origins of his Photographic Practice

In this lecture Dr. Botar will present his research on Moholy-Nagy’s early exposure to a circle of Feminist photographers in Budapest, and his contacts during the early ’20s with German women’s communes and their work with the photogram. These experiences helped inspire him to write his highly influential Bauhaus book Painting, Photography, Film (1925), his manifesto of the “New Vision,” and laid the foundation for one of the most important Modernist photographic practices of the 20th century.

Currently, an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Oliver A.I. Botar’s research regards early twentieth-century Central European Modernism with an emphasis on Hungary and Germany plus “Biocentrism” and Modernism in early to mid-twentieth-century art, architecture and photography, and the history of art in new media (with a particular focus on the art of László Moholy-Nagy).

The Focal Points Lecture series is generously funded by The W. H. and S.E. Loewen Foundation, and sponsored by The Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg, and Aqua Books.

Exhibition 04 August - 28 August 2010

TRY YOUR OWN PINHOLE EXPERIMENT: Thursday 12 August, 4:00-8:00 p.m.

PINHOLE ROUND TABLE: Thursday 26 August, 7:00 p.m.

In their second exhibition, the Pinhole Artist Collective [PAC] displays a series of pinhole film canister cameras and scans of solargraphs. The members of PAC dispersed these little black cameras throughout the city and country. They sat quietly, exposing for weeks or months. Try features the colourful traces of the sun’s path across this space and time. The exhibition includes solarcams and solargraphs and references the location of the cameras.

TRY YOUR OWN PINHOLE EXPERIMENT
PAC will host a ‘try pinhole photography’ community event where – in exchange for a refundable deposit – you can try a pinhole camera and walk away with a paper negative. Pinhole photography is about capturing light in a vessel with an opening made by the prick of a needle. One never quite knows what will be revealed, and that is what is fascinating, mesmerizing and intriguing about pinhole images.

PINHOLE ROUND TABLE
A closing reception for Try in conjunction with PLATFORM’s August Salon Night featuring a round table with PAC members lead by J.J. Kegan McFadden. The exhibition runs until August 28th.

ABOUT PINHOLE ARTIST COLLECTIVE
Established in 2009, PAC is a collective of artists interested in exploring the artistic medium of pinhole photography. In regular gatherings, the collective engages in both constructive criticism and artistic creation. Growing out of the spirit of Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day and a DIY artistic philosophy, they are hands-on, resourceful, and playful. They use analogue and digital processes and are, from time to time, nomadic with their pinhole practices. PAC is: Marian Bulter, Sandra Campbell, Sarah Crawley, William Eakin, Lori Fontaine, Jacquelyn Hebert, Beth Johnson, Jen Loewen, Merrell-Ann Phare, Natasha Peterson, Bonnie Tulloch.

For more information on PAC, contact William Eakin at williameakin@gmail.com or Jen Loewen at ada@knowmatter.ca

Exhibition                                                                                                                                                           04 August - 28 August 2010

Traditional coffee ceremony + opening night: Wednesday 04 August, 7:00 p.m.

The Eritrean Video Art Project [EVAP] is designed to assist the Eritrean community in Winnipeg to enable their youth,(ages 15-30) in partnership with the older generation, to explore their creative voice in art video as a way to articulate their experience of growing up in and navigating two cultures. EVAP intends to dialogue between the generations while also helping the community share its unique perspective and experience with the wider Canadian audience encouraging tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

While the Eritrean community has been established in Winnipeg for 30 years, youth who have grown up in Winnipeg, as well as recent arrivals are all navigating two cultures. At the same time, the older generation, whose cultural values and aesthetics were formed in another place and time, often find it difficult to understand what their youth are trying to say and do. This project is designed to equip emerging Eritrean artists to develop their aesthetic language while also building bridges to others in the community.

Working with Project Coordinator, Karen Cornelius, EVAP matches emerging artists with mentors from Winnipeg’s arts community. This year EVAP artists worked with: Alison Davis, Elvira Finnigan, Sandee Moore, Wendy Buclow, John Courtance, and Nicole Shimonek to create a selection of video art that will be shown at PLATFORM throughout the month.

PLATFORM is pleased to welcome these emerging artists and screen their work for the first time. In true community spirit, there will be a traditional coffee ceremony opening night, where the videos will also be screened. All are welcome.

Pauline Braun will exhibit on P121: August 5 - 26 August 2010.

On the Road is the brainchild of five of Winnipeg’s Artist-Run Centres: Platform: centre for photographic + digital arts, aceartinc., Video Pool Media Arts Centre, La Maison Des Artistes Visuels Francophones, and Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art.

This project is dedicated to the dissemination of contemporary art by cultural producers to diverse communities in Winnipeg and Manitoba in July of 2010. We wish to promote equal access to art and the organizations from which it is disseminated. Thus we are committed to bringing contemporary art to people who have limited access to it due to geographical barriers.

A 1976 Air Stream Trailer will be the shining, silver heart of On The Road, a rip-roaring contemporary art project led by architect Lancelot Coar. Branching from the trailer will be a huge, spidery, fiberglass and fabric frame that will, with community participation, morph into beautiful and strange structures to house a temporary art space. Within the structure we will showcase videos by Manitoban artists, lead art making workshops, and performances by The Abzurbs, a group of mayhem music makers. Each community is warmly invited to help raise the structure and make it their own for the duration of On The Road’s stay.

July 1: LAUNCH PARTY @ La Maisons des artistes visuels (219 Provencher Blvd)
July 2: Urban Barn @ Kenaston Blvd + McGillivray
July 16 + 17: St. Claude, Manitoba
July 20, 21 + 22: Peguis, Manitoba
July 24 + 25: Victoria Beach, Manitoba
July 30: Central Park, Winnipeg
July 31: CLOSING PARTY @ aceartinc. + The Raw Fur Parking Lot (290 McDermot Ave.)

For further information please contact Natasha Peterson, Project Coordinator, at ontheroad.coordinator@gmail.com or 204.942.8183

Follow the project online: http://ontheroadenroute.blogspot.com/

On The Road is generously funded by Winnipeg Arts Council’s Audience Development Grant as well as the Visual Arts Assistance Program through Manitoba Culture, Heritage, and Tourism.

Bruce Hanks exhibits on P121: June 24 - 15 July 2010.

Janessa Brunet exhibits on P121: June 04 - 23 June 2010.

Thursday 27 May 2010, 7PM
Aqua Books, 274 Garry Street

As our inaugural lecturer, Meeka Walsh will be discussing the career of celebrated photographer Robert Frank. Her talk, titled “Fragments of the Autobiographical: Me and Robert Frank” will allow the audience a glimpse into a personal archive reflecting Walsh and Frank’s friendship over the last twenty years. Heavily illustrated and highlighted by anecdotes, this informal lecture will offer a unique opportunity for Winnipeg audiences to reflect on the artistic legacy of Robert Frank.

Meeka Walsh is the editor of Border Crossings. She has contributed essays to a number of catalogues published in Canada and the United States. Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies, among them The Oxford Anthology of Canadian Women Writers. She has also published a collection of short stories, The Garden of Earthly Intimacies. From 1995 to 2000 she was a member of the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal and she served on the Board of the National Gallery from 2001 to 2005. She is a Member of the Executive of Winnipeg’s Plug In ICA. In 2003 Walsh was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Western Magazine Awards Foundation and in 2007 received an award from the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts for her contribution to the visual arts in Canada.

The Focal Points Lecture series is generously funded by The W. H. and S.E. Loewen Foundation, and sponsored by The Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg, and Aqua Books.

ARCANA | Carmen Hathaway

Presented in conjunction with Ritualiz’d, PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts is pleased to announce the launch of a newly commissioned web-based work by Portage la Prairie / Abenaki First Nation artist Carmen Hathaway. The artist’s newest digital work, Arcana, considers notions of ritual in family history, with a focus stemming from several sets of Tarot cards left to Hathaway, painted and illustrated by her maternal grandmother in Europe in the early 1900s.

All are welcome to attend the reception for this web-launch, to take place at PLATFORM Thursday 20 May at 7:00PM. Refreshments will be served.

More information on this commission visit our PLATFORMonline section located in the top right hand corner of our toolbar, or click here.

Exhibition
20 May - 26 June 2010

Opening Reception + Performances
Thursday 20 May, 7;30PM sharp!

Panel Discussion
Thursday 24 June, 7:30PM

PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts is pleased to present the exhibition, Ritualiz’d, featuring Winnipeg-based artists: Leah Decter, Michael Dudeck, and Freya Bjorg Olafson.

Curated by J.J. Kegan McFadden, this coming together of voices is meant to comment on aspects of the past, present, and future of ritual, its place in contemporary society, and what role, if any, the photographic and digital arts play in its presentation and understanding.

LEAH DECTER is an interdisciplinary artist currently living in Winnipeg, Canada. With a background in installation and sculpture her practice has evolved to include video, photography, public intervention and performance. Incorporating cultural and personal iconography, elements of the everyday, and the considered use of a wide vocabulary of materials as integral conceptual components, Decter’s work is rooted in intersections of human experience and social/political issues. She has exhibited widely in Canada, most recently at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and her recent work has exhibiting in the US and toured internationally. She is currently working on several ongoing projects that explore the complexities of human relationships with place through a lens of the contemporary and historical and is undertaking an MFA in New Media at Transart Institute in Linz, Austria. <www.leahdecter.com>

MICHAEL DUDECK is an interdisciplinary multimedia artist and shaman whose works deal with the complicated relationship between humans and nature with undercurrents of gender, identity, and sexuality. His work has been included in School for Young Shamans, curated by AA Bronson for John Connelly Presents (New York City); and in February 2009, Dudeck’s Parthenogenesis [a solo exhibition with accompanying artist book] was simultaneously presented by Pari Nadimi Gallery and Art Metropole in Toronto. <www.michaeldudeck.com>

FREYA BJÖRG OLAFSON is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, audio, and performance. Her work has been presented and exhibited nationally as well as internationally. Over the last year Olafson created a new performance, AVATAR, which was debuted at the nuna (now) festival in 2009. She combines her finesse in movement with the directness of her performance art, video and theoretical studies from the University of Manitoba School of Art and her subsequent completion of a Master of Fine Arts Degree in New Media from the Transart Institute / Donau Universitat in Krems, Austria.<www.freyaolafson.com>