Performer/Writer: Lori
Blondeau is a Saskatoon-based performing/theater artist who
has worked in performing since 1983. Lori's most recent work is a
collaborative piece with photographer Bradlee Larocque, entitled COSMOSQAW.
She created a performance in collaboration with Vern Checkosis called
We Want to be Just Like Barbie That Bitch has
Everything. Blondeau is a curator for Tribe artist-run centre
in Saskatoon.
Videographer: Maureen
Bradley is an independent video artist, instructor and video
editor living in Vancouver. Producing videos that explore sexual identity,
media representation, power, desire, and gender identity, her work
has screened at festivals and galleries internationally with the occasional
broadcast here and there. Maureen started producing videos as an extension
of queer activism and has produced 15 works since 1990. Long before
Ellen came out on American TV, Maureen had the bizarre experience
of being, perhaps, the first out dyke on a Canadian TV series. In
1992 she appeared in CBC's Road Movies, a weekly show that followed
eight Gen-X roving videographers across Canada. In April, Maureen
launched a solo exhibition at Video In-The
Dead Lady Project which explores contemporary culture's
fetishized relationship to the female corpse.
Curator/Performer: Marusya
Bociurkiw is a media artist, curator, and the author of the
short story collection The Woman Who Loved Airports. She has programmed
for galleries and festivals across the country. Most recently, she
curated Cabaret Ruling Passions for the "Explicit"
Symposium, and "Other Tongues",
a touring program of Canadian video art for Video Out. Her critical
writing has appeared in Fuse, Mix, Kinesis and Border/Lines. She has
produced over a dozen videos which have been screened world-wide.
She has recently completed residencies at the Wexner Centre for the
Arts and Hedgebrook Writer's Colony, and is currently teaching television
and popular culture studies at SFU and UBC.
Performer Joelle
Ciona: Mal located gregarious iso-type wandering what she's
doing here. Joelle Ciona has a degree in architecture and has been
practicing landscape architecture, sound composition, sculpture, video,
and performance. Targeting moments when everyday actions suspend my
disinterest I am rappelled by the masses... but not being from here
I don't have proper climbing gear. Joelle Ciona hails from Saskatchewan,
developed her cutting edge in Montreal, and after 2 years as a Vancouverite
she's looking to move on. Suggestions are welcome.
Curator: Peter
Courtemanche is director of the artist-in-residence production
program at the Western Front. He has worked variously with sound/radio-art,
video, and interactive/electronic installations. Currently, he is
producing an installation entitled "Spirit
Hands"
- a work that haunts the gallery and pays reference to the spiritualist
era and in particular 'spirit photography'.
Writer:
Sylvie Gilbert is a prominent Canadian critic and curator.
She studied at both Concordia University and L'Université de
Montréal, she has filled the role of Media Arts Officer at
the Canada Council, and she has been the curator for the Walter Phillips
Gallery at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Performer:
Sheila James is a musician, writer and theatre worker, formerly
based in Toronto and presently living in Vancouver. She has composed
music for theatre and film and performs regularly as Jimmy Susheel-"
the Harry Connick Junior of the South Asian Scene."
She is a former Artistic Director of the feminist troupe the Company
of Sirens and has been active in organizing, producing and performing
work for Desh Pardesh-the largest festival of South Asian culture
and politics in North America.
Curator/Video Artist: Paul
Lang has worked in Vancouver as a video, performance,
and text-based artist for the last ten years. Installations include
"Plaids", "Choose
your Plague", and "Results?".
He has worked collaboratively with Lorna Boschman, Yvonne Parent,
Kiss and Tell, Zachary Longboy, Ian McNolty , Grant Greegson, and
Noam Gonick. He is currently a board member of Video In and is on
the programming committee of Out on Screen. Through both organizations
he has acted as an independent programmer/curator. Between projects,
he provides technical support to local and international artists.
Curator: Erick
Metcalfe is the performance art curator at the Western Front.
Known for his infamous alias Dr. Brute, Metcalfe is currently working
on a series of ceramics based on classical forms. He is an avid collector
of jazz and film noir.
Performer: Haley
Newman is a performance artist based in London, England. Recently,
she was a recipient of a DAAD scholarship, and was included in the
Young Contemporaries show at the ICA in London. Her performance work
often plays on the notion of the music star. She is known for using
the technology of sound (the vinyl record, the vocalist's microphone,
the guitar amplifier) in unique ways as a means of
deconstructing images of popular
music.
Performer: Marnie
Lee Plested is a performance artist and producer based in Vancouver.
He recently co-hosted the Miss Messiah Pageant and co-curated the
Millennium Towers performance festival at the Helen Pitt Gallery.
He is presenting a performance and installation this month at Video
In.
Performer: Marlene
Madison Plimley is an interdisciplinary performance artist
with roots in painting and design. She studied at the Emily Carr Institute
of Art and Design, and she has also studied acting. Marlene performs
live, and her video works have been screened Canada, the US, and Amsterdam.
Artist: Pipilotti
Rist is an internationally renowned video artist whose
work deconstructs elements of popular culture by reveling in the fetishistic
behavior shown in mass-produced pop videos. Recent exhibitions include
The Social Life of Roses or Why I'm Never Sad, at the National Kunsthalle
Wien, Galerie im Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Museum for Gegenwart; Centre
National d'Art Contemporain de Grenoble-Le Magasin; The Office, Tel
Aviv; and Site, Santa Fe.
Performer: Carol
Sawyer is a Vancouver based visual artist and singer whose
work often takes the form of performances or multi-media installations.
Of late, her work has examined ideas about the singing and speaking
voice in relation to the social construction of gender. Recent projects
have included the full-length performance piece: "An
Incomplete History of the Voice, in five acts",
presented at the Western Front in November 1997, and the multi media
installation "Amazon", currently
on at Artspeak Gallery in Vancouver. "Amazon"
is showing May 1st - June 6, 1998 at Artspeak Gallery in Vancouver.
Sawyer is giving a performance in conjunction with the exhibit on
June 6 at 8 p.m. at the gallery. A companion publication will be launched
on that date also.
Performer: Alvin
Erasga Tolentino, originally from Manila, in the Philippines,
has trained with the Ballet Philippines, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, York
University, and a variety of international dance artists. His work
has been described as "devastatingly beautiful,... unpredictable,
bizarre, and totally captivating." Presently based in Vancouver, his
work as a solo dancer/choreographer has been featured in festivals
across Canada, Japan, the United States, Philippines, and Switzerland.
He was a finalist in Nagoya Japan, at the first international dance
competition. Recently, Tolentino formed Erasga Projects to produce,
promote, and enhance the work and stature of both established and
emerging visual and performance artists in the community.
Curator/Performer: Lori
Weidenhammer is a performance artist from Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan.
She has participated in two residencies at the Banff Center for the
Arts, the Instability of the Feminist Subject, and Action Poetry.
She recently produced Cleaning the Hive, a performance piece based
on the art of Aganetha Dyck, developed in collaboration at the Mendel
Art Gallery. She has curated an Internet piece called Virtual
Postcards from the Feminist Utopia. Lori is currently based out
of Vancouver and is working on two pieces with interactive costumes.
Cyber Diva: Kira
Wu is currently completing her MFA degree at Simon Fraser
University in the School for the Contemporary Arts. She has worked
primarily with video, photography and installation art. Her most recent
project "Translation",
is an installation incorporating still photographic images, recorded
sound, text and video projections in an audience-interactive space.
The project confronts issues of cultural and historical fragmentation
and the translation of history, memory and cultural identity through
storytelling and visual representations. Video works that have been
screened nationally at festivals throughout Canada include:
Empty
Orchestra, Whitewash, Occidental Tourist, and Am I Here, Do I Belong
Here?.