SNAP at 40, Part VII: Letting Currents Cross and Even Clash
oral history of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists (SNAP), compiled from artist statements, reviews, articles from SNAP's newsletter, and interviews with members of the Edmonton printmaking community
copies of the publication are available here; the text on these pages contains additional photos and text cut from the print publication due to space and budget constraints
Introduction • Part I • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8
oral history of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists (SNAP), compiled from artist statements, reviews, articles from SNAP's newsletter, and interviews with members of the Edmonton printmaking community
copies of the publication are available here; the text on these pages contains additional photos and text cut from the print publication due to space and budget constraints
Introduction • Part I • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8
Above: Goedele Peeters, Like Autumn Leaves You Fall - Indian Summer, letterpress-printed woodcut, 2009
Walter Jule: As I recall, Nick Dobson was the president at the time, and he said ‘we want to establish an international print biennale.’ I think the first discussion we had I probably suggested we call it the Edmonton Print International and get it off the ground, because starting something and calling it a ‘biennale’ is a promise, and we had no secure funding sources or anything, support from the community, corporate support… Sean had done the TrueNorth Print Biennale a few years before, and that was very small—24, 25 prints I think, in the Saddlery building.
Sean Caulfield: The three [jurors] (Edmonton's Liz Ingram, Calgary's Bill Laing and Montreal's Rene Derouin) met for two days and went through five elimination rounds to pick the final 25. [1]
Gilbert Bouchard: Officially announced this week, the Biennial short list features some “real heavy hitters” from Europe, Asia and all corners of North America, says Caulfield, himself an international-award-winning printmaker, having picked up the 21st-Century Grand Prix in Tokyo and second place in the Great Canadian Printmaking Competition. Prominent finalists include: Toshihisa Fudezuka from Japan, Claude Sinte from Belgium and Karen Kunc from the United States, and Carl Heywood from Ontario. Edmonton finalists include Karen Dugas, Akiko Taniguchi, Tomoyo lhaya, and Shannon Collis. [2]
Amy Fung: Born from the remnants of 2002’s TrueNorth Biennial, EPI 2008 has been growing in momentum, in large part because of Jule. […] The city’s print community has participated in international exchanges for decades, but this show will bring together the breadth of contemporary international printmaking into one setting. [3]
Walter Jule: As I recall, Nick Dobson was the president at the time, and he said ‘we want to establish an international print biennale.’ I think the first discussion we had I probably suggested we call it the Edmonton Print International and get it off the ground, because starting something and calling it a ‘biennale’ is a promise, and we had no secure funding sources or anything, support from the community, corporate support… Sean had done the TrueNorth Print Biennale a few years before, and that was very small—24, 25 prints I think, in the Saddlery building.
Sean Caulfield: The three [jurors] (Edmonton's Liz Ingram, Calgary's Bill Laing and Montreal's Rene Derouin) met for two days and went through five elimination rounds to pick the final 25. [1]
Gilbert Bouchard: Officially announced this week, the Biennial short list features some “real heavy hitters” from Europe, Asia and all corners of North America, says Caulfield, himself an international-award-winning printmaker, having picked up the 21st-Century Grand Prix in Tokyo and second place in the Great Canadian Printmaking Competition. Prominent finalists include: Toshihisa Fudezuka from Japan, Claude Sinte from Belgium and Karen Kunc from the United States, and Carl Heywood from Ontario. Edmonton finalists include Karen Dugas, Akiko Taniguchi, Tomoyo lhaya, and Shannon Collis. [2]
Amy Fung: Born from the remnants of 2002’s TrueNorth Biennial, EPI 2008 has been growing in momentum, in large part because of Jule. […] The city’s print community has participated in international exchanges for decades, but this show will bring together the breadth of contemporary international printmaking into one setting. [3]
Above: Guests at the reception for SNAP's TrueNorth Biennial, 2002
Walter Jule: I remember when I first went to Japan in the mid-70s, and going to an opening and being introduced to somebody who had won an international prize, maybe 20 years before, and they would be introduced by the gallery director as ‘the Japanese star’ because they had won the prize at Ljubljana. So there was that buzz. But the thing about Ljubljana, and Krakow, and maybe even the Norwegian Biennale or Tallinn early on, is that they had 350, 400 artists in the show. They had over 4000 entries. Now, there are not so many entries, they don’t show many artists, and there’s the overarching occurrence of choosing certain works as a condition of receiving government funding. The international shows are very hard to do because you have to cobble together funding. I recall that for Edmonton Print International we received around $70,000 from the Alberta government, but it meant making an application after we released the prospectus, because of the timeline. So there were moments of nervousness there whether we could carry through what we promised the international community. And then I think we raised over $30,000 for the awards.
Teresa Kachanoski: EPI would not have happened without Walter Jule. Though there was a committee and regular meetings and reports, Walter got it done with a lot of help from Caitlin Wells.
Caitlin Wells: The board was working so many hours and doing so much work. I ended up also being hired to work on EPI. I was chiefly organizing framing and ordering materials to frame the work, along with a group of amazing volunteers.
Walter Jule: Natalie McNamara was assigned to help; she only stayed in town a couple months, took a job in Toronto I think. Then Holly came in.
Holly Sykora: The woman that they had hired as the coordinator for the Edmonton Print International left maybe two-thirds of the way through, so I was asked if I would want to step in. I said I guess so? It sounded really great, the whole project seemed really interesting. I kept kind of falling into these different roles.
Walter Jule: Together we spent over 4000 hours on the project.
Holly Sykora: That sounds about right! We would talk while I was in my car—back when talking on your cellphone while driving was allowed—for 2-4 hours a day, everyday while I was working on that project. Such a strange thing to think about now… where was I driving? What did we talk about for so many hours? I have no idea… EPI as a project, the work, my work a little, family… one thing we always kept talking about was baby steps. That you keep moving forward, maybe a few steps back, but you just keep going.
Walter Jule: I remember when I first went to Japan in the mid-70s, and going to an opening and being introduced to somebody who had won an international prize, maybe 20 years before, and they would be introduced by the gallery director as ‘the Japanese star’ because they had won the prize at Ljubljana. So there was that buzz. But the thing about Ljubljana, and Krakow, and maybe even the Norwegian Biennale or Tallinn early on, is that they had 350, 400 artists in the show. They had over 4000 entries. Now, there are not so many entries, they don’t show many artists, and there’s the overarching occurrence of choosing certain works as a condition of receiving government funding. The international shows are very hard to do because you have to cobble together funding. I recall that for Edmonton Print International we received around $70,000 from the Alberta government, but it meant making an application after we released the prospectus, because of the timeline. So there were moments of nervousness there whether we could carry through what we promised the international community. And then I think we raised over $30,000 for the awards.
Teresa Kachanoski: EPI would not have happened without Walter Jule. Though there was a committee and regular meetings and reports, Walter got it done with a lot of help from Caitlin Wells.
Caitlin Wells: The board was working so many hours and doing so much work. I ended up also being hired to work on EPI. I was chiefly organizing framing and ordering materials to frame the work, along with a group of amazing volunteers.
Walter Jule: Natalie McNamara was assigned to help; she only stayed in town a couple months, took a job in Toronto I think. Then Holly came in.
Holly Sykora: The woman that they had hired as the coordinator for the Edmonton Print International left maybe two-thirds of the way through, so I was asked if I would want to step in. I said I guess so? It sounded really great, the whole project seemed really interesting. I kept kind of falling into these different roles.
Walter Jule: Together we spent over 4000 hours on the project.
Holly Sykora: That sounds about right! We would talk while I was in my car—back when talking on your cellphone while driving was allowed—for 2-4 hours a day, everyday while I was working on that project. Such a strange thing to think about now… where was I driving? What did we talk about for so many hours? I have no idea… EPI as a project, the work, my work a little, family… one thing we always kept talking about was baby steps. That you keep moving forward, maybe a few steps back, but you just keep going.
Above: Fuki Hamada, Calyx, etching, aquatint, 2007
Walter Jule: Bernd Hildebrandt came down to hang the show, and Holly and I were there with a couple of other volunteers. Holly and the volunteers made a foam core model of the Capital Arts Building, three or four big rooms and the big wall that had Annu Vertanen’s work. And they made postage-stamp sized printouts of all of the work that had been accepted. And so when Bernd showed up, he looked at it and—well, you know Bernd—he got it all done. The best part of all of this was the collaboration. People could go beyond what they could do alone in the studio.
Holly Sykora: On the final judging day, there was Archana from California, Ryoji Ikeda [sic, note 4], and Maurice from Belgium. Because the judges couldn’t be there to hand out the prizes, we had a videographer come so the judges could give a few remarks about each of the winners to play at the opening. One by one the judges would go and do their video piece, but the rest of us would sit there, and I thought we have to get them doing something because they’re bored. They had enough English between them to get by, but it was tricky to have everyone communicate for a long period of time. So I folded up some sheets of computer paper into four or five sections, and each person would draw a section and pass it on, and that’s how we passed the time. I remember Ryoji peeking at the previous drawings so his drawing would make sense, and us going ‘no, draw what you want to draw!’ At the end of the day I saved those drawings… I’m happy I thought to bring them home. They’re a sentimental, tangible memento of that time.
Teresa Kachanoski: I was president at the time but my role was very minor. One aspect that was meaningful for me was that one of the jurors was from Belgium and his English was not great, since I’m bilingual I was used as his translator. I hadn’t participated in a jury process before so it was a real learning experience and very interesting to be a fly on the wall.
Caitlin Wells: I remember there was an opening event at City Hall, and Walter did a demonstration that involved powdered charcoal on the steps, and my job was to stay after everyone left and clean powdered charcoal off of the steps—the white, steps of City Hall. It was all super worthwhile, the exhibition was incredible, with the international community as coming together, as often happens at these different symposia. It was really exciting—I know those had happened prior to my engagement with printmaking, but to be part of one of those types of events was really gratifying, really inspiring.
Walter Jule: Bernd Hildebrandt came down to hang the show, and Holly and I were there with a couple of other volunteers. Holly and the volunteers made a foam core model of the Capital Arts Building, three or four big rooms and the big wall that had Annu Vertanen’s work. And they made postage-stamp sized printouts of all of the work that had been accepted. And so when Bernd showed up, he looked at it and—well, you know Bernd—he got it all done. The best part of all of this was the collaboration. People could go beyond what they could do alone in the studio.
Holly Sykora: On the final judging day, there was Archana from California, Ryoji Ikeda [sic, note 4], and Maurice from Belgium. Because the judges couldn’t be there to hand out the prizes, we had a videographer come so the judges could give a few remarks about each of the winners to play at the opening. One by one the judges would go and do their video piece, but the rest of us would sit there, and I thought we have to get them doing something because they’re bored. They had enough English between them to get by, but it was tricky to have everyone communicate for a long period of time. So I folded up some sheets of computer paper into four or five sections, and each person would draw a section and pass it on, and that’s how we passed the time. I remember Ryoji peeking at the previous drawings so his drawing would make sense, and us going ‘no, draw what you want to draw!’ At the end of the day I saved those drawings… I’m happy I thought to bring them home. They’re a sentimental, tangible memento of that time.
Teresa Kachanoski: I was president at the time but my role was very minor. One aspect that was meaningful for me was that one of the jurors was from Belgium and his English was not great, since I’m bilingual I was used as his translator. I hadn’t participated in a jury process before so it was a real learning experience and very interesting to be a fly on the wall.
Caitlin Wells: I remember there was an opening event at City Hall, and Walter did a demonstration that involved powdered charcoal on the steps, and my job was to stay after everyone left and clean powdered charcoal off of the steps—the white, steps of City Hall. It was all super worthwhile, the exhibition was incredible, with the international community as coming together, as often happens at these different symposia. It was really exciting—I know those had happened prior to my engagement with printmaking, but to be part of one of those types of events was really gratifying, really inspiring.
Above: Akiko Taniguchi, Persephone’s Return, intaglio, 2007
Davida Kidd: After looking at the selected pieces for this exhibition over several days, it became clear to me that the medium of print has always been in a state of transition. Seductive, thick, and inky embossed marks stand alongside the equally compelling high resolution computer imaging, sliding up next to installation works that challenge accepted notions of appropriate discourse in the medium of print. Like the sky, print media is constantly changing, but the old metal printing press is not going anywhere. It’s joined at the hip with its twisted sister digital/virtual technology and everything that she has to offer in the decades to come. [5]
Darci Mallon: It was wonderful to see what printmaking could be. Technically it was digital printing, but what was the difference between that and it being a photo-litho? When I taught printmaking, I always had a struggle making students edition. It didn’t make sense to me. Let’s just move on and make more things. [Editioning is] what was very democratic about printmaking, but that didn’t interest me from a creative point of view. What I liked about a lot of the things I started to see in the printmaking was that people weren’t focusing on that editioning aspect, where the labour went into that.
Tetsuya Noda: Some of the prints using [digital] methods were visually striking and attractive, but on the whole it seems to me that they lack what I would call a direct or real touch of the artist. They are beautifully reproduced, but their surface seems equally even and flat. There is generally no material or tactile presence. [6]
Maurice Pasternak: New technologies are integrated into contemporary printmaking at its creative sources, and are added to traditional techniques; but contemporary expression is linked to the vision and the positioning of the creator in our society, regardless of the techniques used. [7]
Davida Kidd: After looking at the selected pieces for this exhibition over several days, it became clear to me that the medium of print has always been in a state of transition. Seductive, thick, and inky embossed marks stand alongside the equally compelling high resolution computer imaging, sliding up next to installation works that challenge accepted notions of appropriate discourse in the medium of print. Like the sky, print media is constantly changing, but the old metal printing press is not going anywhere. It’s joined at the hip with its twisted sister digital/virtual technology and everything that she has to offer in the decades to come. [5]
Darci Mallon: It was wonderful to see what printmaking could be. Technically it was digital printing, but what was the difference between that and it being a photo-litho? When I taught printmaking, I always had a struggle making students edition. It didn’t make sense to me. Let’s just move on and make more things. [Editioning is] what was very democratic about printmaking, but that didn’t interest me from a creative point of view. What I liked about a lot of the things I started to see in the printmaking was that people weren’t focusing on that editioning aspect, where the labour went into that.
Tetsuya Noda: Some of the prints using [digital] methods were visually striking and attractive, but on the whole it seems to me that they lack what I would call a direct or real touch of the artist. They are beautifully reproduced, but their surface seems equally even and flat. There is generally no material or tactile presence. [6]
Maurice Pasternak: New technologies are integrated into contemporary printmaking at its creative sources, and are added to traditional techniques; but contemporary expression is linked to the vision and the positioning of the creator in our society, regardless of the techniques used. [7]
Above: Kyla Fischer, Decay Suspended, photointaglio, relief, chine-collé, 2015
Kyla Fischer: As a SNAP instructor (and sometimes student), studio renter, volunteer, and past board member I see the value of SNAP to artists and to the public. Personally, the EPI exhibition was really inspiring and a great opportunity to see current international printwork in Edmonton. [8]
Amy Fung: Having mostly experienced printmaking in the context of Edmonton’s legacy, the EPI show demonstrated one clear notion: that internationally, printmaking has no disciplinary boundaries tied to its infinite technical possibilities. [9]
Shirleen Smith: This was a difficult time financially for SNAP. The board received a call on Xmas eve (or was it New Years eve?) saying the bank account was empty. Our ED at the time wasn't good with finances and grants and keeping us in good standing with our funders, so we lost our funding. This caused acrimony in SNAP, as you can imagine, when we had to fire the ED (we had no money to pay her, for one thing). Teresa stepped in and filled the position at SNAP for at least 6 months, for free, until we could get our funding status reinstated and get back on our feet. It was a close call for SNAP.
Sara Norquay: When I arrived, SNAP didn’t have an executive director. Teresa Kachanoski, who was president of the board, was sort of running things, and they had hired two people in the office: Caitlin Wells and Holly Sykora.
Caitlin Wells: There was a pretty serious financial situation going on… we were talking about what to do, and I had the availability, and said one thing we could do is, you can’t afford to pay anybody what this job would require, but I’ll donate fifty percent of my pay—I would agree to work for way, way, way less—as a donation to SNAP, but I can’t work for nothing. So that’s how I ended up as the ‘interim manager,’ or something like that. It was like ‘let’s make sure there’s somebody keeping the doors open, keeping the communication going, talking to members, until the board figures out what to do. So that’s how that ended up happening. I care about SNAP tremendously, or I wouldn’t have agreed to do that at a challenging time. Any kind of contribution I could make to keep the ship going while everything got figured out.
Kyla Fischer: As a SNAP instructor (and sometimes student), studio renter, volunteer, and past board member I see the value of SNAP to artists and to the public. Personally, the EPI exhibition was really inspiring and a great opportunity to see current international printwork in Edmonton. [8]
Amy Fung: Having mostly experienced printmaking in the context of Edmonton’s legacy, the EPI show demonstrated one clear notion: that internationally, printmaking has no disciplinary boundaries tied to its infinite technical possibilities. [9]
Shirleen Smith: This was a difficult time financially for SNAP. The board received a call on Xmas eve (or was it New Years eve?) saying the bank account was empty. Our ED at the time wasn't good with finances and grants and keeping us in good standing with our funders, so we lost our funding. This caused acrimony in SNAP, as you can imagine, when we had to fire the ED (we had no money to pay her, for one thing). Teresa stepped in and filled the position at SNAP for at least 6 months, for free, until we could get our funding status reinstated and get back on our feet. It was a close call for SNAP.
Sara Norquay: When I arrived, SNAP didn’t have an executive director. Teresa Kachanoski, who was president of the board, was sort of running things, and they had hired two people in the office: Caitlin Wells and Holly Sykora.
Caitlin Wells: There was a pretty serious financial situation going on… we were talking about what to do, and I had the availability, and said one thing we could do is, you can’t afford to pay anybody what this job would require, but I’ll donate fifty percent of my pay—I would agree to work for way, way, way less—as a donation to SNAP, but I can’t work for nothing. So that’s how I ended up as the ‘interim manager,’ or something like that. It was like ‘let’s make sure there’s somebody keeping the doors open, keeping the communication going, talking to members, until the board figures out what to do. So that’s how that ended up happening. I care about SNAP tremendously, or I wouldn’t have agreed to do that at a challenging time. Any kind of contribution I could make to keep the ship going while everything got figured out.
Above: Tadeusz Warsynszki, Reverberated Spaces, woodcut, 2007
Holly Sykora: We had also outgrown the space, and the space was kind of crumbling around us. I remember certain days that the furnace wouldn’t turn on because it was so cold. Your water bath for your paper was freezing. I remember sitting at the computer and my fingers were blue and I couldn’t type, so we couldn’t be working there.
Sara Norquay: Teresa and the board looked around—there was talk of perhaps moving into Enterprise Square, because it’s owned by the University of Alberta. Most of us said that wasn’t a good idea, because once you’re in the university, now have to follow the university rules, and this is an artist-run community.
Holly Sykora: Finding a place to move was a little bit tricky, and then undertaking that. Teresa was the one that took quite a bit of charge over that project, but we were all involved.
Teresa Kachanoski: Leaving the Old Army-Navy building will be bittersweet. Only 5 years ago SNAP members invested so much time and effort to make it a functional and welcoming artistic space. We envisioned eventually accessing the second story level to gain more studio and rental space, but that was not to be. The leaking roof, temperamental boiler and the huge vacant space in the rest of the deteriorating building discouraged the landlord from committing to another 5-year lease. Faced with the insecurity of only a month-to-month lease, we set out to find a suitable new home—and after 6 nervous months, found one! We are very excited about designing and finishing our new gallery and studio and showing it to our members and the community at large in the New Year. Please join us for the last event to be held in our current space, Print Affair 2009, which opens in style on Saturday, November 28th. Our fabulous Special Events Committee is pulling out all the stops for this one and working hard to bring you an opening evening of incredible prints for sale, holiday libations, Christmas card printing activity corners and the opportunity to dance the night away. [10]
Sara Norquay: That year, the Print Affair was amazing. Because there was no executive director, everyone just pitched in. There was nobody who was controlling it, it was just like ‘oh, we need decorations, okay I’ll make some!’ and people would come and hang stuff. And they got access to the main Red Strap Building, it was phenomenal. They had a band, they had dancing, they had an auction, they sold a ton of prints… I think they made $20,000 that year?! It was just incredible.
Holly Sykora: We had also outgrown the space, and the space was kind of crumbling around us. I remember certain days that the furnace wouldn’t turn on because it was so cold. Your water bath for your paper was freezing. I remember sitting at the computer and my fingers were blue and I couldn’t type, so we couldn’t be working there.
Sara Norquay: Teresa and the board looked around—there was talk of perhaps moving into Enterprise Square, because it’s owned by the University of Alberta. Most of us said that wasn’t a good idea, because once you’re in the university, now have to follow the university rules, and this is an artist-run community.
Holly Sykora: Finding a place to move was a little bit tricky, and then undertaking that. Teresa was the one that took quite a bit of charge over that project, but we were all involved.
Teresa Kachanoski: Leaving the Old Army-Navy building will be bittersweet. Only 5 years ago SNAP members invested so much time and effort to make it a functional and welcoming artistic space. We envisioned eventually accessing the second story level to gain more studio and rental space, but that was not to be. The leaking roof, temperamental boiler and the huge vacant space in the rest of the deteriorating building discouraged the landlord from committing to another 5-year lease. Faced with the insecurity of only a month-to-month lease, we set out to find a suitable new home—and after 6 nervous months, found one! We are very excited about designing and finishing our new gallery and studio and showing it to our members and the community at large in the New Year. Please join us for the last event to be held in our current space, Print Affair 2009, which opens in style on Saturday, November 28th. Our fabulous Special Events Committee is pulling out all the stops for this one and working hard to bring you an opening evening of incredible prints for sale, holiday libations, Christmas card printing activity corners and the opportunity to dance the night away. [10]
Sara Norquay: That year, the Print Affair was amazing. Because there was no executive director, everyone just pitched in. There was nobody who was controlling it, it was just like ‘oh, we need decorations, okay I’ll make some!’ and people would come and hang stuff. And they got access to the main Red Strap Building, it was phenomenal. They had a band, they had dancing, they had an auction, they sold a ton of prints… I think they made $20,000 that year?! It was just incredible.
Above: Anna Karolina Szul, Perspective Exercises a Paradox, intaglio, letterpress, hand-colouring, 2012
Teresa Kachanoski: It was an intensely busy time leading up to the move but as the structure of the organization became more coherent and efficient with the help of Anna Szul, it became clear that we needed a better space. We revisited and rewrote our mission statement during a “Visioning” process to look at how SNAP could continue to exist in the future. While the gallery and the workshop were still central to our raison-d’etre, the idea of having personal studios, having a residency program, an educational component and community outreach were also highlighted as being priorities. […] We looked at a lot of different properties before settling on the Jasper Ave location, which had the benefit of having a separate gallery and office space around the corner but in the same building. Organizing the move was also a huge undertaking and mainly done by Marc Siegner, Mitch Mitchell and others.
Holly Sykora: I do remember being on 97th street, and having them close off some of it—and 97th street is a busy street—and bringing these massive presses out so you’re not damaging them. It was something to see.
Shirleen Smith: I remember packaging up every drawer of type (with others!) lest they be dropped. Just imagine how long it would take to re-sort a drawer of hundreds of pieces of type. It was quite exciting to set up the new shop.
Teresa Kachanoski: It was an intensely busy time leading up to the move but as the structure of the organization became more coherent and efficient with the help of Anna Szul, it became clear that we needed a better space. We revisited and rewrote our mission statement during a “Visioning” process to look at how SNAP could continue to exist in the future. While the gallery and the workshop were still central to our raison-d’etre, the idea of having personal studios, having a residency program, an educational component and community outreach were also highlighted as being priorities. […] We looked at a lot of different properties before settling on the Jasper Ave location, which had the benefit of having a separate gallery and office space around the corner but in the same building. Organizing the move was also a huge undertaking and mainly done by Marc Siegner, Mitch Mitchell and others.
Holly Sykora: I do remember being on 97th street, and having them close off some of it—and 97th street is a busy street—and bringing these massive presses out so you’re not damaging them. It was something to see.
Shirleen Smith: I remember packaging up every drawer of type (with others!) lest they be dropped. Just imagine how long it would take to re-sort a drawer of hundreds of pieces of type. It was quite exciting to set up the new shop.
Above: 1. Left to right: Dawn Woolsey, Kyla Fischer, Sara Norquay, Shirleen Smith, and Holly Sykora kneeling, with SNAP’s drawers of lead type during the move from the Red Strap Market, 2010; 2. Anna Karolina Szul (on ladder) and Teresa Kachanoski preparing the SNAP gallery at Jasper Avenue for its first exhibit, March 2010; photo by Shirleen Smith; 3. Left to right, Holly Sykora, April Dean, and Cate Kuzik prepare the wall for vinyl in the new gallery, March 2010; photo by Shirleen Smith
Sara Norquay: We moved there and then had no money to do the electrical or the plumbing. After five months, I kept knocking on the door asking ‘When can I start printing?’ And finally they had enough water going and they found people to do stuff, so I was probably the first renter to print in that space. And then over time, certainly when April came, she really go things going. She instituted a lot of policies and procedures that made SNAP a much more professional organization. And that’s why we’re able to be here, because of all the things she did.
April Dean: I learned a lot working for Todd Janes. I worked at Latitude 53 as the program coordinator there, and I got to learn a lot about artists, and contemporary art, and exhibitions, and artist-run models. At that time, Latitude was a big deal in Edmonton, it was the place to be. They had a great model going, it was a place where creative people wanted to hang out—even thought there was no studio space. I think that’s a problem for artist-run centres who don’t have studios. Beyond exhibitions, how do we keep people in the community excited for this place and feel like we’re serving them?
Todd Janes: Canada is a really huge country with low population. And I think it’s the role of a privileged curator to bring those people together. You need to create a congress of people to continue a national dialogue, a discourse[…]. Because, really, artists make art to start a conversation. [11]
Robin Smith-Peck: One of the benefits of having a national art magazine at one point was just that, […] so that if one was sitting in Newfoundland and suddenly moved to B.C., you had already kind of become aware of the names that were used and galleries that were there, and it didn’t seem so unfamiliar to you. Now, it’s almost as though you’d have to subscribe to like three or four different ones to get that kind of information. So it’s a shame that they were unable to survive in the magazine world.
Marc Siegner: Vanguard?
Robin Smith-Peck: Well, Vanguard’s more B.C., or Western Canada.
Marc Siegner: ArtsCanada?
Robin Smith-Peck: It’s dead.
Marc Siegner: Rest in peace… [12]
Cherie Moses: I'd say, especially in Canada, there's a gap in terms of a lot of critical writing, anyway. What gets covered tends to be in areas where there are people who are being very articulate, and writing—and only certain kinds of shows and kinds of art. There isn't enough competition in terms of the good critical writing, period, let alone about women's art. I think that in many ways, for someone who's writing criticism, […] there’s probably still a bit of stigma in writing about works that are not high status things to write about, at the moment. […] But the politics of the situation is that you need to have your work discussed and written about critically in publications which are considered important. [13]
Megan Bertagnolli: One of the challenges facing the visual arts in Edmonton is a lack of writing, creating a situation where there is a lack of awareness and visibility (even within the arts community) for the truly wonderful things happening here. The other is insularity. [14]
Tori McNish & Chelsey Van Weerden: The thing that bugs me is why don’t Edmonton papers have any real arts writers? I by no means mean professional academic critics, although I think that would be awesome, but someone familiar with and working within Edmonton’s art scene. [15]
Blair Brennan: Helen Collinson (1934–1998) […] and Mark Joslin (1956–1996) […] represented our best hope for an informed home-grown post-modern voice. Collinson and Joslin knew the community well and both had a sense of Edmonton’s art within Alberta and the larger national community. Both died as that post-modern sensibility emerged in the community and as their best writing and curating began to reflect this change. Two intelligent and literate people in a small arts community is a lot; many of us felt an echo of that loss when art reviewer and writer Gilbert Bouchard died in 2009. Like Collinson and Joslin, Bouchard was an exceptionally well informed and honest writer. Bouchard strived to convey his enthusiasm about the syncretic nature of all art forms. Good writers died and Edmonton failed to nurture a young writing community. [16]
Amy Fung: When I first met my then-editor Steven in his airless office at See Magazine, I remember him telling me through his collapsed nasal cavity that nobody wanted to read about the visual arts in this city, let alone read critical reviews. Steven was echoing what my very first editor, Chad, from the Edmonton Journal, had also said: nobody wanted to read criticism about themselves or their friends. [17]
Charles Breth: One prays in vain for an Attila of analysis to mow down the shibboleths of taste that choke Edmonton’s art scene. Mixed metaphors and hyperbole aside, I find it curious that no one has ever taken a hard look at the relations between the EAG [now the Art Gallery of Alberta], the UofA, the commercial galleries, corporate sponsors and the press vis a vis what passes for artistic excellence in Edmonton. I doubt if anyone will for as usual those in opposition are weak and underpaid while those in power are given credence by dint of their position and title. Mercifully, not a lot is at stake unless one is fed up with looking elsewhere for artistic stimulation. To paraphrase [art critic for the Edmonton Bullet Lelde Muehlenbachs]——nothing is to be gained romanticizing a cultural backwater. [18]
Russell Bingham: In Edmonton we profit by being, in a certain sense, isolated and having kind of a pressure cooker environment for making art. But there's also the fact that the world-at-large doesn't know about art here and the art here is only measured up against the other art here. [19]
Adam Waldron-Blain: Overwhelmingly, we shy away from real discussions of the faults in our community, making only quick-and-easy statements that we can almost all agree on (often about how something is wrong with our city), and [Amy] Fung’s short and therefore inevitably simplistic articles are the best that we generally see. So what is wrong with Edmonton and why are we all so upset about it? […] The dangerous tendency among young artists here is to lose interest in not only the institutions but everyone, making work only for themselves. […] We barely expect any public or critical response, and so we tell ourselves that we don't want it. We don't treat our work as a representation of our professional selves, and as a result are unconcerned with its quality and cohesiveness. It is then no surprise that our explorations of local identity are scattered and messy and lacking in quality. [20]
Ryan McCourt: All this whiny hang-ringing about your bourgeois little “crisis in confidence” is pathetic. Boo-fucking-hoo. Suck it up, cry-babies. Nobody's interested in your constant moaning and complaining, already! [21]
Blair Brennan: A recent Edmonton Journal article about newcomers to Edmonton, suggests that a visual arts community can “act as a surrogate family”. It is clear that this is meant as a positive attribute. I admit that the arts community is family–like but it is often a dysfunctional family overrun with petty jealousies, professional rivalry and deep resentment. It is a complex dynamic but Gore Vidal’s aphorism “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little” goes a long way to explaining the situation. [22]
Todd Janes: There is a lot of competition here, there’s a lot of pettiness—I feel if we were to look at all of the ‘disciplines’—sectors—I feel that there’s a stronger sense of, maybe, camaraderie, or inclusion, in the very small dance community, in the writing community, or even the theatre community, than we have. I think contemporary visual arts communities are critical by nature, which also means often we’re cut throat. You know? I see that with organizations, I see that with individuals. I see like when someone wins an award or someone gets shortlisted for like a Sobey or an RBC, or whatever, people are like ‘Oh…’ ‘Well…’ ‘Ugh…’—and it’s like no! Embrace that! Like once every 18 million years someone from Edmonton gets acknowledged for something, let’s look at that. But we also have a lot of things that are missing. I really don’t feel we have a glut of senior artists in this city—like people who are identified from across the country. Like, if you went somewhere else, they’d be like ‘who are your senior artists in your city?’ Like who are recognized nationally that live in this city? And I think a lot of it was, for a while, you know, there’s that historical thing about whatever the education in the institution was, or that the few people who were ok or good stayed, but there wasn’t a great deal of mentorship that happened. [23]
Megan Bertagnolli: The more interested, motivated, and knowledgeable people working in our arts scene are, the better, right? If the new faces and those who are better known can recognize the importance of the growth and development of our arts scene, we all reap the rewards of more art being produced in our city. This means expanding networks, which hopefully results in motivating the creation of more challenging work, both for its makers and its audience. This is also a way of letting people know that they don’t need to leave town to do excellent work in the arts that is seen, appreciated, and considered critically. [24]
Sara Norquay: We moved there and then had no money to do the electrical or the plumbing. After five months, I kept knocking on the door asking ‘When can I start printing?’ And finally they had enough water going and they found people to do stuff, so I was probably the first renter to print in that space. And then over time, certainly when April came, she really go things going. She instituted a lot of policies and procedures that made SNAP a much more professional organization. And that’s why we’re able to be here, because of all the things she did.
April Dean: I learned a lot working for Todd Janes. I worked at Latitude 53 as the program coordinator there, and I got to learn a lot about artists, and contemporary art, and exhibitions, and artist-run models. At that time, Latitude was a big deal in Edmonton, it was the place to be. They had a great model going, it was a place where creative people wanted to hang out—even thought there was no studio space. I think that’s a problem for artist-run centres who don’t have studios. Beyond exhibitions, how do we keep people in the community excited for this place and feel like we’re serving them?
Todd Janes: Canada is a really huge country with low population. And I think it’s the role of a privileged curator to bring those people together. You need to create a congress of people to continue a national dialogue, a discourse[…]. Because, really, artists make art to start a conversation. [11]
Robin Smith-Peck: One of the benefits of having a national art magazine at one point was just that, […] so that if one was sitting in Newfoundland and suddenly moved to B.C., you had already kind of become aware of the names that were used and galleries that were there, and it didn’t seem so unfamiliar to you. Now, it’s almost as though you’d have to subscribe to like three or four different ones to get that kind of information. So it’s a shame that they were unable to survive in the magazine world.
Marc Siegner: Vanguard?
Robin Smith-Peck: Well, Vanguard’s more B.C., or Western Canada.
Marc Siegner: ArtsCanada?
Robin Smith-Peck: It’s dead.
Marc Siegner: Rest in peace… [12]
Cherie Moses: I'd say, especially in Canada, there's a gap in terms of a lot of critical writing, anyway. What gets covered tends to be in areas where there are people who are being very articulate, and writing—and only certain kinds of shows and kinds of art. There isn't enough competition in terms of the good critical writing, period, let alone about women's art. I think that in many ways, for someone who's writing criticism, […] there’s probably still a bit of stigma in writing about works that are not high status things to write about, at the moment. […] But the politics of the situation is that you need to have your work discussed and written about critically in publications which are considered important. [13]
Megan Bertagnolli: One of the challenges facing the visual arts in Edmonton is a lack of writing, creating a situation where there is a lack of awareness and visibility (even within the arts community) for the truly wonderful things happening here. The other is insularity. [14]
Tori McNish & Chelsey Van Weerden: The thing that bugs me is why don’t Edmonton papers have any real arts writers? I by no means mean professional academic critics, although I think that would be awesome, but someone familiar with and working within Edmonton’s art scene. [15]
Blair Brennan: Helen Collinson (1934–1998) […] and Mark Joslin (1956–1996) […] represented our best hope for an informed home-grown post-modern voice. Collinson and Joslin knew the community well and both had a sense of Edmonton’s art within Alberta and the larger national community. Both died as that post-modern sensibility emerged in the community and as their best writing and curating began to reflect this change. Two intelligent and literate people in a small arts community is a lot; many of us felt an echo of that loss when art reviewer and writer Gilbert Bouchard died in 2009. Like Collinson and Joslin, Bouchard was an exceptionally well informed and honest writer. Bouchard strived to convey his enthusiasm about the syncretic nature of all art forms. Good writers died and Edmonton failed to nurture a young writing community. [16]
Amy Fung: When I first met my then-editor Steven in his airless office at See Magazine, I remember him telling me through his collapsed nasal cavity that nobody wanted to read about the visual arts in this city, let alone read critical reviews. Steven was echoing what my very first editor, Chad, from the Edmonton Journal, had also said: nobody wanted to read criticism about themselves or their friends. [17]
Charles Breth: One prays in vain for an Attila of analysis to mow down the shibboleths of taste that choke Edmonton’s art scene. Mixed metaphors and hyperbole aside, I find it curious that no one has ever taken a hard look at the relations between the EAG [now the Art Gallery of Alberta], the UofA, the commercial galleries, corporate sponsors and the press vis a vis what passes for artistic excellence in Edmonton. I doubt if anyone will for as usual those in opposition are weak and underpaid while those in power are given credence by dint of their position and title. Mercifully, not a lot is at stake unless one is fed up with looking elsewhere for artistic stimulation. To paraphrase [art critic for the Edmonton Bullet Lelde Muehlenbachs]——nothing is to be gained romanticizing a cultural backwater. [18]
Russell Bingham: In Edmonton we profit by being, in a certain sense, isolated and having kind of a pressure cooker environment for making art. But there's also the fact that the world-at-large doesn't know about art here and the art here is only measured up against the other art here. [19]
Adam Waldron-Blain: Overwhelmingly, we shy away from real discussions of the faults in our community, making only quick-and-easy statements that we can almost all agree on (often about how something is wrong with our city), and [Amy] Fung’s short and therefore inevitably simplistic articles are the best that we generally see. So what is wrong with Edmonton and why are we all so upset about it? […] The dangerous tendency among young artists here is to lose interest in not only the institutions but everyone, making work only for themselves. […] We barely expect any public or critical response, and so we tell ourselves that we don't want it. We don't treat our work as a representation of our professional selves, and as a result are unconcerned with its quality and cohesiveness. It is then no surprise that our explorations of local identity are scattered and messy and lacking in quality. [20]
Ryan McCourt: All this whiny hang-ringing about your bourgeois little “crisis in confidence” is pathetic. Boo-fucking-hoo. Suck it up, cry-babies. Nobody's interested in your constant moaning and complaining, already! [21]
Blair Brennan: A recent Edmonton Journal article about newcomers to Edmonton, suggests that a visual arts community can “act as a surrogate family”. It is clear that this is meant as a positive attribute. I admit that the arts community is family–like but it is often a dysfunctional family overrun with petty jealousies, professional rivalry and deep resentment. It is a complex dynamic but Gore Vidal’s aphorism “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little” goes a long way to explaining the situation. [22]
Todd Janes: There is a lot of competition here, there’s a lot of pettiness—I feel if we were to look at all of the ‘disciplines’—sectors—I feel that there’s a stronger sense of, maybe, camaraderie, or inclusion, in the very small dance community, in the writing community, or even the theatre community, than we have. I think contemporary visual arts communities are critical by nature, which also means often we’re cut throat. You know? I see that with organizations, I see that with individuals. I see like when someone wins an award or someone gets shortlisted for like a Sobey or an RBC, or whatever, people are like ‘Oh…’ ‘Well…’ ‘Ugh…’—and it’s like no! Embrace that! Like once every 18 million years someone from Edmonton gets acknowledged for something, let’s look at that. But we also have a lot of things that are missing. I really don’t feel we have a glut of senior artists in this city—like people who are identified from across the country. Like, if you went somewhere else, they’d be like ‘who are your senior artists in your city?’ Like who are recognized nationally that live in this city? And I think a lot of it was, for a while, you know, there’s that historical thing about whatever the education in the institution was, or that the few people who were ok or good stayed, but there wasn’t a great deal of mentorship that happened. [23]
Megan Bertagnolli: The more interested, motivated, and knowledgeable people working in our arts scene are, the better, right? If the new faces and those who are better known can recognize the importance of the growth and development of our arts scene, we all reap the rewards of more art being produced in our city. This means expanding networks, which hopefully results in motivating the creation of more challenging work, both for its makers and its audience. This is also a way of letting people know that they don’t need to leave town to do excellent work in the arts that is seen, appreciated, and considered critically. [24]
Above: Images from SNAP Gallery's first years at 121st St & Jasper Avenue: 1. SNAP’s 30th anniversary exhibition of past-presidents’ works; 2. Left to right: Teresa Kachanoski, Walter Jule, Simone Gareau, and Blair Brennan at the reception for Derek Besant’s exhibit The Green House Effect, the grand opening of SNAP’s Jasper Avenue gallery space, March 2010; 3. Reception for Derek Besant’s exhibit The Green House Effect, March 2010; 4. Akiko Taniguchi talking with Caitlin Wells at the grand opening of SNAP’s Jasper Avenue gallery space, March 2010; 5. Looking in from the street at the reception for Derek Besant’s exhibit The Green House Effect, March 2010
April Dean: There is so much art in the world and so little time, how do we decide what to spend our time looking at? Should we just want to be excited about it all? I’ve tried this, it’s hard to sustain——and lately I’ve been changing my mind a lot about what I want to look at and spend time with. The overwhelming amount of visual information available to us might encourage us to be flippant or ill informed or ultimately unaffected, but I suspect the overwhelming array of visual art that exists requires the opposite approach. We need to take more time. We should be more critical. In addition, if we’re really invested in this visual art thing we should be ready for some discomfort, be ok with indecision, sit with it, let the art change your mind, be open and receptive without being definitive. [25]
Blair Brennan: Much has been written about the benefits and challenges that current technology brings to communication. A recent Globe and Mail article on media scholar Sherry Turkel’s new book Reclaiming Conversation: the Power of Talk in the Digital Age, suggests that electronic communication may hinder face to face communication. Distracted by technology, we “move in and out of paying attention, our conversations become light, losing much of their empathetic possibility.” Some psychic urgency in Dean’s communications leaves me anxious about the state of language itself. I wonder if words can still elicit genuine empathy. [26]
April Dean: My work has always involved writing and text; […] I have a pretty serious love of the fragment. I think this is part of my love of printmaking too is this idea of translation—the images I’m working with are translated through process, and I think that opens up space for interpretation. […] I’m writing things but it’s not enough for them to be written words on the page—I want them to manifest physically as images; it’s the only way I want people to see these words or read these words. [27]
Blair Brennan: Dean’s phrases are provocative, sometimes vague, but consistently open to deeper interpretation about the meaning of these specific words or larger ideas about how living language works. Like a Facebook update, Dean’s printed T-shirts disclose our current status to world. In most cases, Dean’s phrases are assertive announcements in capital letters that begin with a plural pronoun. Nonetheless, the proclamations express some awkward self-doubt. [28]
April Dean: Like I think I’m being explicit while being vague, if that’s possible? That’s—I think that’s the goal… I might change my mind about that, but I think that’s what I’m trying to do, is be explicit but leave enough room for interpretation. […] I think we have this internal running script, or at least I do—there’s a little bit of neuroticism, probably—but I think we all kind of have words running through our minds and I believe this is trying to get some of that out and connect to people with it. I’m really interested in the way that we can just like throw a few words out into the Twitter-sphere, on Facebook, or update our status daily and people can connect with that. Maybe we’re not trying to be profound… and maybe sometimes we are, and it doesn’t work. It’s weird. It’s a weird social interaction buts its very real, and it’s changing the way we get to know people. [29]
Agnieszka Matejko: Her art cuts through social pretense to the truth: in quiet moments, when phones and social media are turned off, many of us harbour feelings of self-doubt and isolation. […] Rather than hiding behind a mask, she decided to express her thoughts and feelings. “I think that breeds better understanding, compassion and empathy between people,” she says. The resulting prints are like emotional X-rays. Dean’s text-based art is also a lyrical manifesto, a one-woman mutiny against the oppressive social pressure of perpetual success and gaiety. [30]
April Dean: My problem is certainly I want art to be an emotional experience over a cerebral one; I want people to have feelings about the world. But yet! I also like to think of myself as a person with a great sense of humour. I like to laugh at the hilarity of it all—I love a good dark comedy. I like to think that I have a lot in common with my dear friend Blair Brennan, in that we like to laugh about the absurdity of things. I’ve spent lots of my life feeling heartbroken, but at no specific thing--which is hilarious! I wish that I was more brave in the art that I make, but I’m not. I am never really fully saying the thing I want to say ever, in my life, and always taking it back ten steps because I want people to like me. When I started working at SNAP, Todd Janes told me I could be liked or could be respected, but that I couldn’t be both. And so it was really important to me to prove otherwise.
April Dean: There is so much art in the world and so little time, how do we decide what to spend our time looking at? Should we just want to be excited about it all? I’ve tried this, it’s hard to sustain——and lately I’ve been changing my mind a lot about what I want to look at and spend time with. The overwhelming amount of visual information available to us might encourage us to be flippant or ill informed or ultimately unaffected, but I suspect the overwhelming array of visual art that exists requires the opposite approach. We need to take more time. We should be more critical. In addition, if we’re really invested in this visual art thing we should be ready for some discomfort, be ok with indecision, sit with it, let the art change your mind, be open and receptive without being definitive. [25]
Blair Brennan: Much has been written about the benefits and challenges that current technology brings to communication. A recent Globe and Mail article on media scholar Sherry Turkel’s new book Reclaiming Conversation: the Power of Talk in the Digital Age, suggests that electronic communication may hinder face to face communication. Distracted by technology, we “move in and out of paying attention, our conversations become light, losing much of their empathetic possibility.” Some psychic urgency in Dean’s communications leaves me anxious about the state of language itself. I wonder if words can still elicit genuine empathy. [26]
April Dean: My work has always involved writing and text; […] I have a pretty serious love of the fragment. I think this is part of my love of printmaking too is this idea of translation—the images I’m working with are translated through process, and I think that opens up space for interpretation. […] I’m writing things but it’s not enough for them to be written words on the page—I want them to manifest physically as images; it’s the only way I want people to see these words or read these words. [27]
Blair Brennan: Dean’s phrases are provocative, sometimes vague, but consistently open to deeper interpretation about the meaning of these specific words or larger ideas about how living language works. Like a Facebook update, Dean’s printed T-shirts disclose our current status to world. In most cases, Dean’s phrases are assertive announcements in capital letters that begin with a plural pronoun. Nonetheless, the proclamations express some awkward self-doubt. [28]
April Dean: Like I think I’m being explicit while being vague, if that’s possible? That’s—I think that’s the goal… I might change my mind about that, but I think that’s what I’m trying to do, is be explicit but leave enough room for interpretation. […] I think we have this internal running script, or at least I do—there’s a little bit of neuroticism, probably—but I think we all kind of have words running through our minds and I believe this is trying to get some of that out and connect to people with it. I’m really interested in the way that we can just like throw a few words out into the Twitter-sphere, on Facebook, or update our status daily and people can connect with that. Maybe we’re not trying to be profound… and maybe sometimes we are, and it doesn’t work. It’s weird. It’s a weird social interaction buts its very real, and it’s changing the way we get to know people. [29]
Agnieszka Matejko: Her art cuts through social pretense to the truth: in quiet moments, when phones and social media are turned off, many of us harbour feelings of self-doubt and isolation. […] Rather than hiding behind a mask, she decided to express her thoughts and feelings. “I think that breeds better understanding, compassion and empathy between people,” she says. The resulting prints are like emotional X-rays. Dean’s text-based art is also a lyrical manifesto, a one-woman mutiny against the oppressive social pressure of perpetual success and gaiety. [30]
April Dean: My problem is certainly I want art to be an emotional experience over a cerebral one; I want people to have feelings about the world. But yet! I also like to think of myself as a person with a great sense of humour. I like to laugh at the hilarity of it all—I love a good dark comedy. I like to think that I have a lot in common with my dear friend Blair Brennan, in that we like to laugh about the absurdity of things. I’ve spent lots of my life feeling heartbroken, but at no specific thing--which is hilarious! I wish that I was more brave in the art that I make, but I’m not. I am never really fully saying the thing I want to say ever, in my life, and always taking it back ten steps because I want people to like me. When I started working at SNAP, Todd Janes told me I could be liked or could be respected, but that I couldn’t be both. And so it was really important to me to prove otherwise.
Above: April Dean, True Facts, inkjet and screenprint, 2017
Below: Photobooth portraits from Print Affair 2012: 1. Left to right, Alexandrea Bowes (then SNAP’s communications coordinator), Daniela Schlüter, and Dawn Woolsey; 2. Left to right: Jill Ho-You, Andrea Itzeck, Sara Norquay, and Brenda Malkinson; 3. Left to right: Eva Snieder, Ashley Huot, Lauren Huot, Megan Stein, Caitlin Wells, and Meiyi Wang kneeling in front; 4. April Dean between two Print Affair sponsors
Below: Photobooth portraits from Print Affair 2012: 1. Left to right, Alexandrea Bowes (then SNAP’s communications coordinator), Daniela Schlüter, and Dawn Woolsey; 2. Left to right: Jill Ho-You, Andrea Itzeck, Sara Norquay, and Brenda Malkinson; 3. Left to right: Eva Snieder, Ashley Huot, Lauren Huot, Megan Stein, Caitlin Wells, and Meiyi Wang kneeling in front; 4. April Dean between two Print Affair sponsors
Desmond Rochfort: In this moment the ubiquitous flood of mass-produced digitized pictures that now dominate our urban landscapes conspires to blur the distinction between our understanding of a work of art and its reproduction. It is in this context that the print poses some wicked questions and that its new significance is revealed. The print raises the issue of which material and visual experiences can and cannot be reproduced through the intermediary of technology. It also poses the difficult but important question of what is lost from this experience through the use of these technologies. In no other art form is the tension between the hand-crafted and the alluring creative possibilities of digital imaging so intensely highlighted as in the print. [31]
Marilène Oliver: Though I was hired into printmaking [at the University of Alberta], I also teach and make work in new media and sculpture. Recently, I've been able to realize some very ambitious print and sculpture projects, one which was to create a life-sized figure from copper. I was also very fortunate to get funding in order to buy a laser cutter for our print studio, and I've made many sculptures using that laser cutter. What's so exciting for me about this is that until coming to the UofA I was always working with fabricators in order to make the work for me, and I wasn't really able to intervene in the process. Now I'm empowered to be the one controlling the machine and understanding how it works—to stop it, to experiment, to build a partnership with a digitally mechanized machine. [32]
Fish Griwkowsky: As the boundaries between humanity and technology blur at an unprecedented whirl, it seems with each new change we only notice the costs speeding toward us in the rear-view mirror… once they’ve already passed us. Artificial intelligence, genetically modified foods, social media battlefields, ceaseless cellphone use—each of these feels like a vast, unconscious invasion of uncontrolled experiments set loose on our lives without permission. And if you haven’t noticed the accompanying stress, I do envy your recent, 20-year sabbatical on Mars. Dyscorpia, an ambitious and frankly unnerving group art show […] at Enterprise Square […], considers massive change from the perspective of our ever-expanding biological thresholds. It’s both celebration and protest, a nexus of truly inspiring questions often asked without words, as smart art will. [33]
Marilène Oliver: Dyscorpia is a word our research team came up with to name the feeling of unease and discomfort you feel when you are confronted with a new piece of ‘smart’ technology that requires you to re-learn or re-know your body. An example of this is when you get into a rental car, try and put the key in the ignition and realize that there is no key, but a ‘start’ button. Next you try to release the handbrake, but there is no handbrake. Momentarily your body is frozen, not knowing what to do with itself and its superfluousness. This is Dyscorpia: nausea in the face of technology. The actual world was created thinking of the etymology of similar words so dyscorpia: dys = bad, difficulty with; corp = body; ia = used in forming plurals of nouns. [34]
Marilène Oliver: Though I was hired into printmaking [at the University of Alberta], I also teach and make work in new media and sculpture. Recently, I've been able to realize some very ambitious print and sculpture projects, one which was to create a life-sized figure from copper. I was also very fortunate to get funding in order to buy a laser cutter for our print studio, and I've made many sculptures using that laser cutter. What's so exciting for me about this is that until coming to the UofA I was always working with fabricators in order to make the work for me, and I wasn't really able to intervene in the process. Now I'm empowered to be the one controlling the machine and understanding how it works—to stop it, to experiment, to build a partnership with a digitally mechanized machine. [32]
Fish Griwkowsky: As the boundaries between humanity and technology blur at an unprecedented whirl, it seems with each new change we only notice the costs speeding toward us in the rear-view mirror… once they’ve already passed us. Artificial intelligence, genetically modified foods, social media battlefields, ceaseless cellphone use—each of these feels like a vast, unconscious invasion of uncontrolled experiments set loose on our lives without permission. And if you haven’t noticed the accompanying stress, I do envy your recent, 20-year sabbatical on Mars. Dyscorpia, an ambitious and frankly unnerving group art show […] at Enterprise Square […], considers massive change from the perspective of our ever-expanding biological thresholds. It’s both celebration and protest, a nexus of truly inspiring questions often asked without words, as smart art will. [33]
Marilène Oliver: Dyscorpia is a word our research team came up with to name the feeling of unease and discomfort you feel when you are confronted with a new piece of ‘smart’ technology that requires you to re-learn or re-know your body. An example of this is when you get into a rental car, try and put the key in the ignition and realize that there is no key, but a ‘start’ button. Next you try to release the handbrake, but there is no handbrake. Momentarily your body is frozen, not knowing what to do with itself and its superfluousness. This is Dyscorpia: nausea in the face of technology. The actual world was created thinking of the etymology of similar words so dyscorpia: dys = bad, difficulty with; corp = body; ia = used in forming plurals of nouns. [34]
Above: Marilène Oliver, detail from My Data Body, relief and screenprinted artist book, lepporello binding, text by J.R. Carpenter, 2022
Lianne McTavish: Inside [the exhibit], I contemplate an intricately constructed anatomical environment. […] Entitled Evolving Anatomies, the collaborative installation by Marilène Oliver, Sean Caulfield, and Scott Smallwood provides layers of information about bodies and embodiment. Combining historical representations with modern visualizations of the body, the installation is reminiscent of a palimpsest, a term that usually refers to material on which writing has been effaced to make room for new text even as traces of the original marks remain. […] Evolving Anatomies shows how anatomical technologies have both persisted and changed over time, suggesting their advantages and disadvantages. While the digitized images of the present are impressively vibrant, they seem disembodied and fleeting in contrast to the solid materiality of earlier representations. There is no simple story of the rejection and subsequent improvement of the past. [35]
Agnieszka Matejko: Caulfield’s drawings, which refer to Andreas Vesalius, the 16th-century father of modern anatomy, are overlaid by Oliver’s videos of data from CT scans. Here, familiar historical perceptions of the body meet the mysterious workings of our invisible selves. Wax arms and legs at the foot of the installation allude to the Catholic tradition of placing casts of ailing body parts at sacred sites such as Lourdes. The implicit question this work poses: Will it be faith or technology that heals us? [36]
Marilène Oliver: Dyscorpia is a project that has really evolved. It started off as an interdisciplinary project working across departments—computer science, music, cultural studies and contemporary dance, bringing researchers together to create artworks and mount an exhibition at Enterprise Square. This was an incredible experience that culminated in, I think, a great exhibition which I'm very proud of, and that included a lot of student work as well as a number of invited guests and local artists. […] I think Dyscorpia really provoked a lot of important discussion and reflection on how technology is changing and controlling our lives and our relationships with each other and the environments we live in/on. [37]
Sean Caulfield: A lot of the questions that arise from technology are so hugely complex. How do we grapple with that as a society? It seems like art is a really useful place, not to answer all those questions, but to have dialogue about these questions. [38]
Lianne McTavish: The expanding reach of VR might seem both inevitable and positive, but the inner workings of the technology remain mysterious to most of us, as does its long-term impact on the way we understand ourselves and the world. [39]
Liz Ingram: It’s interesting to get to know, because it’s not going to away, at least not in the near future. So this thing with Marilène, that we’re working with her on, it’s really interesting. Just to get to know what people may be experiencing in the future. It gives you a little window into that. And you can see things that you can’t see otherwise. I don’t like the [virtual reality] experience for very long. I mean, its such a contrast, being out at Obed Lake for the last two, two and a half weeks. Just that it’s so rich, so rich with the unknown in a different way. And what we’ve been discovering all the time out there, all the time! And always new things, new plants, new this, new that. It’s such a wealth. It’s us, right? Whereas this virtual world isn’t.
Desmond Rochfort: When information and communication can be accessed in an instant from wherever we choose to get it, and when infinite creative possibilities seem possible at the click of a button, then it is necessary to stop and think about what might be happening. By means of new communication and digital imaging technologies, a singular image culture is in the process of being forged. The dynamic of this image culture acknowledges no boundaries or frontiers. It is perhaps the greatest collectivizing dynamic in the history of human development. However, with the sheer speed with which artists can now use these new technologies and with the rapidity and reach of their global development comes the erasure of social memory and the erasure of difference. In the presence of the pixelated image, the complex traces and textural lavers of the creative process that make up density and materiality are likewise erased. [40]
Lianne McTavish: Inside [the exhibit], I contemplate an intricately constructed anatomical environment. […] Entitled Evolving Anatomies, the collaborative installation by Marilène Oliver, Sean Caulfield, and Scott Smallwood provides layers of information about bodies and embodiment. Combining historical representations with modern visualizations of the body, the installation is reminiscent of a palimpsest, a term that usually refers to material on which writing has been effaced to make room for new text even as traces of the original marks remain. […] Evolving Anatomies shows how anatomical technologies have both persisted and changed over time, suggesting their advantages and disadvantages. While the digitized images of the present are impressively vibrant, they seem disembodied and fleeting in contrast to the solid materiality of earlier representations. There is no simple story of the rejection and subsequent improvement of the past. [35]
Agnieszka Matejko: Caulfield’s drawings, which refer to Andreas Vesalius, the 16th-century father of modern anatomy, are overlaid by Oliver’s videos of data from CT scans. Here, familiar historical perceptions of the body meet the mysterious workings of our invisible selves. Wax arms and legs at the foot of the installation allude to the Catholic tradition of placing casts of ailing body parts at sacred sites such as Lourdes. The implicit question this work poses: Will it be faith or technology that heals us? [36]
Marilène Oliver: Dyscorpia is a project that has really evolved. It started off as an interdisciplinary project working across departments—computer science, music, cultural studies and contemporary dance, bringing researchers together to create artworks and mount an exhibition at Enterprise Square. This was an incredible experience that culminated in, I think, a great exhibition which I'm very proud of, and that included a lot of student work as well as a number of invited guests and local artists. […] I think Dyscorpia really provoked a lot of important discussion and reflection on how technology is changing and controlling our lives and our relationships with each other and the environments we live in/on. [37]
Sean Caulfield: A lot of the questions that arise from technology are so hugely complex. How do we grapple with that as a society? It seems like art is a really useful place, not to answer all those questions, but to have dialogue about these questions. [38]
Lianne McTavish: The expanding reach of VR might seem both inevitable and positive, but the inner workings of the technology remain mysterious to most of us, as does its long-term impact on the way we understand ourselves and the world. [39]
Liz Ingram: It’s interesting to get to know, because it’s not going to away, at least not in the near future. So this thing with Marilène, that we’re working with her on, it’s really interesting. Just to get to know what people may be experiencing in the future. It gives you a little window into that. And you can see things that you can’t see otherwise. I don’t like the [virtual reality] experience for very long. I mean, its such a contrast, being out at Obed Lake for the last two, two and a half weeks. Just that it’s so rich, so rich with the unknown in a different way. And what we’ve been discovering all the time out there, all the time! And always new things, new plants, new this, new that. It’s such a wealth. It’s us, right? Whereas this virtual world isn’t.
Desmond Rochfort: When information and communication can be accessed in an instant from wherever we choose to get it, and when infinite creative possibilities seem possible at the click of a button, then it is necessary to stop and think about what might be happening. By means of new communication and digital imaging technologies, a singular image culture is in the process of being forged. The dynamic of this image culture acknowledges no boundaries or frontiers. It is perhaps the greatest collectivizing dynamic in the history of human development. However, with the sheer speed with which artists can now use these new technologies and with the rapidity and reach of their global development comes the erasure of social memory and the erasure of difference. In the presence of the pixelated image, the complex traces and textural lavers of the creative process that make up density and materiality are likewise erased. [40]
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Above, left: Daniela Schlüter, Vita Brevis, intaglio, 2009; above, right: Brenda Malkinson, July Twenty Eight, relief, 2013; above, lower: Jewel Shaw, Salivation, intaglio, 2009
continue to part eight...
***
Footnotes, part 7:
[1] Sean Caulfield, quoted in Gilbert Bouchard, “Whittling down a short list was definitely not a SNAP,” Edmonton Journal, June 14, 2002, E5.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Amy Fung, “Edmonton Print International Preview, September 26 - October 17, Various locations*,” Prairie Artsters, September 28, 2008, http://prairieartsters.blogspot.com/2008/09/edmonton-print-international-preview.html
[4] Ryoji Ikeda exhibited in EPI, and attended the opening, but was not a juror. Tetsuya Noda was the third international juror, alongside Canadian Davida Kidd.
[5] David Kidd, ‘Jurors Statements,’ in Edmonton Print International 2008: a celebration of the printed image (Edmonton: Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists, 2008) 12.
[6] Tetsuya Noda, ‘Jurors Statements,’ in Edmonton Print International 2008: a celebration of the printed image (Edmonton: Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists, 2008) 14.
[7] Maurice Pasternak, ‘Jurors Statements,’ in Edmonton Print International 2008: a celebration of the printed image (Edmonton: Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists, 2008) 15.
[8] Kyla Fischer, ‘ProspectUS: SNAP member profiles,’ SNAPline, Fall 2009, 4.
[9] Amy Fung, “Prospectus Group Show, SNAP Gallery, Sept 10 - Oct 17, 2009,” Prairie Artsters, September 17, 2009, http://prairieartsters.blogspot.com/2009/09/prospectus-group-show-snap-gallery-sept.html
[10] Teresa Kachanoski, ‘President’s Message,’ SNAPline, Winter 2009, 2.
[11] Todd Janes, interviewed by Stephanie Bailey, “Curating and Kindness,” SNAPline, Fall 2016, 10.
[12] Marc Siegner and Robin Smith-Peck raw footage from interview, c. 1985, SNAP archives.
[13] Cherie Moses, interviewed by Denise Blais, “In Process,” Atlantis, vol. 10 no. 1, Fall 1984, 87/89.
[14] Megan Bertagnolli, “#yegarts Connections: A Resurgence of Edmonton Arts Initiatives,” PrairieSeen Notes, issue 1, fall 2014, 5.
[15] Tori McNish & Chelsey Van Weerden, “Arts Writing in Edmonton,” PrairieSeen, June 3, 2011, https://prairieseen-blog.tumblr.com/post/6145608953/arts-writing-in-edmonton
[16] Blair Brennan, “Art in Edmonton, Art Writing in Edmonton and Edmonton Ignored,” PrairieSeen, February 15, 2013, https://prairieseen-blog.tumblr.com/post/43178734272/art-in-edmonton-art-writing-in-edmonton-and
[17] Amy Fung, Before I Was A Critic I Was A Human Being (Toronto & Vancouver: Book*Hug Press & Artspeak, 2019) 58.
[18] Charles Breth, “Cliches sprint to mind,” Edmonton Bullet, vol. 6, no. 12, March 1, 1989, 5.
[19] Russell Bingham, in ‘A Conversation with Clement Greenberg,’ Outlook: The Magazine of the Edmonton Art Gallery, vol. 1 no. 4, Winter 1990-91, as quoted on the Studiosavant Blog, https://web.archive.org/web/20091102042608/http://www.nesw.ca/studiosavant/2009/09/time-capsule-meeting-part-ii_29.html
[20] Adam Waldron-Blain, “What's Really Wrong With Edmonton”, Prairie Arsters, May 6, 2009, http://prairieartsters.blogspot.com/2009/05/special-feature-whats-really-wrong-with.html
[21] Ryan McCourt (‘MC’), comment on Adam Waldron-Blain, “What's Really Wrong With Edmonton”, Prairie Arsters, May 6, 2009, http://prairieartsters.blogspot.com/2009/05/special-feature-whats-really-wrong-with.html
[22] Blair Brennan, “Something Profound and Something Box Office: The New AGA and the Local Arts Community,” Prairie Arsters, May 5, 2010, http://prairieartsters.blogspot.com/2010/05/something-profound-and-something-box.html
[23] Todd Janes, from “Working in the Arts Roundtable Discussion,” PrairieSeen, https://vimeo.com/70990326, 2013.
[24] Megan Bertagnolli, “The Community Building Pep Talk,” Latitude 53 Blog, July 14, 2010, https://latitude53.tumblr.com/post/813924989/the-community-building-pep-talk
[25] April Dean, “Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon.,” PrairieSeen, May 4, 2013, https://prairieseen-blog.tumblr.com/post/49604487305/perhaps-i-spoke-too-soon
[26] Blair Brennan, “April Dean’s Word Work,” in April Dean: Blowing in the Wind, Alberta Printmakers, 2016, 1.
[27] April Dean, Incubator Interview, Latitude 53 Blog, August 6, 2013, https://latitude53.tumblr.com/post/57537641121/we-visited-this-weeks-incubator-artist-april-dean
[28] Blair Brennan, “April Dean’s Word Work,” in April Dean: Blowing in the Wind, Alberta Printmakers, 2016, 1.
[29] April Dean, Incubator Interview, Latitude 53 Blog, August 6, 2013, https://latitude53.tumblr.com/post/57537641121/we-visited-this-weeks-incubator-artist-april-dean
[30] Agnieszka Matejko, “April Dean: "Blowing in the Wind", Alberta Printmakers, Calgary, Feb. 26 to April 9, 2016,” Galleries West, January 16, 2016, https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/april-dean-blowing-in-the-wind-alberta-printmakers-calgary-f/
[31] Desmond Rochfort, “Introduction,” in Lines of Site: Ideas, Forms and Materialities (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1999) 9.
[32] Marilène Oliver, interviewed by SPAR2C, “Interview with Marilène Oliver,” no date listed, https://www.spar2c.ca/spotlights/marilene-oliver
[33] Fish Griwkowsky, “Dyscorpia brilliantly weaves the vanishing boundaries between humans and technology,” Edmonton Journal, April 25, 2019, https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/movies/dyscorpia-brilliantly-weaves-the-vanishing-boundaries-between-humans-and-technology
[34] Marilène Oliver, interviewed by Jonathan Garfinkel, in Dyscorpia (Edmonton: University of Alberta Department of Art and Design, 2020) 155.
[35] Lianne McTavish, "Exploring an Anatomical Palimpsest," in Dyscorpia (Edmonton: University of Alberta Department of Art and Design, 2020) 18-19.
[36] Agnieszka Matejko, “Dyscorpia,” Galleries West, May 4, 2019, https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/dyscorpia/
[37] Marilène Oliver, interviewed by SPAR2C, “Interview with Marilène Oliver,” no date listed, https://www.spar2c.ca/spotlights/marilene-oliver
[38] Fish Griwkowsky, “Dyscorpia brilliantly weaves the vanishing boundaries between humans and technology,” Edmonton Journal, April 25, 2019, https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/movies/dyscorpia-brilliantly-weaves-the-vanishing-boundaries-between-humans-and-technology
[39] Lianne McTavish, essay in Know Thyself as a Virtual Reality, exhibition brochure, FAB Gallery, University of Alberta, 2023.
[40] Desmond Rochfort, “Introduction,” in Lines of Site: Ideas, Forms and Materialities (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1999) 11.
