Month: August 2019

PHOTOPHAGIA screens September 28th

aislinn
A graphic illustration of a portrait of a black person with pink hair and matching shirt. Their lips are red and what looks like a palm leaf covers part of their face. Two larger palm leaves are on either side of them, and round flowers on vine-like stalks are also in the background.
Illustration by Elise Conlin

PHOTOPHAGIA:  
The Secret Life of Plants
will be described by gardeners and shown without the picture 

The Secret Life of Plants is a 1979 documentary based on a book by the same name.  The content of both has been critiqued as pseudoscience, yet continues to inspire reverence for plant life and a sense of cosmic interconnectedness.

The soundtrack was created by Stevie Wonder, a fact that conspiracy theorists hold up as evidence that Stevie Wonder is not actually blind.  Yet, as noted by The Organist podcast Stevie Wonder probably experienced the visual aspects of The Secret Life of Plants through a simple technology:  audio description, likely provided in a casual way by his assistants.

While conventional audio description may have its place, I’m invested in experimenting with the form and how its de-professionalization can open up access in pleasurable ways.  This summer I invited people who have relationships with plants (gardeners, florists, biologists, herbalists, master gardeners, plant scientists, farmers, etc.) to each describe a scene of the film, imagining they were describing it to a friend who was watching with their eyes closed. I’ve been thinking of this informal approach to audio description as “community description.”

The audio created by plant-affiliated contributors will play alongside the documentary, which will be screened without the picture at the Princess Twin Cinema during Culture Days on September 28, 2019.

This work is produced by Ontario Culture Days and will screen as part of the province-wide exhibition, DO BLUE BUTTERFLIES EAT PARTS OF THE SUN? curated by Dave Dyment on the occasion of Culture Days’ 10th anniversary.

PHOTOPHAGIA will screen at The Princess Twin Cinema (46 King Street North, Waterloo, ON) at 2pm on Saturday September 28th.  The event is free and all are welcome.  The Princess Twin is wheelchair accessible. It is a relaxed screening and community members are invited to do what they need to feel comfortable.  Please help us create a fragrance-free space by avoiding the use of all scented products.  For more on how and why to be fragrance-free please see:  bit.ly/how-to-scent-free

For any venue-related access questions, please contact the cinema directly at 519-884-5112 or manager@princesscinemas.com

For all other access inquiries (or other questions) please reach out myself at aislinn.zaria.thomas@gmail.com or Ontario Culture Days at on@culturedays.ca

To read the full event listing and to read about the other works in the exhibition please see the Culture Days website.

A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention: Six writers respond to six sculptures

aislinn
Six broadsheets fanned out across a wooden surface. The covers have a text drawing that reads, "A Distinct Aggregation / A Dynamic Equivalent / A Generous Ethic of Invention: Six Writers Respond to Six Sculptures.” The letters are a muted blue-green colour on a white background. The text fills the page in all caps and was hand-lettered by Shannon. The spacing and size of the letters vary at times. The letter shapes are graphic with confident lines, made even smoother through the digitization process, but overall the text feels wobbly and was made without the goal of perfection, symmetry, or sameness.
Broadsheets from “A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention: Six writers respond to six sculptures. With Anna Bowen, Angela Marie Schenstead, Crystal Mowry, Laura Burke, Catherine Frazee, Nicole Kelly Westman and Shannon Finnegan. Commissioned by Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Title drawing by Shannon Finnegan.

I’m so excited to release this project into the world!

A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention:  Six writers respond to six sculptures was commissioned by the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre.  Inspired by uninspired approaches to accessibility, it treats traditional audio description as a space for creative acts.

Writers Anna Bowen, Angela Marie Schenstead, Crystal Mowry, Laura Burke, Catherine Frazee and Nicole Kelly Westman each crafted thoughtful, generous responses to a public artwork on the Banff Centre campus.  Together these thoughts and words compose an audio piece that is available to stream from the Walter Phillips Gallery website and can also be heard on MP3 players that can be borrowed from the gallery’s front desk.

The work also exists in a visual format.  Artist Shannon Finnegan and I collaborated to create a broadsheet of transcriptions (pictured above).  The broadsheet includes six text drawings from the ongoing collaborative series A seat at the table, a slice of the pie, that grew from conversations about the practice of visual description.

This project continues to work on me, opening up questions and possibilities for visual description that may challenge sensory hierarchies, is rooted in pleasure, is individualized and particular, that talks back to a work, that memorializes what is no longer physically present, and that acknowledges the subjective.

I’m so grateful to the writers and artists who contributed to this project and all those who worked behind the scenes:  Jacqueline Bell, Caitlin Sutherland, Victoria Lessard, Ed Renzi, Nicolás Arévalo and Iga Gerolin.  Gratitude also to the Canada Council for the Arts.

The exhibition runs until September 27, 2020.

 

Five broadsheets are fanned on a wooden surface. On top one is open to page 32 / 33. On the left is a text drawing by Shannon that reads "A Generous Ethic of Invention." The letters are a muted blue-green colour on a white background and take up most of the page. There is a small mountain-like shape of white space above “invention” and below “ethic of.” This, and the slightly right-leaning letter “N’s” give it a sense of movement and aliveness. On the right is Nicole Kelly Westman's piece, "I am sorry I didn't call - A poem for a now-vacant site," her response to Sharon Moodie's "I don't want a massage, I want a miracle." Nicole's title was hand-lettered by Shannon, below a hand-drawn number 6. The all caps text is spread over three lines. Again the slightly off-kilter “n’s” create a sense of movement.