UNews - Kasia Sosnowski

Roloff Beny winners reflect excellence

trevor.kenney — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:50:37 +0000

Neysa Hale and Kasia Sosnowski, both BFA art majors, emerged from a highly competitive group of applications to earn the two Roloff Beny Awards.

Each will receive a $5,000 scholarship to develop their art projects after the Roloff Beny Awards Committee established their proposals to be the best of an outstanding collection of applications.

Roloff Beny Award recipient Neysa Hale plans to travel to Williams Lake, B.C. to pursue her photo-arts project.

Hale, in her fourth year of study, plans to explore both a physical place and the social issues in Williams Lake, B.C. In her proposal Hale says, "My art practice focuses on social issues prevalent in society today revolving around social interactions and deviance labeling (negatively labeling those seen as deviant according to social norms). In exploring such issues, I aim to create an environment of contemplation and reflection that encourages one to stop and think about the implications. To do so, I use mixed media including textiles, video and photography, paying close attention to the overall composition and colour. I'm interested in Aboriginal and Caucasian relations in Williams Lake, B.C. There is a clear divide between the two groups where social barriers and skewed perspectives inhibit positive interaction. It is my desire to explore this divide through photography, research and observation to understand the situation and present it in a creative fashion. By travelling and documenting the Cariboo Wagon Road, I wish to open a discussion around the connection between the Cariboo Wagon Road and the Williams Lake Indian Bands to create a dialogue of the social by-pass that is occurring."

Kasia Sosnowski will journey to Poland to complete her project.

Sosnowski, in her sixth year of study, has a personal proposal involving exploring her heritage with a beloved family member's camera as her guide. According to her proposal,

"I want to use my Dziadek's [grandfather's] Leica to explore the relationship between photography, memory and eternal return. By travelling to Poland, I hope to capture and celebrate the relationship that I had with my Dziadek and his relationship with Poland. I've been to Poland only once before and the connection I felt to the people and the place was immense. If we consider eternal return, I will be led by the intuition of my past selves to revisit sites and spaces I've seen infinite amounts of time. Perhaps by
using my Dziadek's camera, I will be led to the places he explored and loved. I will only use his film camera to document the trip. Thus, the entire experience will be filtered through his camera."

In 2005, the Roloff Beny Foundation endowed $860,000 to the Department of Art, Faculty of Fine Arts, to generate ongoing funding for student scholarships and infrastructure costs in traditional and digital photo-arts. In recognition of excellence in art instruction and research, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge was one of five institutions across Canada selected for such an endowment. Since then, more than $70,000 in scholarships have been awarded to students in fine arts, providing research based travel opportunities in conjunction with their studies in photo-arts.

The Roloff Beny Foundation Photographic Awards in the Fine Arts is intended to provide outstanding Fine Arts students who have a concentrated interest in photo-arts with a travel opportunity in relation to their photographic activity. Any new or continuing students enrolled full-time in any BFA degree program who have a focused interest in photo-arts are eligible to apply for this competitive award.

This story first appeared in the April 2013 edition of the Legend. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Student art awards announced

trevor.kenney — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:53:56 +0000

As part of the annual Art Student Open House, the Department of Art in the Faculty of Fine Arts presented student awards recognizing excellence in Art History/Museum Studies and Art Studio.

Awards and winners were as follows:

Southern Alberta Art Gallery Award – Christina Olson, Kasia Sosnowski

Students' Union Award – Lisa Spinelli

David Lanier Memorial Award – Kalen Hussey

Art History and Museum Studies Gallery Award – David Smith

Excellence in Art History and Museum Studies Award – Jennifer VanderFluit

Trapdoor Artist Run Centre Award – Evan Peacock

Excellence in Digital Art Award – Kasia Sosnowski

Excellence in Art Studio Award – Neysa Hale

Faculty of Fine Arts Award – Arianna Richardson

Studio Art Supplies Painting Award – Sarah Stringam

Art Department Purchase Prize – Bonnie Patton, Nicole Lalonde

Roloff Beny Award – Arianna Richardson, Nicole Lalonde

Museum studies interns bring back the 40s

trevor.kenney — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:49:02 +0000

The 1940s are here again, thanks to a new exhibition set to debut in the Helen Christou Gallery.

"Through my museum studies courses, I have come to realize that the artwork on the walls of a gallery doesn't get magically selected and placed there by elves," says Jarrett Duncan, who along with fellow museum studies intern Kasia Sosnowski, have just curated the exhibition going into the Helen Christou Gallery on Apr. 16, thereby obtaining first-hand experience about what goes into selecting and hanging an exhibition.

"Curating this exhibition was the best opportunity to put the knowledge I've gained in class into practice before graduating and finding myself in the real world," he says.

According to Dr. Josephine Mills, "the internships give students an in-depth sense of the range of work and career possibilities in the museum field, while also helping them develop a résumé of hands-on experience beyond the classroom."

The 1940s exhibition builds connections between the cultural collections in Lethbridge and gives the student interns the experience of curating an exhibition. Both senior students working on their bachelor of fine arts in art history/museum studies degrees, Duncan and Sosnowski drew from artworks in the U of L Collection, as well as objects and archival material from the Sir Alexander Galt Museum and Archives to explore themes from the 1940s.

"Although the Second World War was a key part of the period, we felt that this subject would be familiar to audiences, and other than referring to Bart Pragnell's military service, we focused on the major developments in artistic practice and on the local connections," explains Sosnowski.

They focus partly on imagery of agriculture, complimented with ordinary objects from everyday life throughout that decade, as well as on the transformation in artistic styles and imagery that occurred during those years.

The curators include work by major international artists including Jean Arp (Switzerland), Andre Derain (France), and Henry Moore (Britain), as well as Alberta artists Bart Pragnell, Roloff Beny and Clifford Robinson.

The exhibition complements Historic Lethbridge Week, May 1-9.

Museum studies interns bring back the 40s

trevor.kenney — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:58:44 +0000

The 1940s are here again, thanks to a new exhibition set to debut in the Helen Christou Gallery.

"Curating this exhibition was the best opportunity to put the knowledge I've gained in class into practice before graduating and finding myself in the real world," he says.

The exhibition complements Historic Lethbridge Week, May 1-9.

UNews - Kasia Sosnowski

Roloff Beny winners reflect excellence

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Museum studies interns bring back the 40s

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