COVID Creators in the Arts
|
The Vice President of Research, Malcolm Campbell announced support for eight new projects that explore notions of “Creating in a Time of Covid.” The projects fund artistic engagement with culture during the pandemic and span disciplines of Landscape Architecture, Music, Puppetry, radio plays, virtual reality. |
Catherine BushDirector of the MFA in Creative Writing at the School of Theatre, English, and Creative Writingwill lead a team whose project, The Meaning of Making Meaning: Systems in Revolt, Systems in Renewal is to produce a multi-disciplinary digital journal, a collaborative project led by students of the Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Creative Writing programs at the University of Guelph. As the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated multiple global crises, leading to the growth of social movements demanding solidarity and justice, the journal will prompt artists and writers to respond to the current moment and consider how we connect and interact with one another. |
Christian GirouxSchool of Fine Art & Musicand his partners, will develop two different Virtual Reality (VR) environments through the Creating Virtual Spaces for Artists and Performers project that will enable students and researchers to explore and interact with two creative spaces on campus. An online VR version of the Zavitz Gallery which is housed in Zavitz Hall, used by both undergraduate and graduate students for exhibitions, will allow artists to incorporate and exhibit digital sculpture works online. The project will also create a 360-degree virtual walk-through of the ImprovLab being built for the MacKinnon renovation. The purpose of the walk-through is to give performers a first-person perspective of what the new space entails to plan out performances. |
 James HarleySchool of Fine Art & Musicreceived funding for the project: Interactive Improvisation in Times of Isolation, which will showcase the realities of living in isolation. Harley’s group will produce a series of 15 short audio-video recordings of individual improvisational responses to ambient recordings (e.g., early morning birdsongs) and responses to each other’s improvisations in lieu of collaborating in person. The ambient recordings signify the current reality, where nature exists, even thrives, with muted human intervention.
|
 Troy HourieSchool of Theatre, English, and Creative Writingwill create ODDITI(m)ES - A Tragic Comedy in Pandemic Times. Professor Hourie’s project will take a comedic look at the frustrations and woes we have all endured over the past almost 100-day pandemic. The work will be derived from personal experiences as well as those shared all over social media.
|
Peter KulingSchool of Theatre, English, and Creative Writingand his students will create A Shot in the Dark: Theatre Ensemble Radio Play. A Shot in the Dark will investigate early Canadian outer space exploration through film noir and science fiction narrative lenses to create their own radio play. Inspired by the Covid-19 global shutdown, the radio drama occurs at the height of the Spanish Flu in 1918 after the Canadian military records Morse Code emanating throughout our solar system. A lunar capsule gets fired into outer space with a diverse team of film noir era sleuths armed with ingenuity, determination, and all-new wireless radio technology. Will they discover a way to end the pandemic? Will they even make it back alive? With this funding, team will create a 60-minute pilot episode for an original sci-fi detective radio drama series. |
Alyssa WoodsSchool of Fine Art & Musicand her team will create A Sonic Tapestry of Guelph Musicians’ Reactions to COVID-19. This funding provides support for the development of 10 new short works by Guelph area musicians. The community members who have been asked to participate include University of Guelph faculty, students, and alumni, as well as local professional musicians. These newly commissioned works will be curated and contextualized by Drs. Woods and Kimberly Francis of the University of Guelph’s School of Fine Art and Music. |
Kim MartinHistory DepartmentConnecting Generations through Journaling (An Art Apart Project). Project Description: To extend the reach of Art Apart (art-apart.ca) by focusing on two subgroups of the population - children from low-income/single-parent households and seniors in long-term care. They will purchase and distribute 200 blank journals to children and seniors in the aforementioned communities and give them some prompts/ideas for artwork related to COVID-19 that they fill in over the month of August. They would then re-collect these journals after a few weeks, scan a few pages from each to be displayed on Art Apart and also create a digital mosaic and slideshow to be displayed on screens across campus. Finally, the journals would be sent to their “partners.” |