installation

popART: Intersection at Nuit Blanche

As many of you know, I've been doing some more experimental work, which this summer has taken the form of my popART series of immersive installations. Earlier this year saw part one take place in a darkened alley during Winnipeg Fringe and featuring the work of Pixel Pusher and John Norman. For the second installation in the series, I have partnered with Ali Khan and jaymez to create a space we call Intersection.

 Intersection: Images on unfamiliar surfaces. Sounds in unfamiliar spaces created on unfamiliar instruments. A familiar yet unfamiliar space. Join us for the second in Kendra Jones’ popART series of curated installations merging music, video, and performance with music created live by Ali Khan, and multi-surface video projection by jaymez.

The installation will be at the intersection of Graham and Edmonton, in the outdoor plaza in front of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet building at 380 Graham Avenue. Combining the live electronic music creation of Ali Khan with the live video mapped projections from jaymez we will envelope the angular and hard-edged architecture of the space with light and sound that is continually being created and changing. You can come for a short while, for a longer period, or come and go, and the intersection of the space, the music, and the projections will enhance and elevate each of the individual components.

Come check us out from 9pm on Nuit Blanche. And tell your friends!

With all of these installation projects, one of my main goals is to re-define expectations for our interaction with art and theatre, and to challenge us to notice the inherent theatricality of events and spaces we pass by daily.

Also, this will be one of my last projects in the 'Peg for awhile. . . so it would be fantastic to have your support.

popART: Intersection is an official "Illuminate the Night" selection for Nuit Blanche Winnipeg and Culture Days Manitoba.





2015 Winnipeg Fringe!

 
After a 3 year hiatus from any fringe related work outside reviewing, I've plunged head first into things this year, with 3 projects. There is quite literally something for each of you.
 
Clink -- A new play by Hannah Foulger(Venue 11) - showtimes available here:https://www.facebook.com/events/495770420572675/
- This is a fantastic 4-hander which I've directed, world premiere. A brand new play by an emerging playwright, featuring four emerging actors from the city. It takes place at a wedding, and we've staged it in a surprising way, where the audience get to be the guests at the wedding! Come ready for a party. Drinks not included, but a pre-show drink is heartily encouraged. You'll feel like one of the wedding party.


Sea Wall - by Simon Stephens
(Venue 27) - showtimes available here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1627940270776127/
- Theatre By the River's offering for the fest. This is the opposite end of the spectrum -- a play by recent Tony award winner Simon Stephens, one man show featuring Rodrigo Beilfuss before he heads off to a season with Stratford's Birmingham Conservatory. I've co-directed this piece. It is only 30 minutes. Beautifully written, a devastating piece of theatre.
 

popART: Project Vapour -- Sunday July 19 from 1-4pm
- Finally, this is an odd little project of mine, the first in a series of installations I am doing. I call it theatre, some may argue that point... Essentially it is an immersive installation project that lasts 3 hours. You can come and go. It features music from John Norman, and a physical video installation by Pixel Pusher, all curated by me. The goal is to re-create that feeling of disorientation you get when you go into a movie or theatre in the daytime, then emerge into the light again, but in this instance you immerse into a warehouse party in an alley in the exchange. The whole thing takes place in the alley beneath artspace on Arthur Street. Stay tuned, there is another one of these coming for Nuit Blanche too, just learned we're an official selection for the next in this series, popART: Intersection!
 
Anyway, hope you can make it to one (or all!) of my projects.

Vacant Circumstances: this and something else - Dong Kyoon Nam @ Aceartinc

Dong Kyoon Nam's solo show at the Ace Art gallery is a collection of 5 installations, each of which uses common household items in a provocative way, calling attention to our reliance on objects and the frightening control they can have on our lives.

The most striking pieces for me were Event Horizon and Just Once.

Event Horizon consists of clock timers and fluorescent light fixtures mounted on a long wall, and a short bit of the perpindicular wall adjacent to it. The lights glow down on the wall, reminiscent of hip nightclub lighting, but as you approach the installation, the incessant ticking of the clock timers grows louder and louder, to a point where it is overwhelming. It immediately called awareness to our obsession with time; i caught my thoughts wandering in that direction, and had to remind myself i wasn't in a hurry. What is even more interesting is that upon hearing the ticking, even walking to other parts of the gallery where I had previously stood unaware of the sound, the sound resonated (whether actually or just in my head I couldn't say).

Just Once is created of two tall fans, clicked on and facing toward one another, wrapped in white extension cords. I could not help but think of the fans as two lovers, facing one another, trapped in embrace. The human quality of these two fans pushing at one another non-stop triggered thoughts of the constant barrage of sound and intensity we often throw at our loved ones, without pause to listen and take them in.

This is an excellent show, and it is free - so I highly recommend you check it out!

www.aceart.org


Janet Cardiff - Forty Part Motet @ WAG (to 28 April 2013)

You can hear the voices from the next room in the gallery, and are drawn in by the sound. Normally an avid reader of the gallery cards explaining the piece and its creator, I pushed past this, around the corner to the darkened room. A perimeter of speakers in an oval shape greeted me, with a group of benches in the centre. People sat, eyes closed, absorbing the sound, or moved through the space. My 8 year old daughter wanted to explore, so we circled the room, sometimes following the sound, and sometimes felt we were causing the sound to occur.

What was really remarkable was precisely what Cardiff desired the experience to be, the sensation of climbing inside sound. I've sung in a circle before, and even listened in a circle to others singing, however the sensation caused here felt different somehow. Perhaps it was just that - the sensory deprivation of a darkened room with no other objects, no colours. Looking at photographs, there have been versions of this in beautifully ornate churches, or more livened rooms, which I'm sure created another slightly unique experience.

I strongly recommend taking this in - the piece will be at the WAG until 28 April under regular admission.

For more info, check here: http://wag.ca/art/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/display,exhibition/125/janet-cardiff-forty-part-motet

Girls! Girls! Girls! - A fundraiser for the Gas Station Arts Centre

I learned this week that Autel, a performance installation I created while at RADA has been selected for an exhibition in Winnipeg! The Exhibition will open at the Gas Station Arts Centre on  21 October, coinciding with the Gala event Girls! Girls! Girls! - a cabaret evening showcasing female performers. The exhibition will run for a further 3 weeks in the lobby gallery of the Arts Centre. 

Autel is an exciting piece for me - it is among my first explorations into the relationship between live experience and recorded audio, aiming to merge the two making the audience aware of the way they are experiencing art as they are experiencing it. It uses recorded audio to guide the viewer to relate to the text, and also to the other works of art and individuals around them. The piece was inspired by and created from play texts written by Jean Genet, and theoretical texts by Antonin Artaud. 

I am extremely grateful to the organizers for selecting my piece for this year's exhibition, and look forward to seeing the other pieces, as well as the cabaret performance on the 21st. I will post information on tickets for the Gala as it becomes available. The Exhibition is free to view during opening hours at the Gas Station Arts Centre. 

Review - Song Dong: Waste Not @ Barbican (The Curve)

I had been meaning to take in this installation for some time, and today, after an afternoon at the Museum of London, turned out to be the perfect opportunity. I began with reading the lengthy introduction Song Dong provides to the piece, outlining a significant amount of detail on the inspiration, notably his mother's life. Growing up in post-war China under communist rule, she was raised in a time of extreme frugality to ensure survival. As her life grew and changed, the need for this intense frugality waned, however her need to save - anything and everything - remained. The way Dong describes it, it is as if the objects began to fill voids and harbour memories she was unwilling to let go of.

At a glance, this could just look like a pile of stuff, which really could be from anyone's house. But upon a slow, careful inspection, each item has been kept and cared for in a very specific manner; plastic bags folded in neat triangles, squares of fabric scraps wrapped with string or ribbon, books piled neatly. And Dong's arrangement within the gallery takes the viewer from the impersonal to the personal, moving from bowls and pots, to boxes and toys, and finally to clothes and shoes. It is remarkable the things that make you realize how far away from home you are; whilst looking at the installation, it occurred to me that many of the objects are similar to those my mother has kept around the house. Unlike Dong, I often encourage my mother to get rid of things she is keeping for sentimental reasons that are no longer of use. This installation and its memory-infested objects hit home, and caused me to re-consider this perspective.

I strongly recommend checking this out. It is free, and runs to 12 June, 2012 in the Barbican Curve Gallery.

Link Here: http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=12878

merge

I am starting to find such wonderful overlap in the themes we are discussing across all classes, and in what I'm looking at for my dissertation. It might just be Genet seeping into my very existence, but I am acutely aware of layers and what people want you to see versus what you do see, both in themselves, in their work, what they present to the world. Where is that core of truth? Do we want to know?

I have also been reading Violence and the Sacred by Rene Girard, an examination of the roots of tragedy in sacrifice, in violence and ritual, and how sexuality is linked to all of these. This is linking with Genet in many many places, and leading me to exciting thoughts for my installation project for the end of term. What is our ritual that is shared, since we as a people no longer share religion? How do we practice this ritual?

Beginning to think about our end of term presentations in response to Genet as well, and what themes we would like to look at. I'm reading up on Paris and politics in Genet's time for inspiration, and also some poetry from his contemporaries. Visually I am inspired by Picasso, Cocteau, and De Francia. Still searching, watching, apsorbing everything I can.

Encountered a ballet, Poppy, by Graeme Murphy with Sydney Dance Company, premiered in 1978. This is inspired by the work and lives of Cocteau and Genet. Warning - beautiful. But also, contains some nudity (I need to be a responsible adult sometimes at least).