Ephemeral Coast

Courses Taught

CURATING FOR CONTEMPORARY ART

Curating for Contemporary Art is a practicum course designed by Celina Jeffery to allow students practical and theoretical experience of curating an art exhibition. This course covers all aspects of curatorial research, including the creation of an exhibition concept, interview techniques with artists, and writing curatorial statements and exhibition catalogues. Students are also introduced to aspects of project management. The 2015 installment of this course saw the curation of two ecologically concerned exhibitions: Turning Tides and Resilience.

INTRO TO INTERDISC IN ARTS: Arts for a Changing Planet

Over the last decade or so, extensive environmental degradation and the ongoing effects of global climate change have inspired a new urgency within the arts to address these concerns. This course draws on cultural theory, literature and the visual arts to identify these strategies of creative engagement and evaluate how they contribute to inserting meaning into our experience of environmental change. This course was designed by Celina Jeffery and Dr. Anne Raine, Department of English.

—CURRICULAR CURATORIAL PROJECTS—

Resilience in/and/from

Ruin in Nature

Contemporary Art Exhibition
December 10, 2015
Paradigm(e): The Dean’s Gallery/La Gallerie du Doyen

Department of Visual Arts, University of Ottawa, 100 Laurier Ave. E.

Resilience in/and/from Ruin in Nature explored humanity’s increasing involvement in the subjugation and degradation of the environment and how this has impeded its ability to adapt and survive. This exhibition invites viewers to engage with contemporary art as a way to negotiate a new understanding of our relationship with the planet. Through the works of Annie Thibault, Justine Skahan, Jess Gonzales, and Isabelle Sarazin-Frey, it presents an artist-mediated view of nature’s capacity for resilience, while Patricia Taylor pursues a surrealist reflection on its potential for ruin. Amanda Gaudreau, Kelly Duquette, and Miles Rufelds situate their discussion of this theme within cultural, historical and specific social contexts. Annie Taylor, Kaitlyn Fortier and Pamela Leszcynski engage with the seemingly conflicting juxtaposition of artificial and natural, questioning and exploring the line between these two concepts and stimulating viewers to consider more carefully the world around them.

Curated by: Jenn Hall, Emilie Darlington, Abigail Sanderson, Lauren Howard, Pressillia Berchan, Maureen Hennessy and James Hicks

Photos and information can be found on Resilience/Ruin’s Facebook Event Page

https://www.facebook.com/events/454488338071572/

TURNING TIDES

Contemporary Art Exhibition
30 November - 8 December 2015
Gallery115 / Galerie 115

Department of Visual Arts, University of Ottawa, 100 Laurier Ave. E.

Turning Tides explored the phenomenon of water as a fundamental ecological and cultural resource and the ways in which contemporary artists are re-envisioning and reconceptualising this dialogue. Located within the context of the Canadian imagination, this exhibition invited viewers to reconsider the unique role that water plays in our lives culturally, politically, environmentally and historically.

Turning Tides included work by Rebecca Belmore and Theo Pelmus, Cara Tierney, Carol Howard Donati, Valérie Mercier, Sarah Fuller, François Cambe and RADCHUKA. Raising questions about water consumption and pollution, and how this resource has informed Canada’s social and cultural histories, each artist’s work challenges our complex understanding of water both internally and externally – in the home, in legislation and in our cultural constructions.

Curated by: Sherena Razek, Megan MacLaurin, Chanelle Lalonde, Emilie Gignac, Phoebe Sampey, Montserrat Carrion, and Jenn Fournier

Catalogue available on the Turning Tides tumblr page http://turningtides115.tumblr.com