ART CRAWL 2018

August 11th, 6-10 pm

Mark your calendars for this years Art Crawl!

Alana Bartol’s “we cannot fathom the depths of our shadows”

Location: Eastern Edge, 72 Harbour Drive
Time: 8:30 pm – 10:30 pm

Our Artist in Residence this year, Alana Bartol, has been on a particularly interesting adventure across Newfoundland from Argentina to Fogo Island while researching coastal communities and the waters they depend upon. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia with roots connecting to a long line of water witches, Alana brings her site-responsive works to life with traditional methods of dowsing (aka water-witching). Reading and gaining further understanding from practicing her ancestral divination she explores the impacts of human industry on our environments and the development of our role as caretaker. In developing The Orphan Well Adoption Agency, a fictional non-profit organization dedicated to taking care of orphan wells, she has expanded her reach to the offshore wells that are a touchstone in Newfoundland’s industrial landscape. Asking the tough questions about Newfoundland’s oil and gas industry and bringing her readings from pendulum dowsing Alana holds space for conversations with communities. Are their roles adapting with the changing export of resources and how do we read the signs from our environment with these highly technical and scientific industries with traditional knowledge? Installed in the Eastern Edge main gallery, Orphan Well Adoption Agency: Offshore Edition and accompanying performance we cannot fathom the depths of our shadows delves into our information’s reliability and examines how we might remediate with new ways of reading our environments.

Dowsing or ‘water-witching’ is a form of divination used to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, sites, oil, and information. Though it has often been associated with witchcraft and the occult, dowsing has been used for prospecting ores and water in Northern Europe and elsewhere since the 15th century.

we cannot fathom the depths of our shadows invites audiences to participate in one-on-one pendulum dowsing readings with the artist. Using a custom-made pendulum (containing vital materials), answers to questions will be revealed. Audiences are asked to be prepared to ask yes/no questions that are important to them. Sessions will be limited to five minutes. First come first serve.

Carrie Allison’s “Kiskisohcikew (s/he makes things to make people remember)

Location: Harbourside Park, Harbour Dr
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm and 9 pm – 10 pm

As an Indigenous mixed-race visual artist born and raised in unceeded and unsurrendered Coast Salish Territory, Carrie Allison’s practice brings her Cree and Metis ancestry to the forefront with gestures of resilience and reclamation. Carrie celebrates the traditional threads in contemporary art making through a rigorous focus on unraveling colonial narratives. Her collaborative beading projects have been working with communities across the Atlantic provinces and making their way here for Hold Fast. Carrie will be engaging indigenous and non-indigenous communities alike during the Hold Fast Festival in beading workshops on both the east and west coasts of Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) and in presenting kiskisohcikew (s/he makes things to make people remember) for the Art Crawl. The performance has the artists seeking to reclaim language through the act of loom beading while repeating Cree words and phrases. Carrie Allison brilliantly finds the use of beading as a mnemonic device for learning language and resisting the pressures of colonial silencing. Multimedia and amplification will be present to grow the presence of Carrie’s voice and magnify the act of remembering through loom beading.

This performance uses beading as a mnemonic device for language learning. Throughout the duration of the event Carrie will perform a loomed beading while repeating Cree words and phrases from Bluetooth speakers. This performance seeks to reclaim language and perform an act of resistance through making and repetition.

Lenka Novakova’s “The Conversation with Landscape: (lakes – sky and the weather)”

Location: Harbour Drive Parking lot, 74 Harbour Dr
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Lenka Novakova transforms interior and exterior spaces with highly dynamic and visually stunning movement in shadow and light. As a Czech-Canadian interdisciplinary artist based out of Montreal, Lenka dives into performative explorations of natural environments and how we move through them in multimedia installations. In hopes to draw out the performer in everyone she invites audience members to become part of the art through immersive actions and reactions to both the naturally occurring elements and the reshaping of light. Illuminating the Harbour front with multiple projections, Lenka moves large screens to manipulate and play with the surrounding space. The Conversation with Landscape: (lakes – sky and the weather) will be in full affect during the Art Crawl with St. John’s unpredictable winds and landscape shaped by the ocean. Building from workshops with locals and after traveling across the province Lenka will be incorporating her experiences with this land and its many environments into her performance and practice.

This project is a performative environment which will invite trained as well as untrained performers (formed by the audience) to participate within a dynamic multimedia immersive performance aiming to explore how the natural environments affect our actions and conversely how our actions affect the environment. Two large projection screens will be transformed into a dynamic space where the movement of the performers constantly shapes and reshapes the interior and the exterior space as an expression of the duality of the ocean and the sky, all that while engaging the element of the weather as an aesthetic, experiential and critical entry.

Samagiik’s “Untitled”

Location: Craft Council, 275 Duckworth Street
Time: 6 – 7 pm & 10 – 11 pm

“It’s a complete gift when you get to choose who you work with” wonderfully describes the collaborative practice of artistic duo Asinnajaq and Camille Georgeson-Usher, known as Samagiik. The word translates to those who call each other friend. Samagiik are grounded in meaningful acts of coming-together where the process is of utmost importance to their combined artistic expression. Asinnajaq, an award-winning Inuk filmmaker from Inkjuak, QC, and Camille, Coast Salish/Sahtu Dene/Scottish scholar, artist, and writer from Galiano Island, BC of the Pune’laxutth’ (Penelakut) Nation, engage audiences in their practice through immersive installations and evocative guided walks. Having met in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and founding their practices and community within the city, Samagiik brought their work this world; here to The Isabel centre at Queen’s University and now travel across the country to bring another rendition for Hold Fast audiences at the new Craft Council location! There will be opportunities to engage with Samagiik’s installation process and the duo will be bookending the Art Crawl installation piece with guided walks through St. John’s cityscapes providing thought provoking gestures along the way. Exploring with symbols that mark the urban spaces and drawing new ones to show their presence and extend love to those who might also encounter them.

Samagiik (aka Asinnajaq and Camille Georgeson-Usher) will be guiding participants through a discussion on how they might show and see love in the world around them. Together we asked ourselves what signs or symbols might be able to mark our spaces that show ourselves and others that there is love there. Using chalk, Asinnajaq and Camille will lead a short walking discussion while drawing these symbols around a small area of downtown St. John’s, colouring the streets in gestures of care.