Please ensure that you arrive with proof of vaccination as per Sask Government mandates.

~

Shadow Breath by Martina Hynan & Monique Blom
From Friday 29th October 
At dearwww.ca & in the Lobby of PAVED/Aka

Char Davies germinal work, Osmose (1995) relied on participants’ breath to direct and guide this immersive VR experience. Martina Hynan & Monique Blom’s ShadowBreath is a response work which explores how breath is created when being “with our environment” rather than simply being “in our environment”.

A shadow-spirit-self is conjured in the piece to probe the entwinement of our breath with the landscape and engage with the breath of the landscape.

The post “ShadowBreath” Public Reception first appeared on PAVED Arts.

The Gallery capacity is five people in the space at a time. To book your private viewing, please email artistic@pavedarts.ca. Proof of vaccination and masks required for entry.

NO I.D. required considers how Indigenous two-spirit artists are presenting the future within the context of their present and their past while revealing ways of thinking about what is to be. NO I.D. required brought together Indigenous artist from Canada to explore visual media stories within the context of two-spirit diaspora.

NO I.D. required is an exploration of two-spirit and the colonization of Indigenous two-spirit. We look to extend the post-colonial explorations of identities and move towards exploring no identification required. It was in 1990 at the Third Annual Native American Gay and Lesbian gathering in Winnipeg, Manitoba, homeland of the Metis and Treaty One Territory, that the term Two-Spirit was agreed to as the best way to describe their community using and adopting a colonized language, English. The term “Two (2) Spirit” acts as a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons as an entry point for understanding queer Indigenous culture. Prior to contact, Indigenous peoples did not have a gender identity assignment. The identity of Two-Spirit has a traditional social and ceremonial role within an Indigenous community, it is masculine, feminine, spiritual, and societal. The colonized language seems to push it to only gender and doesn’t incorporate all the layers of an identity that encompasses all of those things and more. The roles within the Indigenous communities have been lost to colonization, however, as we come out from under the colonizers, Indigenous Two-Spirit are taking back their roles and space within the community. 

For the Indigenous who live, have lived, and are yet to live in two-spirit, this exhibition can provide both reflections and maps to unique cultures that thrive within the Indigenous landscapes. The work will stimulate viewers to reflect upon their own personal and public stories. These encounters and struggles are shaped by Indigenous legends, realities as well as a co-mingling of both fact and fiction.

NO I.D. required consists of exhibition with installation, an artist talk and in-person presentation during the exhibition, along with text on each artists’ stories shared through social media. For the Indigenous who live, have lived, and are yet to live in two-spirit, this exhibition can provide both reflections and maps to unique cultures that thrive within the Indigenous landscapes. The work will stimulate viewers to reflect upon their own personal and public stories. These encounters and struggles are shaped by Indigenous legends, realities as well as a co-mingling of both fact and fiction.

Barron’s selected artists exposes personal and social histories that have contributed to two-spirit identity. Jason Baerg’s realist, new media portrait of his young urbanite life deliberately obscures his face and explores movement through land.  Baerg’s “The Apology” reflects a time in our generation when, in the moment, in those 12 minutes, we were all one. 

Short’s work “Wake Up!” explores their connection to Metis and questions engaging in the shared culture and history of Metis men. How can one explore identity when the history is of men? Short uses the film to create herself as Riel and adopts the identity of man. Will the transition be a guide or a hinderance to learning and adopting Metis culture? Where are the women? 

Lajoie’s Métis Femme Bodies is an exploration into the experiences of what has become a repressed identity in both Indigenous and femme forms. Lajoie is a Queer Métis multi-disciplinary artist honoring, engaging, and amplifying the voices of their Indigiqueer communities through storytelling in the forms of printmaking, photography, and moving-image on Treaty 1 Territory, the lands of their ancestors. 

BIOS
Jessie Short
Jessie Ray Short is an artist, filmmaker and independent curator of Métis, Ukrainian and German descent. Jessie Ray’s practice involves uncovering connections between a myriad of topics that interest her, including, but not limited to, space and time, Indigenous and settler histories, Métis visual culture, personal narratives, spiritual and scientific belief systems, parallel universes, electricity, aliens and non-human being(s). Jessie Ray explores these topics using mediums such as film and video, performance art, finger weaving, sewing, writing and curating. She has been invited to show her work nationally and internationally, including at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, at La Chambre Blanche in Québec City, Art Mûr Berlin (a satellite exhibition of the Contemporary Native Art Biennial/BACA) in Germany, and at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in New Zealand. Jessie Ray is deeply grateful to be based in oskana kâ-asastêki or Pile of Bones (also known as Regina) in Treaty 4 territory.

Chanelle Lajoie
Chanelle Lajoie is a Queer Métis multi-disciplinary artist from Treaty 1 Territory honoring, engaging, and amplifying the voices of the communities to which they belong through storytelling in the form of printmaking, photography, and moving-image. Their ties to community are best witnessed in recent projects Métis Femme Bodies (2018) and Lavender Menace (2020) which explore Indigi-queer identity and femininity. Chanelle has participated in MAWA’s Foundation Mentorship Program (2020-21) which prepared them for moving- image projects: GrandMother/Tongue, with Toronto Queer Film Festival’s DIY Lab Mentorship Program (2020-21) and Bison Hunt, with ImagineNATIVE’s Doc Salon Fellowship as part of the European Film Market (2021). They recently attended Harbour Collective’s Meech Lake Residency (August 2021), completing moving- image project Land (Ab)Use.

Jason Baerg
Jason Baerg is an Indigenous curator, educator, and visual artist. Curatorial projects include exhibitions with Toronto’s Nuit Blanche and the University of Toronto. Baerg graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelors of Fine Arts and a Masters of Fine Arts from Rutgers University. He currently is teaching as the Assistant Professor in Indigenous Practices in Contemporary Painting and Media Art at OCAD University. Dedicated to community development, he founded and incorporated the Metis Artist Collective and has served as volunteer Chair for such organizations as the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition. Creatively, as a visual artist, he pushes new boundaries in digital interventions in drawing, painting and new media installation. Recent international solo exhibitions include the Illuminato Festival in Toronto, Canada, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and the Digital Dome at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jason Baerg has adjudicated numerous art juries and won awards through such facilitators as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and The Toronto Arts Council. For more information about his work, please visit Jasonbaerg.com.

Liz Barron, Curator
Liz Barron, Metis, is one of three founders of Urban Shaman Gallery, an artist-run centre devoted to Indigenous contemporary art, in Winnipeg. Barron has been working in the Indigenous arts for more than 25 years and explores the gap between Indigenous art and cultural connections. Her artistic and research practice centers on identity, place and visibility / invisibility with a focus on colonized language on identity. She maintains her emerging curatorial practice and past projects include programing for moving image festivals. She was part of the management team for Plug In ICA’s Close Encounters: The Next 500 years, the largest Canadian exhibition of International Indigenous artists in 2011.

The post NO I.D. Required / Jason Baerg, Chanelle Lajoie, and Jessie Short first appeared on PAVED Arts.

This project brought together Irish artists based in the West, and Canadian artists based in Treaty 6 Territories – Saskatchewan, to pay tribute to digital art projects from the 20th century. Each Irish-Canadian pair created an artistic response to a historical digital art project, from a 2021 point of view.

PAVED Arts joined forces with glór in Co. Clare, Ireland to co-present each digital project. glór is a multi-disciplinary arts centre located in the heart of Ennis. glór hosts local, national and international music, theatre, talks, dance, Film, comedy and visual arts events throughout the year.

________

Shadow Breath by Martina Hynan & Monique Blom:
From Friday 29th October 
On Vimeo & in the Lobby of PAVED/Aka

Char Davies germinal work, Osmose (1995) relied on participants’ breath to direct and guide this immersive VR experience. Martina Hynan & Monique Blom’s ShadowBreath is a response work which explores how breath is created when being “with our environment” rather than simply being “in our environment”.

A shadow-spirit-self is conjured in the piece to probe the entwinement of our breath with the landscape and engage with the breath of the landscape.

About the Artists: Martina Hynan & Monique Blom

Martina is a maternal artist, curator and birth activist based in Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland. She is a PhD researcher with the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway and member of The Elephant Collective, birth activist group.

Her PhD work is a feminist practice-with-research project that draws on feminist new materialism and storytelling to explore the entanglements of birth with place, questioning how the transition from home to hospital birth effects/affects the relationship of the event of childbirth with the place where it occurs. It considers birth as embedded within deep ecological work that questions the social, cultural, political, environmental and ecological concerns surrounding childbirth particularly for those living in rural Ireland. // www.martinahynan.com

Monique Blom is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist and arts educator based “in the wild woods of Saskatchewan [where] her practice includes chopping wood, building ponds and creating edges.”

Blom is deftly balanced on the edges of the prairies, boreal forest, and society. Her practice springs from a desire to explore human relationships as part, or as apart from nature. Blom’s work ranges from paintings with elements of vintage collage to public art interventions. Her most recent works examining the relationship between women, domesticity, and the landscape were performed in Saskatoon (Canada), Galway (Ireland), Mexico City (MX), Princeton University, New York, Orlando, and Tampa (USA).

Linda Duvall & Avi Ratnayake

Linda Duvall is a Saskatchewan-based visual artist whose work exists at the intersection of collaboration, performance and conversation. Her hybrid practice addresses recurring themes of connection to place, grief and loss, and the many meanings of exclusion and absence.

Duvall has completed degrees in Sociology and English (Carleton University) and Visual Arts (OCAD University, University of Michigan, Plymouth University), and is currently a Professional Affiliate at University of Saskatchewan. Her work has been exhibited locally, nationally and internationally, including exhibitions in Guatemala, Ireland, Barcelona, Shanghai, Slovenia, London, Dubai and various kinds of places and spaces across Canada.

Born in Sri lanka, Avi Ratnayake emigrated to the UK in 1994. He is now based in Galway. His work encompasses portraits, landscapes, and fine art and touches on the subject of interfaces; meeting points between worlds, cultures, different forces where a truth is revealed; such as his portraits of people with vitiligo presents individuals, in a fine art context.

Through his explorations employing mainly analogue and digital photography, and sometimes illustration he seeks to draw out a narrative of appreciation.  Currently, he has been working on images using new technology and old photographic, chemical processes to create cyanotypes.

Martina Cleary & Janelle Pewapsconias

Dr. Martina Cleary is an Irish contemporary artist, working with photography, film, video, performance, sound and new digital technologies to create immersive multi-media environments. She holds a BA from Crawford College of Art and Design, an MA from The Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, and an MEd from Aalto University of Art Design & Architecture, Helsinki. In (2017), she completed a practice-based PhD at the European Centre for Photography (eCPR), Newport. Her work has been shown internationally since the early 1990’s and supported by grants from the Arts Councils of Ireland and Finland, CREATE Ireland, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, CIMO Finland, The National Forum for The Enhancement of Teaching & Learning and Arts Offices in both Ireland and Finland. // www.martinacleary.com

“ecoaborijanelle” Pewapsconias is a multidimensional nehīyaw spoken word artist based in Little Pine First Nation of the Treaty 6 Prairies. Her dedication to honour the Earth inspires her to read, perform, and design to speak to Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and thriving, despite ongoing settler colonialism in Canada.

Influenced by the poetry slam and Cree oral storytelling customs, ecoaborijanelle has done a TEDx Talk, competed nationally twice, and published in the American Indian Culture Research Journal. Janelle lives in her home community with her son and dog, surrounded by the endless living skies and rolling prairies.

The post ‘Dear www’ presented by PAVED Arts & glór (Ireland) first appeared on PAVED Arts.

In this workshop, we will experiment with magnetic tape as a tool for composition, performance and improvisation. Focusing on lo-fi, somatic and experiential methods, we will cover some basic approaches to using tape, including making your own cassette loops from fresh or pre-recorded tape, tape manipulation, echo and phase techniques. 

Open to all abilities, no experience necessary. Limited pre-spliced cassette tape loops available upon request.

Doreen Girard is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist working with sound, installation and expanded cinema, and was a cofounder of the ngtvspc and Bent Light artist collectives. She performs solo, and with the electro-acoustic piano duo, Burden, as well as in a number of experimental and minimal sludge projects. Girard’s approach focuses on experimentation of the resonant and refractive properties of glass, wood, string and metal, aiming to activate the participants’ awareness of their perceptual field.

Register in advance by emailing technical@pavedarts.ca

The post Experimenting with Magnetic Tape for Beginners with Doreen Girard first appeared on PAVED Arts.

The post One Take Super 8 Event first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Curator Sarah-Tai Black and artist melannie monoceros will discuss the tryptic of film-on-video works that comprise “ancestoradio,” situating the expressive qualities that are explored within a wider field of interest, spanning monoceros’ visual and literary practice. This wide-ranging conversation will also grapple with contemporary social and political issues that come to bear on the work. Following the conversation there will be an opportunity for those in attendance to ask questions and offer commentary.

Artist Bio:
melannie gayle monoceros is a poet and artist exploring polysensory production through text/ile, performance, and installation. A Black and chronically ill creator, they are currently based in Treaty 1 / Winnipeg, MB, home of the Métis First Nation and the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Dene, Cree, Dakota, and Oji-Cree Nations. They have read and performed at Drop the Mic (Winnipeg, MB 2019), This is Not a Sentence (Paoli, IN 2018), Republic of Inclusion (Ottawa, ON 2017), and at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (Toronto, ON 2016). monoceros is a VONA fellow (Berkeley, CA 2014) and has since been awarded grants from the Canada, Manitoba, Ontario, and Toronto Arts Councils. melannie has been a guest lecturer at the University of Winnipeg, Concordia University, Ontario College of Art and Design, Ryerson University, and Yukon College School of Visual Art. melannie’s writing has appeared in magazines such as Recenter Press Journal, Contemporary Verse2, This, Make/Shift, Shameless, and The Peak as well as the When Language Runs Dry zine. In 2019 melannie’s work appeared at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina, SK) and MAWA/Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (Winnipeg, MB). Also in 2019, melannie was awarded the JRG Emerging Artist Award for their continued pursuit of integrating technology and accessibility through film via their series a n c e s t o r a d i o. In 2020 melannie’s work was featured at Gallery 1C03 (University of Winnipeg); Window Gallery (Winnipeg); the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (Brandon). // http://melanniemonoceros.com

Curator Bio:
Sarah-Tai Black is an arts curator, critic, and film programmer from Treaty 13 Territory/Toronto. Their curatorial work has been staged at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art (Canada) and Toronto’s A Space Gallery and they have spoken about arts culture, film, and moving image arts in their many forms as a guest of the National Gallery of Canada and Canadian Art. They were recently the Interim Artistic Director at PAVED Arts.

Info about the exhibition:
https://www.pavedarts.ca/2021/a-n-c-e-s-t-o-r-a-d-i-o-a-triptych-by-melannie-monoceros/

The post In Conversation: Sarah-Tai Black and melannie monoceros first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Register in advance by emailing technical@pavedarts.ca
Presented in partnership with Nuit Blanche with financial support from Culture Days

This workshop will cover the basics of working with blender with a focus on optimizing for use
on mobile. Those new to blender will learn everything they need to start using it and exploring it
further. Blender is a deep program with many features and this workshop only scratches the
surface, but participants will leave with the tools to make a simple animation and grow further.
Areas covered
-Workspaces
-Modeling
-Very brief intro to sculpting (Just showing where it exists, and how brushes work)
-UV editing
-Texturing (Colour, Roughness, Metallic, Normals)
-Intro to Modifiers
-Intro to Animation
-Lights
-Rendering
-Exporting
If there is time there will be a Q&A to allow participants to ask about specific solutions, or more
details about certain areas.

Andrei Feheregyhazi is an artist and animator whose work is often filled with an absurd humour
that doesn’t take itself too seriously. He addresses issues of tragedy, loss, and general feelings
of dread and isolation in a lighthearted and whimsical way.
His work primarily focuses on animation. Using scanned textures, photographs, and a
combination of Blender and After effects he creates a handmade aesthetic that offers the
flexibility of working digitally,
Since early 2018 Andrei has been experimenting and pushing boundaries by combining
augmented reality with various forms of art. What he loves most about it is the ability to explore
space and narratives in new and interesting ways. Whether it is a picture book that comes to
life and animates itself in someone’s hands or reshaping a public space into something
animated and magical.
As augmented reality continues to evolve over the coming years he looks forward to
experimenting and looking for new ways to engage the public with art.

Register in advance by emailing technical@pavedarts.ca

The post Intro to Blender workshop w/ Andrei Feheregyhazi first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 25th from 7pm to Midnight
Please note, the Gallery capacity is five people in the space at a time, and masks are required. Visits may be limited in time to allow everyone an opportunity to see the work.
Hosted in partnership with Nuit Blanche Saskatoon. 

“Conceptualized and created from the found audio documenting a day in the life of the artist’s mother and themself at 16 months, a n c e s t o r a d i o is an experimental film triptych exploring the confluence of archival memories, inherited grief, and their vibrations into the movements of present life and liberation dreams.”
— melannie monoceros

PAVED Arts is proud to welcome and share space with the work of Winnipeg/Treaty 1 based film, performance, and text/ile artist melannie monoceros. Their work a n c e s t o r a d i o, a constellation of three films that materialize feelings of memory, grief, and immediate experience, will be on view in PAVED’s main gallery space for the duration of the exhibition.

Banner Image Description: Still from a n c e s t o r a d i o – tuning the ocean (i), 16mm, 2016. Dark teal smears and spots and red/brown irregular shapes span across a light background. 

Artist Bio:
melannie gayle monoceros is a poet and artist exploring polysensory production through text/ile, performance, and installation. A Black and chronically ill creator, they are currently based in Treaty 1 / Winnipeg, MB, home of the Métis First Nation and the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Dene, Cree, Dakota, and Oji-Cree Nations. They have read and performed at Drop the Mic (Winnipeg, MB 2019), This is Not a Sentence (Paoli, IN 2018), Republic of Inclusion (Ottawa, ON 2017), and at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (Toronto, ON 2016). monoceros is a VONA fellow (Berkeley, CA 2014) and has since been awarded grants from the Canada, Manitoba, Ontario, and Toronto Arts Councils. melannie has been a guest lecturer at the University of Winnipeg,  Concordia University, Ontario College of Art and Design, Ryerson University, and Yukon College School of Visual Art.  melannie’s writing has appeared in magazines such as Recenter Press Journal, Contemporary Verse2, This, Make/Shift, Shameless, and The Peak as well as the When Language Runs Dry zine. In 2019 melannie’s work appeared at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina, SK) and MAWA/Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (Winnipeg, MB).  Also in 2019, melannie was awarded the JRG Emerging Artist Award for their continued pursuit of integrating technology and accessibility through film via their series a n c e s t o r a d i o. In 2020 melannie’s work was featured at Gallery 1C03 (University of Winnipeg); Window Gallery (Winnipeg); the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (Brandon). // http://melanniemonoceros.com

Curator Bio:
Sarah-Tai Black is an arts curator, critic, and film programmer from Treaty 13 Territory/Toronto. Their curatorial work has been staged at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art (Canada) and Toronto’s A Space Gallery and they have spoken about arts culture, film, and moving image arts in their many forms as a guest of the National Gallery of Canada and Canadian Art. They were recently the Interim Artistic Director at PAVED Arts.

The post a n c e s t o r a d i o: a triptych by melannie monoceros first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Have you ever wondered “What’s the deal with MIDI? How can I use MIDI to control my keyboards? What else can MIDI do? What does MIDI even mean?” This workshop will try to demystify MIDI by showing how to control hardware and software synths from controllers, computers, and even mobile devices.

Attendees must have a computer, an audio/MIDI interface, and possibly a MIDI-capable hardware synth. For software, it is recommended to download Sunvox (https://warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/), which is free on Mac and Windows, and cheap on IOS.

Ernie Dulanowsky is an electronic sound composer and performer using homemade and commercial non-keyboard electronics to create ambient drone and noise pieces. His work is informed by the sounds found at the intersection of office building ambience and broken media transmissions. Some of his compositions can be found at https://pulsewidth.bandcamp.com

The post What’s The Deal With MIDI? (MIDI for Dummies) w/ Ernie Dulanowsky first appeared on PAVED Arts.

This workshop will give you the tools to look at basically any subtractive synthesizer (the most common synthesis method), and know exactly what every control does to manipulate the sound.We will do a deep dive into spectrum and the harmonic series, two concepts that are fundamental to sound waves in general. Lots of the information covered in the workshop will be transferrable to other forms of synthesis and sound creation.The workshop is intended for any experience level, although it might be more challenging for absolute beginners.

Important:
• Participants will need their own subtractive synthesizer that they can make sounds on and hear during the workshop. This could be a VST, or synth hosted within a DAW (like Analog hosted within ableton live), an outboard hardware synth (like a Korg Minilogue) or an online synth app (like Cardboard Online Synth). If you are unsure whether your synth is subtractive, look for parameters like “VCO”, “Saw Wave”, or “Low Pass Filter”. If you’re still not sure, you can probably just google “is x synthesizer subtractive”.
• We recommend participants take notes during the workshop. Fundamental concepts take a long time to internalize, so a written reference would likely be very useful during the following months (and years!!) of using synthesizers.

Sarah Feldman is a composer, performer and educator living in Montreal, Canada. She co-leads a band called Watering and makes experimental electronic music under her own name. She runs a music education YouTube channel called Sounds Good, and teaches private lessons in electronic music. She studied electroacoustics and music composition at Concordia University in Montreal. // www.sarah-feldman.com

The post How Do Synthesizers Really Work? Fundamentals of Subtractive Synthesis w/ Sarah Feldman first appeared on PAVED Arts.

A loose retrospective of Regina-born artist, writer, and performer Thirza Cuthand’s moving image works, The Rhythm Of This Desire is an online exhibition that sits with the diverse intimacies of the artist’s vast filmography. Spanning two and a half decades, Cuthand’s experimental narratives consider the lived realities and intersections of Indigeneity, queer and Two-Spirit identity, sexuality, and madness with a mindful awareness often borne of the personal. The autobiographical, the fictive, and the performative coalesce in varying intensities throughout their work in a way that gives over space to the necessity of internal subjectivities as well as the urgencies of the oftentimes not-so-external world.

Alongside three programs of select film and video works, The Rhythm Of This Desire will be accompanied by a live-streamed performance by Cuthand, an exhibition essay authored by poet and scholar Erica Violet Lee, and an artist talk facilitated by writer, curator, and researcher Jas M. Morgan. This exhibition sees the artist’s work staged within their home territory and welcomes discussion centering the relations and collaborative practices distinct to the curation of their work within Treaty 6 Land.

Image: Thirza Cuthand, Thirza Cuthand Is an Indian Within the Meaning of the Indian Act, 2017, HD Video. Image courtesy of Vtape.

Save The Date:
Live-streamed performance by Thirza Cuthand
Friday, July 23 at 5pm CST / 7pm EST, online

Artist talk facilitated by Jas M. Morgan
Friday, August 13 at 5pm CST / 7pm EST, online

________________________________________

Artist and Collaborator Biographies:

Thirza Cuthand was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1978, and grew up in Saskatoon. Since 1995 she has been making short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals and galleries internationally, including the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity in Sao Paolo, ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, Frameline in San Francisco, Outfest in Los Angeles, and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the Mendel in Saskatoon, The National Gallery in Ottawa, and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. They completed their Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Film and Video at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2005, and her Masters of Arts in Media Production at X University in 2015. She is a non-binary Butch boy who uses she/they pronouns. They are of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a member of Little Pine First Nation, and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.

Erica Violet Lee is a nēhiyaw writer, scholar, and community organizer who lives in inner-city Saskatoon. She is a member of Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan. Her lifework focuses on anti-colonial resistance, joy, and love in the time of revolutions. Erica holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a graduate degree from the University of Toronto.

Jas M. Morgan is a Toronto-based SSHRC doctoral scholarship recipient, a McGill University Art History Ph.D. candidate, and an assistant professor in Ryerson University’s Department of English. They previously held the position of Editor-at-Large for Canadian Art. Morgan’s first book nîtisânak (Metonymy Press, 2018) won the prestigious 2019 Dayne Ogilive Prize and a 2019 Quebec Writer’s Federation first book prize and has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and an Indigenous Voices Literary Award.

Sarah-Tai Black is an arts curator, critic, and film programmer from Treaty 13 Territory/Toronto, and they are currently the acting Artistic Director at PAVED Arts. Their curatorial work has been staged at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art (Canada) and Toronto’s A Space Gallery and they have spoken about arts culture, film, and moving image arts in their many forms as a guest of the National Gallery of Canada and Canadian Art.

Sponsored by Vtape
Vtape is a vibrant distribution organization that represents an international collection of contemporary video and media artworks by artists. We make this collection accessible to curators and programmers, educators, scholars, and public audiences worldwide. 

With gratitude to A Space Gallery

Program 1

Toward A Praxis Of Baby Dyke Relations, or: “I did everything myself!! (Well, almost)”

July 15, 2021

There is an intimate and unguarded honesty that lives throughout Thirza Cuthand’s film, video, and performance work. It is both urgent and contemplative, charming and radical, and often materializes through Cuthand’s unselfconsciously refined ability to return to the personal as a means for their ongoing acts of self-determination and autobiography. To begin our programming with the earliest of Cuthand’s works is an instinctive choice that grounds us within the enduring feeling of their ongoing practice. These are not conceptual kernels in their infancy that cumulatively lead to more recent preoccupations, but more so beautifully organic movements from past to present which echo the interconnected and reciprocal experience of subjectivity and relations over time. The work here is diaristic in nature and a lived document of the experience of coming into knowledge and understanding, with Cuthand often navigating the slippage and tensions between subject and object with a playful self-awareness. It is an affective archive of the realizations and rightful rebellions which come to the fore as we begin to understand the ways in which the world works upon and around us in all of our specifities. 

Please note, the works in this program reference pedophilia, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and the targeted anti-Indigenous violence of colonial psychiatry.

Lessons in Baby Dyke Theory, 1995, Hi-8, 3:30

In 1995, when Thirza Cuthand was 16, she felt like the only lesbian at her Saskatoon high school. This turned out to be untrue, but the lack of visibility in her high school coupled with the lack of representation of Queer teenagers in the ’90s made her make her first video, a comedic short about teenage lesbian loneliness and trying to bribe classmates to come out with the promise of candy.

Bisexual Wannabe, 1997, Hi-8, 3:00

Brokenhearted, a young lesbian considers doubling her dating possibilities.

Working Baby Dyke Theory, 1997, Hi-8, 5:00

A teenage lesbian’s attempts to form friendships with older lesbians leads her on a disturbing ride through the ageist terrain of the dyke community.

Untouchable, 1998, Hi-8, 4:25

A girl with a bad habit of falling for older women befriends a boy lover. This video is an examination of relationships between adults and teenagers. It involves ice cream trucks and bowie knives.

Helpless Maiden Makes an “I” Statement, 1999, digital video, 6:12

By using clips of evil queens/witches this video plays off the sadomasochistic lesboerotic subtexts commonly found in children’s entertainment. A helpless maiden is tiring of her consensual s/m relationship with her lover, and “evil” queen. She wants to break up. An impassioned monologue in a dungeon with our heroine in wrist cuffs quickly becomes an emotionally messy ending in flames. This video was inspired by the artist’s own childhood “kiddie porn”, Disney movies that turned her on to no end and kicked off many a prepubescent masturbation session.

Manipulation/Dictation, 1999, Super 8, 4:00

Originally constructed using a Super 8 camera and a walkman, ‘Manipulation/Dictation’ investigates processes of lesbian seduction, betrayal, and the expectation that both parties can still be friends later.

Anhedonia, 2001, 16mm/digital video, 9:00

‘Anhedonia’ doesn’t play to the back of the church; it shoots directly to the point with poetry and images that evoke controversy in one mindset and passion in another. It shocks people into opening their eyes to the source of the illness in the Indigenous community and meets depression and suicide head-on. Statistics, split images, words, and flesh meld together making this short film long on compassion, screaming out for help, and recognition of the mentally ill’s dream of someday having a normal life.

Sight, 2012, Super 8, 3:23

Super 8 footage layered with Sharpie marked lines and circles obscuring the image illustrates the story of the filmmaker’s experience with temporary episodes of migraine-related blindness and her cousin’s self-induced blindness later in life. Paralleling the experience of blindness with mental illness, Cuthand deftly elucidates that any of us could lose any of our abilities at any time.

Love & Numbers, 2004, digital video, 8:03

A Two-Spirited woman surrounded by spy signals and psychiatric walls attempts to make sense of love, global paranoia, and her place in the history of colonialism. Spliced in between her monologues are the binary codes of all the psychiatric drugs she has taken.

Program 2

in all ways known

August 4, 2021

In our second program, Cuthand’s storytelling augments its internal subjectivities with a heightened awareness of external constellations of understanding and perception. What might it feel like to be understood by others as we have come to understand ourselves? What taxonomies and hierarchies must we refuse in order to honour ourselves, our ancestors, our kin? Here, both who sees us and the ways in which we are seen guide Cuthand’s narrative methodologies which consider a multiplicity of time and being. The “we” and “us” used here are, of course, too broad. The care of these works lies within their specificity and their call that 2 Spirit, queer, and trans Indigenous futures are here with us now.

Please note, the works in this program reference suicidal ideation.

Thirza Cuthand Is an Indian Within the Meaning of the Indian Act, 2017, HD, 8:40

Contemplating mixed-race identity in Canada, Cuthand presents us with images of blood ties and land ties for Indigenous people, and questions the use of the words “white-passing” and “light-skinned.” As a light-skinned Indigenous woman, Cuthand reiterates that racism and discrimination still happen for her, just in different ways. Community belonging is contrasted with the different experiences she has from her darker-skinned family. Ultimately, a video with more questions than answers, it situates the artist’s body in historical trauma and ongoing colonial survival.

Medicine Bundle, 2020, HD, 9:33

Cuthand discusses a medicine bundle in her family, and the bear cub spirit attached to it, as it heals her family through trauma and disease brought about by colonization.

Boi Oh Boi, 2012, HDV, 9:32

After a long period in life identifying as a Butch lesbian, Cuthand considers transitioning to male. This experience involved a six-month period of her life during which she went by the name Sarain, which she would have been called had she been born a boy, and asking to be called by male pronouns. Complicated by mental health crises, Cuthand found themselves in a mental health group home for women, having to hide their gender dysphoria. After a considerable amount of thought and discussion, Cuthand changed her mind and decided to remain a Butch lesbian. Explaining her decision, she touches on the desire to maintain a connection to the lesbian community, as well as the sexy genderfucking that happens when one is a masculine woman. Shot partially on location in Hamburg, Germany, riding back and forth on the UBahn is a metaphor for her eventual acceptance of fluctuating between a masculine and a feminine gender. In a nod to her two-spirited ancestors, she mentions that she would have been able to make up her own gender had colonization not happened.

2 Spirit Introductory Special $19.99, 2015, RED, 4:37

Don’t worry if you are just coming out as a 2 Spirited person, we have just the introductory special for you! New to the 2 Spirit lifestyle? `Want to talk to someone in the Spirit and the Flesh instead of reading The Spirit and the Flesh? We have just the service for you! Call now and for only 19.99 a month you can get instant unlimited telephone access to traditional knowledge and support. We also provide monthly gifts for subscribers, call now and we can hook you up with this beaded whisk! Perfect for DIY spankings and pancakes the morning after your first snag! Don’t hesitate, ring those phones!

Through The Looking Glass, 1999, digital video, 12:30

Half-breed Alice attempts to become queen and struggles with the Red Queen and the White Queen’s disapproval of her racial transgressions.

A funny and quirky take on race, this piece stars Cosmosquaw as the Red Queen, Shawna Dempsey as the White Queen, and Thirza Cuthand as Alice.

2 Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com, 2017, HD, 4:56

‘2 Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com’ queers and indigenizes traditional dating site advertisements. Using a Butch NDN ‘Lavalife” lady (performed by director Cuthand), ‘2 Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com’ seduces the viewer into 2 Spirit “snagging and shacking up” with suggestions of nearby pipeline protests to take your date to and helpful elders who will matchmake you and tell off disrespectful suitors. It’s the culturally appropriate website all single 2 Spirit people wish existed. Following up on her video “2 Spirit Introductory Special $19.99” this work examines the forces of capitalism through envisioning a “financially unfeasible” service for a small minority community.

Just Dandy, 2013, HDV, 7:37

Invited to speak at an Indigenous Revolutionary Meeting, the narrator describes an intimate encounter with an Evil Colonizing Queen which leads to Turtle Island’s contraction of an invasive European flora.

Program 3

Thirza Cuthand’s NDN Survival Trilogy

August 13, 2021

Bringing together three of Cuthand’s recent short films, NDN Survival Trilogy asks: what might decolonization look like in daily practice? Here, the relations between resource extraction, postcolonial futures, and lived Indigenous realities are made visible as the artist moves between dystopic fictions and personal histories.

Reclamation, 2018, HD, 13:11

“Reclamation” is a documentary-style imagining of a post-dystopic future in Canada after massive climate change, wars, pollution, and the after-effects of the large-scale colonial project which has now destroyed the land. When Indigenous people are left behind after a massive exodus by primarily privileged White settlers who have moved to Mars, the original inhabitants of this land cope by trying to restore and rehabilitate the beautiful country they feel they belong to. Complicated by the need to look after southern climate refugees, this Post-Dystopic society struggles to reinvent itself as a more healthy community, with opportunities for healing from shared trauma, and using traditional Indigenous scientific knowledge to reclaim Canada environmentally.

Indigenous people demonstrate the jobs they are doing to heal Canada, the Earth, and themselves, like clean water projects, gathering litter, disposing safely of hazardous wastes, planting trees, conducting healing circles and ceremonies, playing together, and having discussions about what it feels like to be left behind on what was seen by White settlers as a dying, disposable, planet.

Extractions, 2019, HD, 15:13

A personal film about Canada’s extraction industry and its detrimental effects on the land and Indigenous peoples. This film parallels resource extraction with the booming child apprehension industry currently operating in Canada which is responsible for putting more Indigenous children into foster care than were in Residential Schools. As the filmmaker reviews her life and how these industries have affected her, she also reflects on having her own eggs retrieved and frozen to make an Indigenous baby.

Less Lethal Fetishes, 2019, HD, 9:24

Cuthand uses a latent gas mask fetish as a jumping-off point for looking at her role as a participant in the Whitney Biennial during a contentious year for the museum which had a war profiteer on the board. Faced with calls to withdraw, Cuthand talks about the considerations she had for trying to come up with a way to protest while also being implicated in Kander’s artwashing. Using the gas mask as a potential protest image, she also discusses visiting Chemical Valley, a site in southern Ontario where 40% of Canada’s petrochemical industry lies, and how her visit also left her implicated in artwashing petrochemical money.

Performance

EARTH AND WATER AND ME: A PERFORMANCE BY THIRZA CUTHAND

In this live-streamed performance, Cuthand will explore her connection to the earth and what it feels like to belong to the prairies when you are living in someone else’s territory. Using their body, soil, water, and projections of the prairies with a recorded monologue about her homeland, she hopes to recreate the feeling of laying on the ground in a place where you know you belong.

Friday, July 23 | 7:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CST

With gratitude to A Space Gallery & Collective Broadcast Co.

Curated as a part of The Rhythm Of This Desire: Works By Thirza Cuthand at PAVED Arts, July 15, 2021 – August 20, 2021.

Artist Talk

The Rhythm Of This Desire:
Thirza Cuthand & Jas M. Morgan
in Conversation

Friday, August 13 at 5pm CST / 7pm EST

Join us for an online conversation between artist and filmmaker Thirza Cuthand and writer, curator, and researcher Jas M. Morgan as they discuss the ongoing intricacies of Cuthand’s practice from 1995 to present.

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PAVED Arts is an artist-run centre operating on Treaty Six Land, encompassing the traditional homeland of numerous First Nations, including Ktunaxa, Tsuu T’ina, Woodland Cree, Stoney Nakoda and Plains Cree in the west; Beaver Lake Cree and Dene in the north; Blackfoot, Sioux, and Anishinaabe in the south; with the Cree and Metis nations spanning the entire territory.

We further acknowledge that the settler state of Canada has failed to honour Treaty Six. PAVED Arts advocates for decolonization undertaken in good faith, as an imperative to learn from the indigenous world view and thereby engage in sustainable land-based knowledge and practices. We are committed to involve BIPOC+ artists and cultural workers at every level of our organization so as to reflect the spirit of this time and our community.

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When an image is fixed by the shutter of a camera it becomes multiple, diffusible, and somewhat immaterial. It becomes consumable, transferable, and exchangeable. Part of this technology of consumption is a colonial attitude that sees things and people in terms of commodity and another part is a tendency towards isolation. The seamless backdrop is a technology of product photography that isolates the subject of a photograph floating in a non-place—divorced from the land on which it was made, its constituent parts, and the bodies that produced it. 

Long before the advent of modern product photography, during the height of the Dutch Golden Age (a pivotal moment in the rise of global capitalism), the still life genre boomed and a new merchant class began to collect images of trade goods that were themselves highly valued commodities. Many critics have written about still life images as records of existential drama and human mortality but they are also records of movement. In many images from the 1600s squash from Turtle Island, pomegranates from Iran, and porcelain from China are brought together and represent the results of imperial expansions, trade, colonization, and subjugation, enslavement, and genocide. 

These images are made to reflect on the centuries of movement which collide daily on tables and in cupboards; that sit unnoticed or actively ignored. They think about the compression of geography and the transformation of the material world into an infinity of products under the settler gaze. “A Floating Ruin” is an ongoing series of images that engages the history of still life painting and high-gloss advertising that is never quite capable of shedding a legacy of vast destruction. 

This billboard project is accompanied by a series of postcards and texts which address the dense histories drawn from each image.

Nic Wilson (he/they) is an artist and writer who was born in the Wolastoqiyik territory now known as Fredericton, NB in 1988. He graduated with a BFA from Mount Allison University, Mi’kmaq territory, in 2012, and an MFA from the University of Regina, Treaty Four Territory, in 2019 where he was a SSHRC graduate fellow. In 2021, they were one of the long-listed nominees from the Prairies and the North for the Sobey Art Award. Their work often engages time, queer lineage, and the distance between art practice and literature. Their writing has appeared in publications such as BlackFlash Magazine, Headlights Anthology, and PUBLIC. He is also the founder and editor of the new publication project Gravitron, a very small press focusing on writing that happens around, about, instead of, or as visual art.

The post Nic Wilson / A Floating Ruin first appeared on PAVED Arts.

If you are between the ages of 15-30 in Saskatoon, and you have an idea about how you can contribute positively to your community, this workshop is for you!

Rising Youth Community Service Grants empowers young people to imagine ideas that can support their local community and helps put those ideas into action through grants of $250, $750, or $1500.

In this workshop, Cory Herc will be guiding us through the fundamentals of building a grant fundable project – we will begin with ideation and problem-framing, learn how to define the key components of a grant-fundable project, and explore a couple of tools that can help you refine your project plan.

This workshop will be conducted primarily in English, but Cory is comfortable in both official languages and will be able to answer questions equally in French and in English. The format is designed to be highly participatory – come prepared to engage on a device of your choosing.

Cory Herc is the Partnerships and Outreach Coordinator with Rising Youth, a national youth microfunding platform that helps young people lead volunteer-run projects to affect meaningful change in their communities. Cory’s role connects him with youth and youth-facing organizations to help ensure that young people across Canada have a clear pathway to success as they apply for #RisingYouth funding to turn their ideas into realities.

Some examples of eligible projects are:
• A creative artistic project
• An anti-racist, climate justice, or other educational event
• An initiative in response to Covid-19
• Purchase and distribution of food hampers or electronic devices to those in need
• Outdoor education course
• YOUR Idea!

For more information about #RisingYouth, visit: https://www.pavedarts.ca/…/risingyouth-community…/

Thank you to TakingITGlobal, the Government of Canada, and Canada Service Corps for generously supporting this project!

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This workshop is FREE for everyone to attend. You do not need to be a PAVED Arts member.

Email technical@pavedarts.ca to register!

The post RisingYouth Community Service Grants Workshop w/ Cory Herc first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Open to youth ages 13-25
Registration is FREE

Break out of isolation with rap, freestyle and spoken word! Join us every Monday for beats, bars, free eats and dope vibes. 

PAVED Arts is thrilled to present Cypher Connect, in partnership with Chokecherry Studios! Our newest program aims to keep youth connected and creative through hip hop, freestyle and spoken word. Cypher Connect will take place every Monday through Zoom meet-ups. Hosted by ZHE the Free (aka Zoe Slusar) and Betty Pewapsconias, who’ll work with youth to level up their skills in rap, freestyle, poetry and spoken word performance.

Cypher Connect will focus on the elements of rap including writing bars, developing freestyle skills, use of poetic devices, performance and delivery, cadence and tapping into “the flow”. Every Monday we’ll circle up, Zoom style, to share in learning about the various elements involved in producing your own creative piece.

It’s free, easy to access, and comes with a free nutritious meal delivered to your door! All you need to do is sign in and participate in the Monday sessions, and PAVED Arts will hook you up with dinner. Cypher Connect is a place for you to showcase your art and experience Cypher*, while developing skills to enhance your artistic talent.

*Cypher involves a group coming together to share in freestyle creative expression and aims to bring youth together in artistic community. These meet-ups allow youth to learn from both community mentors and each other, showcase their art, share what they’ve been working on, while developing skills to enhance their rap and poetry abilities.

The values of Cypher Connect align with the values of hip hop: respect, unity, creative expression, showing up authentically, artistic and personal growth.

Thank you to Community Initiatives Fund for their generous support in making this program possible. Cypher Connect is part of our ongoing PAVED Arts At Home programming.

The post Cypher Connect first appeared on PAVED Arts.

As a partner, our staff are committed to providing mentor support and guidance to all youth in Saskatchewan who would like to learn more and become the next #RisingYouth in our community.

What is #RisingYouth?
#RisingYouth is a program led by TakingITGlobal to help youth build Canada and develop life skills by giving back to their communities. Created for youth by youth, we are building a program to increase involvement through community service. The program is currently funded to offer grants through March 2022. Our program is funded by the Government of Canada under the Canada Service Corps initiative.

In other words, #RisingYouth is an opportunity for youth aged 15-30 to receive financial and mentor support to carry out their own ideas for community development. If you have an idea about how you can contribute positively to your community, this grant is for you!

Some examples of eligible projects are:
• An anti-racist, climate justice, or other educational event
• An initiative in response to Covid-19
• Purchase and distribution of food hampers or electronic devices to those in need
• Outdoor education course
• A creative artistic project
• YOUR Idea!

If you, or someone you know, is interested in providing a service to your community, please get in touch with us at PAVED Arts and we would be happy to help see your initiative come to life through mentorship and financial support.

For more information, visit the website here: https://risingyouth.ca/ , or contact Lenore Maier at PAVED Arts at technical@pavedarts.ca

The post #RisingYouth Community Service Grants for Youth first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Artist BIO
Gabriela García-Luna is a multimedia independent artist born in Mexico City who has lived and worked in Mexico, India and Canada. Garcia-Luna has been a practicing artist since 1999. She holds a degree in Graphic Design and Communication from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico and a Masters in Fine Arts Degree from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Her work investigates the connections and tensions between natural and constructed spaces, those in the world and in the realm of imagination. Her multidisciplinary practice, based on photography, explores a wide range of forms, the limits of form and visual language to propose new hybrid universes. Her work includes two dimensional, sculptural and installation work

Garcia-Luna’s work has been exhibited in multiple solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, Canada, India and Europe: Summa, Museo del Carmen, Mexico City (2003), Vulnerables, Galería Arte Alterno, Oaxaca, Mexico (2004), Speak/Memory, Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery, Moose Jaw, Canada (2009), MIND THE GAP! Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, Canada & Art Gallery of Ottawa, Canada (2010-12), Pensive Space, MJM&AG, Canada (2014), Whitescapes, Estevan Art Gallery, Canada (2015), Garden of Skin, London (2018), Talking with Walls, Kashi Art Gallery, India, EDGE, Art Gallery of Regina, (2019).

García-Luna has received prizes and awards in Mexico and Canada such as First Prize in Photography in the Guadalajara, Mexico Omnilife Grand Prize (2001); First Prize in Photography in the Queretaro Libertad Third Art Contest, (2002); FONCA (National Foundation for Culture and Art Fellowship – Mexico) and Banff Centre Artist in Residency grant (2003 and 2011); Artist in Residency La Chambre Blanche QC grant FONCA and Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec (2007); Independent Artist Grants from the Saskatchewan Arts Board 2011 and 2018; Master’s University Graduate Scholarship, University of Saskatchewan (2018-2020).

Her work is part of Global Affairs Art Collection, Canada, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, OMNILIFE Collection and Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, Mexico and private collections.

García-Luna is a member of CARFAC Saskatchewan, AKA Artist Run, Paved Artist Run, and REMAI Modern in Saskatchewan and of the Latin American-Canadian Arts Project Arts Organization in Ontario. Her work is represented by SLATE Fine Art Gallery, Regina, Canada and Gallery 27 and in India. She lives and works in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The post Meet Gabriela García-Luna, our newest Micro Grant Recipient! first appeared on PAVED Arts.

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With Justice Noon & Jebunnessa Chapolla from the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon.
Tuesday, June 1st, 7 pm, Online via Event Brite – POSTPONED TO JULY 6
Free to everyone in the community
Register Here

In partnership with the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon, PAVED Arts staff and board invite you to come and participate in a conversation about anti-racism in the arts. 

In partnership with the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon, PAVED Arts staff and board invite you to come and participate in a conversation about anti-racism in the arts.

In this 3-part series, we invite you to share, listen, and question the role of organizations, artists, arts-admin, and boards through the lens of anti-racism.

Guiding this process will be our new organizational goals drafted within our “Commitment to Action,” a foundational, yet ever-fluid document that we hope will not only hold PAVED Arts accountable to our commitments, but support our organization as we work towards becoming a more equitable and accessible community space. PAVED Arts is grateful for the members of the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon, Justice Noon and Jebunnessa Chapola, who have offered their time and energy to join us in this conversation.Part 3 of this series will be guided by conversations on:

-How do we respond to the TRC Calls to Action within Arts organizations?

-Diversity – Equity – Inclusion in the Workplace

-Accessibility in Arts organizations

-Zero tolerance policies for hate speech, racism, sexism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia as well as abusive, harmful and/or discriminatory language/behaviour.

-Ways forward – Where do we go from here?

Here are 2 resources to read/listen to in advance of the workshop:Podcast: Brené with Aiko Bethea on Inclusivity at Work: The Heart of Hard Conversations
https://brenebrown.com/…/brene-with-aiko-bethea-on…/…

Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action
http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

Technology requirements: Participants will need access to a computer and have a stable wifi connection.

Resources shared in past community conversations: Racism in the SK Prairies by Russell McAuley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0i94GfVSCMhttps://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy…

The post Anti-Racism Community Conversations (Part 3) first appeared on PAVED Arts.

In partnership with the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon, PAVED Arts staff and board invite you to come and participate in a conversation about anti-racism in the arts. 

In this 3-part series, we invite you to share, listen, and question the role of organizations, artists, arts-admin, and boards through the lens of anti-racism. Guiding this process will be our new organizational goals drafted within our “Commitment to Action,” a foundational, yet ever-fluid document that we hope will not only hold PAVED Arts accountable to our commitments, but support our organization as we work towards becoming a more equitable and accessible community space.

PAVED Arts is grateful to be guided in these conversations by facilitators in the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon, Justice Noon and Jebunnessa Chapolla.

Part 1 of our Anti-Racism Community Series will be guided by conversations on:
• Recap of Russell McAuley’s “Racism in SK Prairies” Video
• Assessing, critiquing, and restructuring how a Board of Directors communicates and holds regular meetings
• Planning for staff representation to be an accurate reflections of the demographics in the surrounding community
• Planning for BOD representation to be an accurate reflections of the demographics in the surrounding community
• Ensuring that exhibition programming and the juries that select it include diverse voices (gender-balanced and include BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ voices)

Technology Requirements:
Participants will need access to a computer and have a stable wifi connection.

Please take the time to review this video in advance of the first event:
Racism in the SK Prairies by Russell McAuley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0i94GfVSCM

BIOS:
Jebunnessa Chapola is a decolonial social justice activist, transnational cultural performer, community engaged scholar and a PhD candidate at Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. She uses academics, community activism, and volunteer work (community garden and radio, transnational cultural activities) to build bridges among newcomers, refugees, settlers and Indigenous communities. Her PhD dissertation is “A Racialized Settler Woman’s Transformative Empowerment Journey in Canada: Building Relational Accountabilities with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Newcomer Settler of Colour Communities in Saskatoon”. Jebunnessa’s PhD research interests include newcomer and Indigenous women’s empowerment, community building, decolonization, anti-racism and responsibilities for Indigenous reconciliation. As a racialized settler woman, she has developed a strong understanding of relational autoethnography and collaborative community empowerment frameworks from her 15 years of working experiences with various Indigenous, cross-cultural communities in Canada, Norway, Sweden, USA, and Bangladesh. She took anti-racist classes with her mentor Dr. Verna St. Denis and Dr. Sheelah McLean at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been working as an anti-racist practitioner and educator from 2015. She is a mother of three children and published many articles and book chapters.

Justice Noon is an Urban Indigenous woman born and raised in Saskatoon. She is currently going to university to pursue a career in STEM and is passionate of social justice, working on projects with Saskatchewan Intercultural Association, Canadian Roots Exchange, CHEP Good Food Inc. and is the latest addition to the F.I.R.E (Feminist Intersectional Radio Education) radio show on CFCR. Outside of her studies and activist work, she is an Indigenous artisan creating many bead works.

Go to PART 2
Go to PART 3

The post Anti-Racism Community Conversation (Part 1) first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Tuesday, May 18th, 7 pm
Online via Zoom

Free to everyone in the communityIn partnership with the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon, PAVED Arts staff and board invite you to come and participate in a conversation about anti-racism in the arts. Rather than a webinar or presentation on anti-racism, these sessions aim to create a space for everyone to discuss, dialogue, and listen to the different ways that Saskatchewan arts organizations can integrate anti-racism into the fabric of our operations.In this 3-part series, we invite you to share, listen, and question the role of organizations, artists, arts-admin, and boards through the lens of anti-racism.
Informing this process will be our organizational goals drafted within our “Commitment to Action,” a foundational, yet ever-fluid document, still in progress, that we hope will not only hold PAVED Arts accountable to our commitments, but support our organization as we work towards becoming a more equitable and accessible community space.

Part 2 of this series will be guided by conversations on:
• The different ways white supremacy manifests in our organizations
• Strategies to include more BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ voices in all programming and juries
• Artist compensations.
Technology Requirements: Participants will need access to a computer and have a stable wifi connection.

Please take the time to read this article in advance: The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun – https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy…PAVED Arts is grateful to receive support and guidance from the Anti-Racism Network of Saskatoon, Justice Noon and Jebunnessa Chapola. In this partnership, PAVED Arts is committed to facilitating these conversations, and welcomes the guidance of our Anti-Racism network mentors whenever appropriate.

BIOS:
Jebunnessa Chapola is a decolonial social justice activist, transnational cultural performer, community engaged scholar and a PhD candidate at Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. She uses academics, community activism, and volunteer work (community garden and radio, transnational cultural activities) to build bridges among newcomers, refugees, settlers and Indigenous communities. Her PhD dissertation is “A Racialized Settler Woman’s Transformative Empowerment Journey in Canada: Building Relational Accountabilities with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Newcomer Settler of Colour Communities in Saskatoon”. Jebunnessa’s PhD research interests include newcomer and Indigenous women’s empowerment, community building, decolonization, anti-racism and responsibilities for Indigenous reconciliation. As a racialized settler woman, she has developed a strong understanding of relational autoethnography and collaborative community empowerment frameworks from her 15 years of working experiences with various Indigenous, cross-cultural communities in Canada, Norway, Sweden, USA, and Bangladesh. She took anti-racist classes with her mentor Dr. Verna St. Denis and Dr. Sheelah McLean at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been working as an anti-racist practitioner and educator from 2015. She is a mother of three children and published many articles and book chapters.Justice Noon is an Urban Indigenous woman born and raised in Saskatoon. She is currently going to university to pursue a career in STEM and is passionate of social justice, working on projects with Saskatchewan Intercultural Association, Canadian Roots Exchange, CHEP Good Food Inc. and is the latest addition to the F.I.R.E (Feminist Intersectional Radio Education) radio show on CFCR. Outside of her studies and activist work, she is an Indigenous artisan creating many bead works.

Part 1: https://fb.me/e/XvO06C10
Part 3: https://fb.me/e/1FnKfZH61

The post Anti-Racism Community Conversations (Part 2) first appeared on PAVED Arts.

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The Feather is collectively comprised of stand-up comedians and media artists based out of Saskatoon, who share an aptitude for delivering incisive social/political commentary “with an indigenous slant.” Their group has been producing content since May of 2018, and has grown into a multimedia production company that creates videos and content for consumption on the internet. For the duration of this exhibition at PAVED Arts, the main gallery space will be transformed into a showcase for The Feather, combining a retrospective look at past video work alongside on-the-spot media production. 

Artist Bios
Editor-in-Chief, Ryan Moccasin:
Ryan Moccasin is an author, satirist, and comedian from Saskatoon. He is currently editor for the online satirical news website called The Feather. His fake news articles and videos have been featured on APTN InFocus and CBC. Ryan’s work has garnered over thousands of views and impressions on social media. His recent sci-fi novel “Suicide Empire” was featured on CBC Radio, APTN, and Eagle Feather News. He has also written a Christmas screenplay for the Gordon Tootoosis Native Theatre Company. When not pretending he knows how to write plays, he is also working on his next novel called “Lullaby For Emily” which is slated for release in 2021. Ryan is currently working on an animated series “Sensational Man”. The series was recently chosen to be pitched for content executives at Netflix’s Virtual Pitch Day.

Writer/Producer, Shawn Cuthand:
Shawn Cuthand is half Cree, half Mohawk, but all deadly. He got into comedy to honour his storytelling ancestors. He has made appearances at the Winnipeg Fringe, Woke Comedy Hour, Laughter is Medicine in Winnipeg, Comedy Monday Night in Calgary, Trevor’s Pad at YukYuk’s Ottawa and was lucky enough to get drawn out of the bucket on Kill Tony, the #1 live comedy podcast in the world. He recently did his first half hour at Yuk Yuk’s as well. He spent the pandemic performing at socially distanced fire pit parties and now you can see him alongside Danny Knight as hosts of The Real Deadly podcast on CHO? Network. And once pandemic dies down you can bet your flat ass they will be hosting open mic again!

Writer/Host, Danny Knight:
Danny is an actor/musician/comedian and correspondent for the satirical newspaper The Feather. He has attended and graduated from GTNT’s Circle of Voices program, youth ensemble, red spirit, and fire spirit programs. Danny held an artist residency at Persephone Theatre where he studied script work, sound design, administration, marketing, and acting. His acting credits include Thunderstick (Globe Theatre), The Shortcuts Festival 2016 (Hardly Art Theatre), Dominion (GTNT), A History of Breathing (Persephone Theatre).

Audio/Visual, Muskwa Lerat:
Muskwa is a First Nations artist and producer stationed in Saskatoon, originally from Cowessess First Nation in the Treaty 4 territory. His artistic endeavours began at a young age with the local hip-hop group known as the Unsatisfied Poets. At 22, Muskwa attended the Recording Arts Institute of Saskatoon to further his knowledge in the field of audio recording. Upon graduating, he was one of the co-founding members of The Sound & Silence Collective, a local record label. Over the years Muskwa has stepped into the world of film and has collaborated on a number of projects that have been accepted into film festivals nationally and internationally. Muskwa has been a mentor at the Saskatoon Tribal Council youth film camp since 2016.

Thank you to The Feather for providing streaming services.

The post Confessions of a Clown Society: Live Presentation first appeared on PAVED Arts.

What is a “sound object”? How can this concept be useful in experimental music composition, film sound, game sound design, and beyond? 

Emphasizing practical, conceptual, and experiential (rather than a purely technical) approaches, the workshop will cover a range of methods for working with recorded sound in the digital domain, from classic tape manipulation techniques and experimental EQ, through digital micro-editing and advanced plug ins, and culminating in the construction of “composite” sound blocks. The entire workshop will focus – following the metaphor of a microscope – on a single sound sample, and the ability to construct rich sound structures out of simple building blocks.

The workshop is intended for intermediate to advanced levels. Beginners to sound are welcome if they are familiar with a DAW.

Participants need to have their own computer with a DAW (i.e. Logic, ProTools, Reaper, Ardour, Audacity, etc) with which they are relatively familiar (beginner/intermediate), samples will be provided by the instructor. Familiarity with various sound manipulation techniques is welcome but in no way required.

Artist Bio:
Born in Tel-Aviv (ISR) and raised in Vancouver (BC), Adam Basanta has lived and worked in Montreal since 2010. Originally studying contemporary music composition, he has developed an artistic practice in mixed-media installations.

Since 2015, his works have been exhibited in galleries and institutions including the Musée des beaux- arts de Montréal (CAN), Optica Centre d’art contermporain (CAN), Fotomuseum Winterthur (CH), Arsenal Art Contemporain (CAN), Galerie Charlot (FRA), National Art Centre Tokyo (JPN), V Moscow Biennale for Young Art (RUS), Carroll/Fletcher Gallery (UK), American Medium Gallery (NYC), Serralves Museum (POR), Edith-Russ-Haus fur Mediakunst (GER), York Art Gallery (UK), and The Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe (USA).

His installations have been awarded prizes in Canada (Prix Pierre Ayot 2019, Sobey Art Award Longlist 2018 and 2020) and internationally (Japan Media Arts Prize 2016, Aesthetica Art Prize 2017). He is currently represented by Ellephant Gallery (Montreal). His work can be found in the institutional collections of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and the Ville de Montréal.

Remaining active as an experimental composer and performer, his concert music, live performances, and sound recordings are presented worldwide.

To register for this work shop, click the link here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/146496522041

The post Your Ear is a Microscope: “Sound Object” Manipulation for All w/ Adam Basanta first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Ableton Live for Beginners w/ ygretz

Ableton Live for Beginners will introduce participants to Ableton Live and provide insight into music production. We will learn how to record MIDI, edit audio, and learn about different effects and devices. This workshop is aimed to introduce beginners to the world of music production.    

Tech Requirements:
A computer, headphones, and a sufficient internet connection are required. Ableton Live 10 or 11 is recommended but not necessary.

ARTIST BIO:
ygretz is a singer/artist from Regina, SK. She has released two EPs titled Mel Wide (2019) and Jelly22 (2020). She records and produces her own music, as well as creates animated videos for her songs.

Register for this workshop via the link here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/146495212123

The post Ableton Live for Beginners w/ ygretz first appeared on PAVED Arts.

“This is a gallery about a mystical place that used to be, but now… is. The Feather presents a clown society in its contemporary form. We aim to make people laugh but also walk away feeling a little informed about the media around them. Armed with our satire and razor sharp wit, we present a gallery highlighting the work we have done and also the clowns that have come before us. This gallery is our confession to the world on how and why we do it.” –The Feather

The Feather is collectively comprised of stand-up comedians and media artists based out of Saskatoon, who share an aptitude for delivering incisive social/political commentary “with an indigenous slant.” Their group has been producing content since May of 2018, and has grown into a multimedia production company that creates videos and content for consumption on the internet. For the duration of this exhibition at PAVED Arts, the main gallery space will be transformed into a showcase for The Feather, combining a retrospective look at past video work alongside on-the-spot media production. 

Artist Bios
Editor-in-Chief, Ryan Moccasin:
Ryan Moccasin is an author, satirist, and comedian from Saskatoon. He is currently editor for the online satirical news website called The Feather. His fake news articles and videos have been featured on APTN InFocus and CBC. Ryan’s work has garnered over thousands of views and impressions on social media. His recent sci-fi novel “Suicide Empire” was featured on CBC Radio, APTN, and Eagle Feather News. He has also written a Christmas screenplay for the Gordon Tootoosis Native Theatre Company. When not pretending he knows how to write plays, he is also working on his next novel called “Lullaby For Emily” which is slated for release in 2021. Ryan is currently working on an animated series “Sensational Man”. The series was recently chosen to be pitched for content executives at Netflix’s Virtual Pitch Day.Writer/Producer, Shawn Cuthand:
Shawn Cuthand is half Cree, half Mohawk, but all deadly. He got into comedy to honour his storytelling ancestors. He has made appearances at the Winnipeg Fringe, Woke Comedy Hour, Laughter is Medicine in Winnipeg, Comedy Monday Night in Calgary, Trevor’s Pad at YukYuk’s Ottawa and was lucky enough to get drawn out of the bucket on Kill Tony, the #1 live comedy podcast in the world. He recently did his first half hour at Yuk Yuk’s as well. He spent the pandemic performing at socially distanced fire pit parties and now you can see him alongside Danny Knight as hosts of The Real Deadly podcast on CHO? Network. And once pandemic dies down you can bet your flat ass they will be hosting open mic again!Writer/Host, Danny Knight:
Danny is an actor/musician/comedian and correspondent for the satirical newspaper The Feather. He has attended and graduated from GTNT’s Circle of Voices program, youth ensemble, red spirit, and fire spirit programs. Danny held an artist residency at Persephone Theatre where he studied script work, sound design, administration, marketing, and acting. His acting credits include Thunderstick (Globe Theatre), The Shortcuts Festival 2016 (Hardly Art Theatre), Dominion (GTNT), A History of Breathing (Persephone Theatre).Audio/Visual, Muskwa Lerat:
Muskwa is a First Nations artist and producer stationed in Saskatoon, originally from Cowessess First Nation in the Treaty 4 territory. His artistic endeavours began at a young age with the local hip-hop group known as the Unsatisfied Poets. At 22, Muskwa attended the Recording Arts Institute of Saskatoon to further his knowledge in the field of audio recording. Upon graduating, he was one of the co-founding members of The Sound & Silence Collective, a local record label. Over the years Muskwa has stepped into the world of film and has collaborated on a number of projects that have been accepted into film festivals nationally and internationally. Muskwa has been a mentor at the Saskatoon Tribal Council youth film camp since 2016.

The post The Feather Presents: Confessions of a Clown Society first appeared on PAVED Arts.

Join us online for a showcase performance featuring work by the talented youth in our Mic Drop Program! Though a partnership with Chokecherry Studios and Saskatoon Open Door Society, PAVED Arts has held this online program every Monday evening since September of 2020, as a way to inspire and engage youth in our community, and we are excited to present some of the work that has come out of it!

Facilitated by Zoe Slusar, Betty Pewapsconias and Sean Kiskotagan, Mic Drop has offered a safe and supportive space (virtual and physical) to create art in the realm of spoken word, rap, creative writing and hip-hop, and the opportunity to record work in the PAVED Arts recording studio. This program also provided transportation to and from the PAVED Arts recording studio and had food delivered to participants’ homes.

Thank you to the City of Saskatoon and Sask Lotteries for their generous support of the Mic Drop program.

The post Mic Drop Showcase first appeared on PAVED Arts.

PAVED Arts is pleased to present Illusions of Peace, a billboard project by emerging artist Morning Thompson. This work first appeared as part of the Chokecherry Studios‘ inaugural exhibition entitled REDSILIENT. This collaborative, youth-led initiative aimed to honour the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and was presented as a multi-media exhibition in 2019. Thompson’s striking photographic work dramatizes the urgency of this contemporary issue. 

Mainstream society is privileged with the option of being able to look away. That is not an option for Indigenous people who endure intergenerational trauma and continue to be systematically forced into circumstances that normalize and perpetuate violence against our women and girls. Illusions of Peace is a mirror. It forces us to look; this photograph demands that we confront the ways in which we are complicit and commands us to see the truth. 

The original exhibition project also featured works from Kiyari McNab, Kendra Poochay, Shania Thompson and Vicky Laforge. Chokecherry is a non-profit organization founded by youth that provides art-based programming to elevate lived experiences through storytelling, community engagement, and youth-led advocacy. REDSILIENT drew inspiration from Metis artist Jaime Black’s REDress Installation. The Chokecherry project explored the theme of the Red Dress in relation to the local context of Saskatoon and the Canadian Prairies.

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