An exhibition of abstract and semi-abstract works by Monique Ra Brent will be on display at Clarington Town Hall/ Visual Art Centre gallery space. The exhibit, Meditations, runs until the end of June 2016 features a range of methods and materials. The work showcases Ra Brent's growth as an artist. The VAC has curated the town hall gallery space since 1989 to spotlight small exhibits and community artists. It is located at 40 Temperance Street, in Bowmanville.
Deana Sumanac-Johnson, CBC arts reporter
The Other NFB: Still Photography symposium, panel hosted by CBC reporter Deana Sumanac-Johnson, at the RMG Sat. Mar. 19
The National Film Board is known of course for its moving image archives; documentaries, film, animation, but the institute has an extensive archive of photography. The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is currently presenting The Other NFB: The National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division 1941-1971. The Still Photography department of the NFB was tasked with producing an “official” view of Canada. The resulting collection therefore is curated by bureaucrats and delivers not so much images of Canada but an image. This is the Canada as a creation, perhaps even as an art.
Its an interesting construct worth exploring, which the RMG will on Mar 19 2016 at an all day symposium with Carleton University Art professor Carol Payne, Deana Sumanac-Johnson, CBC arts reporter and photojournalist/author Ted Grant aka The Father of Canadian photojournalism, who has over 280,000 images in the National Archives of Canada. RMG curator Sonya Jones and Vanessa Fleet, curator at York University will also be presenting. The day begins at 10 a.m. with a tour and discussion by Payne.
The fact that such an archive exists bears testament to the lengths governments will go to to define the nation, to frame the narrative and to ensure that their message, is the one that gathers traction with the populace. Canada has always seen itself as something of a mosaic. It is not a melting pot like America. Each element of Canadian society has its own space and place in Canada. All these spaces can be imaged and the images curated into a whole. But it is only as we zoom out that we see the big picture, zoom out further from these spaces into space itself and we see Canada has much more multi-dimesional a concept than any bureaucrat could imagine. But it is noteworthy that there was a time when bureaucrats saw the populace as a means to their own end, as a resource, as somewhat less than human even. Its a past that bears further scrutiny.
Novelist Andrew Sullivan's WASTE lands at The Garrison Mar 23
If WASTE, Andrew Sullivan's debut novel about the old weird Canadiana town of Larkhill, loosely based on his hometown of Oshawa, was ever put to film, Black Grass would provide the perfect soundtrack. Black Grass is the name Orono musician Bradley Boy MacArthur gives to the music that comes from around the city of Oshawa, east of Toronto. It is the sound of bands such as Cuff The Duke, Lindi Ortega, Timber Timbre and Jadea Kelly as well as the Billiard Blossom, The Stables and The Stellas. There's an honesty to it, a toughness to it and a darkness in it, which is, not coincidently, the stuff of Waste.
"Black Grass does make sense for Larkhill, it`s a city that is isolated the way Oshawa used to be, the fallow spaces between the warehouses and the factories that have been torn down. The city being reclaimed by the weeds in its way. I definitely see that connection and with that music too. I know they`re not from Oshawa, but I was listening to a lot of Elliott Brood and Constantines when the novel was coming together and I think that is in there. A city that is never fully civilized, always waiting to tip over into decline, to be reclaimed by the woods," says Sullivan when the Black Grass moniker was proposed by SlowCity.ca.
Larkhill in 1989 is the city ready to tip, into violence, into economic collapse. One night a lion meets a dead-end; accidentally killed by a car. The driver and passenger struggle free and return to their own dead-end lives of metal illness, stagnant wages, and unsavoury friendships. But Astor Crane, the lion's owner, is searching for the killers and he doesn't have a reputation for empathy.
"The book was inspired by old urban legends and bullshit stories I overheard about drug deals gone bad and people keeping pets that should have been illegal outside of town," says Sullivan. "A lot of it just fantasy, people talking tough at 3 a.m. They were all most likely made-up, but these sort of stories had some kernels of truth in them. They were the lies and myths of a city just big enough to get lost in, just big enough to get you in real trouble. So I spent a lot of time researching, reading police blotters from the 80s, compiling the stories I knew, fact-checking some things with older folks. Although a lot of the roots of WASTE are in the 'Shwa, it's not a perfect copy. It's hyper real and surreal and a mismatch of other places like Peterborough, London, Sarnia, etc. It's a patchwork of Ontario cities just big enough to have problems you can't trace back to one person. It's also in the past, the city I see today resembles very little in the book. But I do think there is a core there that's hard scrabble, that's proud, that's going to go out on a Friday and get lit up. And that runs like a stream under the city and the book."
Sullivan grew up in that hard scrabble core, Oshawa's South End. It is an area dominated by the skyline of the General Motors Automotive Plant and its feeder factories but it is close, too, to Darlington Provincial Park, Lake Ontario and its feeder creeks. With not much else to do Sullivan says he hung out in basements, ravines or on farms just outside the city. He does single out the Oshawa Public LIbrary as a haven for an inquisitive boy.
"I found a lot of books and art in the public libraries, started reading people like Dashiell Hammett and Toni Morrison and J.G. Ballard and Harry Crews. I have a lot of love for the Oshawa Public Libraries. For music, you were stuck with the mall or grabbing what you could at shows ( at the Dungeon or the Velvet Elvis). Opportunity came with getting out of Durham Region, I think its healthy to uproot yourself while you still can. You always end up coming back again anyway," he says.
Sullivan ends up coming back to his roots, psychologically, in his novel. He revisits the half-glimpsed fragments of lives from his youth. They rest uneasily in the darkly nightmarish leaves of Waste. The book is available in the States already but will be launched in Canada at The Garrison in Toronto, Wednesday Mar 23. WASTE is published by Dznac.
Ham Jam Thank you Ma'am, B.A. Johnston web series in the works
Every city should have a lover like B.A. Johnston. The Polaris Music Prize nominee and solo recording artist has been singing the praises of his hometown of Hamilton since he was just a B.B. Now he has the chance to show us video of the affair via B.A. Johnston's Ham Jam. The initial concept of B.A. as Hamilton Tourism Action Committee tour guide webcast showing off the charm of the Hammer came from husband and wife team, Doug Nayler and Chelsea McMullan. McMullan produced the Rae Spoon film My Prairie Home which played Sundance 2013. Nayler says he has been a fan of BA and thought there was something about his endearingly absurd live shows that could translate to film.
"I had mentioned to Chelsea I thought there was a lot of potential to do something with B.A. in some sort of video context," Nayler says in an email interview with SlowCity.ca. "He has some live videos and funny interviews floating around out there, but we thought that there was something there that could lend it self to a more complex, ongoing project. Once she saw one of his live shows she was on board, and we just started brainstorming what we could try to pitch him on. His voice on the songs is so specific and personal we knew we wanted to find a way to depict his point of view. We finally contacted him with a couple of ideas, and I think he got what we were trying to do pretty quickly. Then we just batted things around until it was settled that we had to go with him to Hamilton. All those back corners and weird details are more than enough fuel for a web series. We told our producer friend Coral Aiken about it and she jumped at it right away too. The next thing we knew we were on our way."
On their way to Hamilton yes but this is not your grandfather's Hamilton. B.A. knows the real Steel including some little known beauty spots such as Seagull Island says Nayler.
"Seagull Island was a pretty great bit of Hamilton lore he filled us in on. Apparently it's a little outcropping somewhere just a bit off shore which is like Hamilton seagull headquarters, just hundreds of them swarming. As soon as B.A. told us that as an idea we were both like, 'Alright we're getting a hold of a boat then.' We haven't actually seen it yet as winter is the off-season for Seagull Island, but we're definitely going to check it out once the Spring hits," he says.
The plan for B.A. Ham Jam is to encourage viewers to check out the off-beat heritage of the Hammer's music man but the offshoot could be people taking a second look, not just at Hamilton (which is already pretty rad), but also at their own hometown. Nayler says he was raised near Owen Sound, wasn't too fond of the area but says in retrospect it did have its own Ham Jam-like moments.
"I still feel pretty close ties to the area, but there's also things I totally rejected and had to get away from as soon as I was able to, all that xenophobic, macho redneck/hockey jock shit," says Nayler. "When Letterkenny Problems cropped up online everyone I know from growing up, still in touch with, went crazy for it. You very seldom see that style of talking in any sort of media. It's kind of left me with a treasure trove of great stories that are unique to an area like that. My dad and I used to get the family Christmas tree by picking off the top of a 30 foot pine tree with a rifle. Isolation certainly makes a person creative in how to stay entertained."
BA's solo jaunts across Canada have kept many an isolated community entertained but now those middle-of-nowhere places can share in the cult of B.A. and his Steeltown ties on the Interwebs (even if its still by dial-up modem). B.A. Johnston's Ham Jam is produced by Aiken Heart Productions. The web series goes into production late 2016.
B.A. Johnston is on tour and plays Manantler Brewery in Bowmanville Mar 26 with Poor Pelly.
FRI March 18 HAMILTON ONT @ This Aint Hollywood w/ Spruce Invaders, Whoop-Zoo
SAT March 19 WATERLOO ONT @ Jane Bond w/ Brent Randall 10$
FRI March 25 BRANTFORD ONT @ Train Cafe
SAT March 26 BOWMANVILLE ONT @ Mantler Brewery w/ Poor Pelly
FRI April 1 SUDBURY ONT @ Asylum w/ Casper Skulls
SAT April 2 NORTH BAY ONT @ Fraser Tavern w/ Casper Skulls
FRI April 8 MONCTON NB @ Esquire Tavern w/ Disasterbators
SAT April 9 SYDNEY NS @ Embers
TUE April 12 SAINT JOHN NB @ Callahans w/ Reaguns Rayguns
WED April 13 CHARLOTTETOWN PEI @ Hunters w/ Jon McKiel
THURS April 14 SACKVILLE NB @ Thunder and Lightening
FRI April 15 HALIFAX NS @ Gus Pub w/ Everywheres, Spew, Future Girls 6$
SAT April 16 FREDERICTON NB @ Capital w/ Little You Little Me, Reaguns Rayguns
SAT April 23 TORONTO ONT @ JUnction Music Hall w/ First Base, Crossdog
FRI April 29 OTTAWA ONT @ House of Targ w/ Average Times, Faux Cults
SAT April 30 Montreal QC @ Grumpys w/ Faux Cults FREEE
Artwork by Dani Crosby
Projections: Emerging Artists at the Visual Arts Centre Mar 13 - Apr 10 2016
Projections, a show of emerging artists curated by Todd Tremeer opens Sunday Mar. 13 2016 at the Visual Arts Centre. Dani CRosby, Sarah Ammons and Conan Masterson are the artists on exhibit. Crosby says Tremeer approached her with the idea and the theme and she ran with it.
"I wanted to explore our interpretation and our struggle to interpret ourselves and others. What we project onto ourselves and others and the triggers for those projections both positive and negative. I played with ideas of trying to navigate physical and emotional terrain." says Crosby, adding the face plays a large role in the work.
She offers a poem associated with one of the works as explanation; "faces are like mazes, I get lost all the time, I get locked out, I get pulled in, I get stuck inside."
The show runs through to April 10. The opening reception is 2 to 4 p.m. The VAC is located at 143 Simpson Ave., in Bowmanville.
