UNews - Dana Inkster

Rethinking stereotypes

trevor.kenney — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:05:11 +0000

On a map, the small town of Brooks, Alta., appears no different than any other rural location. But with only 13,000 people speaking approximately 90 different languages, Brooks has an uncharacteristically diverse population for a prairie town. When U of L new media researcher Dana Inkster decided to direct a documentary about Alberta's changing cultural landscape, Brooks was a natural choice. What she never anticipated finding was the angry voices and raw emotions of displaced workers fighting for basic rights.

"I had plans to tell this tiny poetic story and talk about people's experiences of travelling from war-torn countries and what life was like for them in Canada. It wasn't my intention to tell a labour story, but as soon as we started shooting, the strike broke out," recalls Inkster.

From that, 24 Days in Brooks emerged, a documentary centred around the 2005 labour strike at Lakeside Packers, one of the largest slaughterhouses in North America. At the time, more than half of Lakeside employees were immigrants or refugees with limited English, experience and skills. Although grateful for the opportunity to build a new life, employees were accusing Lakeside of unfair and unsafe labour practices and went on strike.

The film tells the stories of these workers – people like Peter Jany Khwai, who proudly wears a cowboy hat as well as an African shirt, and Edil Hassan, born in Somalia, who considers the time she picketed as one of her greatest accomplishments.

By honouring their stories through the film, Inkster hopes to establish understanding and break down traditional stereotypes.

"The individuals in the documentary are unique and show that race isn't a good way to characterize somebody. While race can be something we have in common, you can't understand people just by looking at them," explains Inkster.

"I hope audiences think twice about how they see the world and how they relate to their neighbours, friends, family and strangers. Above all else, if the film gets people to talk about things they haven't talked about before, then my work is done."

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:08:34 +0000

Dr. Ed Jurkowski (Music) and Dr. Deanna Oye (Music) co-presented a paper in July entitled, Interpreting the Music of György Kurtág, at the annual meeting of the International Musicological Society in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Dr. David Townsend (Education) and Dr. Pamela Adams (Education) released their book, The Essential Equation, A Handbook for School Improvement. Through case studies, research and best-practice information, the book is designed to help educators learn more about school improvement and the challenges facing educators today.

David Barrus has been accepted as the first MFA Dramatic Arts student and is specializing in scenic design for theatre, which also makes him the first recipient of the John Farwell Memorial Award.

Don Gill (Art) and dancer Sarah Williams (formerly of La La La Human Steps) are featured in a collaborative video-installation exhibition, The New Flâneurs: Contemporary Urban Practice and the Picturesque, running Sept. 5 through Dec. 13 in the RBC New Works Gallery in the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton.

Soprano Audrina Poepping-Steciw (BMus '09) placed first in the Provincial National Voice Class in the Kiwanis Music Festival in Edmonton this spring and represented Alberta in the National Class at the competition in Saskatoon in August.

Dr. Arlan Schultz (Music) returned from a summer residency at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at UC San Diego in La Jolla, California. Schultz was engaged in research at CRCA's large-speaker array audio spatialization lab.

James Graham's (New Media) installation, Unforgivable, used many commonly available commercial products – and specifically those of the French cosmetic giant L'Oreal – to draw connections back to their French fascist and anti-Semitic origins. Displayed in the SAAG storefront gallery during August, the exhibition examined the troubled history of Vichy, France.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge will receive a 2009 Allied Arts Council Award for Excellence (AACE) at the Mayor's Luncheon for Business and the Arts on Sept. 10.

Michael Campbell's (Art) exhibition, Field Recordings of Icebergs Melting, toured over the summer to the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound, Ont. and then to the Esplanade Gallery in Medicine Hat. A version of this exhibition appeared at the Nanaimo Art Gallery in June.

Dana Inkster (New Media) has received generous support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for her new production, Ladies of the Saturday Night, a short documentary about lives lived in the sex trade in Alberta boomtowns. The production is slated for completion by fall 2010.

The Contemporary Works Jazz Orchestra, directed by Dr. David Renter (Music) and including ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and community musicians performed at the first incarnation of the Medicine Hat Jazz Festival in Lethbridge in June. ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ musicians included student Brad Brouwer, Ryan Heseltine (BMus/Ed '04), Don Robb (former U of L Jazz Ensemble conductor), Nick Sullivan (Music) and Ed Wasiak (Music Education)

Bobbi-Lee Copeland (BA '05), who has been working as an adult literacy instructor for the Lillooet Area Library Association, has been accepted to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Saskatchewan Indigenous Education Master's Program.

Dr. David Renter (Music) has been invited to participate in the 2009 Chiayi City International Band Festival in Chiayi City, Taiwan in December 2009. Renter will perform with an Afro-Cuban Jazz group from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Andrew Staniland (BMus '00, Great Distinction) who completed his PhD in composition at ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto in 2008, went on to win the grand prize in CBC's National Evolution Composers Competition in March 2009. Staniland has accepted a tenure-track appointment in composition at Memorial ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Newfoundland, starting in January 2010.

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:01:23 +0000

Tom Barchyn (MSc candidate), Department of Geography, recently won the Olav Slaymaker Award for best student oral presentation at the joint meeting of the Canadian Quaternary Association and the Canadian Geomorphology Research Group. Barchyn presented preliminary results on his master's research project involving the surface controls on Aeolian sand transport in a cold-climate dunefield. This is the first time a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge student has won this national award.

Megan Butler (BA '09), a history major, won the Canadian Association of Slavists' 2008 Annual Essay Contest for Best Undergraduate Essay (in Slavic Studies in Canada). Her essay was entitled "The Prayers of the Soviets".

Lana Gabor (U of L Art Gallery) is off this fall to start a Master of Applied Arts at Emily Carr ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

Annie Martin (Art) is participating in the IN SITU residency at AXENÉO7 in Gatineau, Que., where she'll experiment in archiving the present using sound recordings and live audio networks. The resulting installation will present a unique visual, physical and aural experience for visitors to the exhibition.

Gail Hanrahan (Theatre & Dramatic Arts) directed a reading of Ex-Pats by two
U of L alumni (book by Col Cseke, BFA '07, music by Brent Podesky, BA '07) at the Lunchbox Theatre's Petro-Canada Stage One Festival in May. Hanrahan and Val Campbell (U of C) have also been invited to take their production of "Under the Parrot/Over Tennessee" to SummerWorks in Toronto in August. The largest juried festival in Canada, SummerWorks features predominantly New Canadian plays.

Dana Inkster (New Media) was the Canadian artist in the spotlight at the 16th annual Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, which draws crowds of 30,000 to screenings, artist talks, panel discussions, installations and socials. It highlights more than 275 films/videos from Canada and around the world.

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:27:00 +0000

Lana Gabor (Art Gallery) is part of a group exhibition at the Hungarian Multicultural Center in Budapest. The exhibition is a follow-up of AIR (International Artists in Residencies program) in which Gabor previously participated. Her website can be found at www.lana-ing-gabor.com

Dana Inkster (New Media) presented a workshop entitled, The Art of Biography, on May 2 as part of StoryCatchers at the Galt Museum.

Dr. Janet Youngdahl's (Music) recording of Songs by Bellerofonte Castaldi (c. 1623) titled 'Battaglia d'amore' has just been issued by the Toccata Classics label (London, England). The disc was recorded in Italy with the group Il Furioso and features songs with lute and harpsichord accompaniment.

Pronghorn athletes Jim Steacy (track and field) and Ashley Patzer (rugby) were named Kinsmen Sportspersons of the Year recently at the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame Banquet and Induction Ceremony.

Dr. David Renter (Music) has organized a small jazz festival at The Slice on June 19 & 20 in conjunction with the Medicine Hat Jazz Festival. The community big band called Contemporary Works Jazz Orchestra, which he recently started, is the headliner on Friday, June 19. Joel Miller, a jazz saxophonist from Montreal, performs with his quartet Saturday, June 20.

Aliya Lalani (fourth-year Management student) is among 180 college and university students chosen from more than 900 across Canada to attend the Co-operators Youth Conference for Sustainability Leadership at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Guelph in September, 2009. Entitled, "Impact!" the all-expenses-paid conference ties in nicely with her academic studies and interest in the environment.

Breeanne Fuller (Conservatory of Music) has been accepted into the MEd (literacy) program at the U of L. Fuller also teaches Kindermusik for the Conservatory of Music and her classes have been getting a lot of attention recently. In April, she was featured as an educator whose program continues to thrive despite the recession in the Kindermusik International professional development newsletter, which goes to 5,000 educators in 66 countries. Fuller is one of only 800 Kindermusik educators in the world whose programs have increased this year.

A trio of U of L students earned top prizes at the Lethbridge Symphony Association's Young Artist Competition. Matthew Blackburn, piano, placed first; Tony Park, playing clarinet, was second; and Krysta Mellon, soprano, was third.

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:35:24 +0000

Campus Kudos

Lisa Doolittle (Theatre & Dramatic Arts), with Anne Flynn from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, is presenting the paper "Assimilating and Accommodating: Bodies and Dancing, Canada's Choreography of Multicultural Nationhood in the 20th century" at the British Association of Canadian Studies international conference "Being, Becoming and Belonging: Multiculturalism, Diversity and Social Inclusion in Modern Canada" at Oxford ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, UK, Mar. 28-30.

Mary-Anne McTrowe (Art) has received an Alberta Creative Development Initiative grant to produce work for a solo exhibition in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's contemporary space, the LAB. The exhibition opens in October 2009.

Richard Epp (Theatre & Dramatic Arts) appears in Theatre Calgary's production of An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde, Mar. 3-22.

Jim Steacy (kinesiology student) and Heather Steacy (music student) brought home three gold medals from the Canada West track championship meet in Regina recently. Jim Steacy won both the men's weight throw and shot put, giving him eight career Canada West gold medals. Heather Steacy won her third consecutive Canada West women's weight throw gold medal. Both athletes were named top athletes of the meet and Jim Steacy was also named top male track athlete for the year.

Dr. Arlan Schultz (Music) has received a Community of Research Excellence Development Opportunity from the U of L Research Office to support his development of tools for electroacoustic composition in the form of audio spatialization software and unique audio-sample databases. Schultz recently returned from Paris, France where he was studying and designing audio spatialization algorithms and studying advanced MAX/MSP programming techniques at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in the Centre Georges Pompidou. During this spring/summer, he has been awarded a research residency and has been appointed a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CIRCA) in La Jolla, California. He has also received a Canada Arts Council grant for the composition of two new works of interactive acoustic/computer music. One is a commission from New Works Calgary's "Rubbing Stone" Ensemble for soprano, chamber orchestra, real-time audio spatialization and computer processed audio, which will be premiered in 2010.

Ryan Pottruff (education student) and Dustin Moore (pre-management studies) of the Pronghorns men's hockey team, won silver medals while representing Canada at the 2009 Winter Universiade in Harbin, China.

Deanna Oye (Music) performs a solo piano recital at Lakehead ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ on Mar. 17, as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations for Lakehead's Department of Music. She was a graduate of their B.Mus.(Honours) program during its first decade.

Trio Amaranth (Peter Visentin, violin; Tido Janssen, cello; and Deanna Oye, piano) performed at Convocation Hall at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta on Feb. 27.
Dana Inkster (New Media) has been invited to be a discussant in the "The Role of the Employer and Legal Implications For Foreign Workers" plenary, Mar. 19 at the 11th National Metropolis Conference in Calgary. She will speak about her 2007 documentary "24 Days In Brooks" as well as her current projects in development, "Los Invisibles" and "Ladies of the Saturday Night". In March, she also speaks on the Collaborative Research in Ethnicity, Social Care and Health program in Faculty of Nursing, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, where she will use her film 24 Days in Brooks as a case study for the use of documentary film as a facilitation tool in intercultural exchange.

Peter Visentin (Music) presented "Violinist's Cool Move" to music majors at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta recently. The presentation explores his research with biomechanics researchers to gain insight into the art and science of playing the violin.

Lani Maestro (Art) is among 50 artists from around the world to participate in the Sharjah Biennial 9, this spring.

Ed Wasiak (Education/Music) was elected president of the Canadian Music Educators' Association (CMEA). CMEA provides leadership for music education in Canada and is also the national affiliate to the International Society for Music Education. Wasiak's term as president runs from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2011.

Dr. Rolf Boon's (Music) composition "First Light" has been selected for publication in the Canadian National Conservatory of Music's Northern Lights Level 5 piano syllabus. Several of Rolf's works are also under consideration for publication for their Grade 6 and 7 piano repertoire.

UNews - Dana Inkster

Rethinking stereotypes

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