UNews - Daniel Wong

Alumni earn spots in Oh Canada exhibition

trevor.kenney — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:35:46 +0000

Oh, Canada is the largest exhibition of contemporary Canadian art to ever take place in the United States. Among the 62 artists included are three graduates of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's Faculty of Fine Arts.

Artists David Hoffos (BFA '94), Mary-Anne McTrowe (BFA '98) and Daniel Wong (BFA '03) travelled to North Adams, Mass. at the end of May for the opening of the exhibition.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is known globally for showing the very best art of our time. Occupying a vast network of 19th century factory buildings, MASS MoCA's galleries boast more than 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. With a strong focus on new art, the museum has become a destination for those seeking unique, fresh and challenging encounters with contemporary art.

David Hoffos will show works from his Scenes from the House Dream at Oh Canada this fall.

"We think it is an honour to be included in this exhibition, considering Denise Markonish (the curator of Oh, Canada) did more than 400 studio visits in determining the lineup," says Wong.

Known together as the 'art-ernative' folk-rock band The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonoréalistes, McTrowe and Wong have worked collaboratively since 2006. They are among the artists who created new works specifically for the exhibition. In addition to performing at the opening of Oh, Canada, the duo released a new album of songs relating to the museum.

"The album features four songs about and related to MASS MoCA: 'Oh Canada, Oh Canada' is our interpretation of what a theme song for the Oh, Canada exhibition might be; 'MASS MoCA' is about the history of the site that MASS MoCA inhabits; and 'Gravity is a Force to be Reckoned With' and 'Truisms' are about Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle and Jenny Holzer, respectively – two artists who have had exhibitions at MASS MoCA. The album cover itself is a riff on Bachman-Turner Overdrive," explains McTrowe.

Though it may come as a surprise to some, Lethbridge is a hotbed for contemporary art production in Canada.

"For as long as I've lived here, Lethbridge has had strong contemporary artists – people who contend on the national and international stage, so I'm not surprised Lethbridge artists are included in Oh, Canada. In fact, I'm honoured to have been chosen, especially considering there are so many great artists here," says Hoffos.

Hoffos has received widespread national acclaim for his large-scale, multimedia installations. From 2008 to 2011 his exhibition, Scenes from the House Dream, toured Canada debuting at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (SAAG) and showing at major institutions across the country, including the National Gallery of Canada. For Oh, Canada, Hoffos presents works from Scenes from the House Dream; a snapshot of his practice representative of his larger body of work.

"Oh, Canada is a celebration for the whole country. It's the first time an exhibition like this has happened south of the border and it's never happened in Canada either, so it's a special moment not just for the artists in the exhibition, but also for contemporary art in Canada," he says. "My hope is that this exhibition demonstrates that cutting-edge contemporary art production can happen anywhere, including Lethbridge."

Oh, Canada opened May 27 at MASS MoCA and is on view until Apr. 1, 2013. For more info: www.massmoca.org

This story first appeared in the June 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the entire issue in flipbook format, follow this link.

Alma Matters

trevor.kenney — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:54:27 +0000

What's new with our alumni? Let your classmates know what you are up to by sharing a note about your life. Share your news with us through e-mail (alumni@uleth.ca), or by phone (toll free 1-866-552-2582).

Check out the latest news from our alumni below.

1970

Kinahan holds community focus
Brian Kinahan (BMgt '79) believes his time spent at the U of L was foundational for his career. "At the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ I gained the ability to think through problems and come up with solutions, to expand my mind and think beyond more than just one focus," he says.

Now the president and CEO of 1st Choice Savings, Kinahan has played an integral part in the growth of the credit union, which currently boasts a balance sheet in excess of $400 million. While helping to build a successful financial institution is something he is proud of, he is also grateful for the opportunities he has to serve his community.

"My goal is to continue building on the success of 1st Choice Savings, guiding it to be a viable and important part of the financial world that focuses on being a community-minded institution that cares about individuals."

1980

Nancy Walker BMgt '82
Walker was awarded a Fellow of Chartered Accountants (FCA) from the Alberta Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Bill Neudorf BEd '88
"In memory: some of you may remember the little three-year-old girl who would come to class with her dad and spend the time colouring or playing with dolls. Her name was Bobbi Renee Neudorf. Bobbi later suffered from Crohn's disease through her time at university but finished a BSc in Occupational Therapy at the U of A and worked for three years in the QEII hospital in Grande Prairie. Bobbi succumbed to complications from the disease and passed away from a massive blood clot on Sept. 21, 2009. She was 25 years and two months old."

Pamela Zollner BEd '86
After graduating from the U of L, Zollner taught for a couple of years in Alberta before developing a taste for international travel by backpacking around Australia and New Zealand. Zollner incorporated this love for travel into her work by teaching in Singapore and India. Zollner completed her Master of Education in June 2008 and is currently teaching Grade 2 in Calgary.

1990

Winner of the $10,000 Alberta Readers' Choice Award
Michael Davie (BMgt '94) won the inaugural $10,000 Alberta Readers' Choice Award for his first novel

Author Michael Davie

, Fishing for Bacon. The Alberta Readers' Choice Award is modelled on the very popular Canada Reads prize. Five books, each one championed by a celebrity, vie to win a popular vote. With $10,000 going to the winner, the competition is on the same financial level as the Governor General's Awards.

Aaron Berg BSc '95, MSc '97
Dr. Aaron Berg was recognized as GeogNews' (News Digest of the Canadian Association of Geographers) Geographer of the Week. Berg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Guelph. He completed a BSc and an MSc degree in Geography at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, an MS in Geological Sciences at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Texas at Austin and his PhD in Earth System Science at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of California, Irvine. His research focuses on hydrology and hydro-climate simulation. Areas of current research interest include: macro-scale modeling of hydrological states and fluxes; climate change and water resources; the spatial scaling of hydrological properties; and evaluating the impact of land use change on regional hydrologic cycles.

Thomas Latta BMgt '97
"I am currently working as the manager, Operations Accounting and Business Solutions for Enerplus Resources Fund and have been with Enerplus for a year and a half. Prior to that, I was with ConocoPhillips Canada and its predecessor companies for 15 years."

2000

Amos Altman BA '04
Altman's play FORTITUDE is part of Fuse 2010 (The Enbridge New Play Development Program) at Theatre Calgary. This heartwarming and hilarious play emerged from the 2008/09 FUEL Playwrights' Circle at Theatre Calgary.

Ryan Epp BA/BMgt '05
Epp, former captain of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns men's hockey team, is now a constable with the Lethbridge Police Department.

Barry Gergel BSc '05, MSc '07
"I'm currently working toward my PhD in the Department of Computing Science at the U of A."

William Katelnikoff BMgt '05
"I received my chartered accountant designation in January, and I am currently assistant coach with the Pronghorns men's hockey team."

Matthew Berrigan BEd/BA '06
Lethbridge College announced their 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients and recognized U of L alumnus Matthew Berrigan with the Rising Star Award. Since completing his education degree, Berrigan's rise as a teacher has been meteoric. Named best new teacher by the Foothills School Division for his work in Cayley, Berrigan is now a lead teacher in Turner Valley. The success of his teaching is reflected in his students' achievement results.

Angela Kastelic BN '06
"I am currently pursuing a Master of Nursing (Family/All Ages) with intent to become a family nurse practitioner."

Keely (Kavanagh) Semenuik BEd/BA '09
Following graduation in April 2009, Semenuik was married and travelled to France. She is now excited to begin her teaching career with École St. Mary School in Lethbridge, teaching French immersion kindergarten.

Kinley passes on the inspiration
After attending a presentation by guest speaker John Carr from Pixar, Brad Kinley (BFA '04) remembers telling a friend that the talk was life-changing.

"Seeing what he does and his approach to the whole process of character animation crystallized what I wanted to do," says Kinley.

Now, after being a key player in the design of Mass Effect 2, one of the most popular and highly rated games ever made for the Xbox platform, Kinley returned to the U of L this spring and gave a presentation to the next generation of new media students.

"I know how influential my exposure was to somebody actually working in the business," he says. "If I can lend a little knowledge or inspiration to someone else, hopefully it will help them the way it helped me."

Congratulations
Daniel Wong (BFA '03), Mary-Anne McTrowe (BFA '98) and Robyn Moody (BFA '00) have made the long list (Prairies and North region) for the 2010 Sobey Art Award.

Munton & Co. chartered accountants recently announced that Curtis Michaelis (BMgt '03) and Michael Quinton (BMgt '04) have been admitted to partnership.

Susie Martin (BEd '81), Judy Lynn Miller (BA '91, BEd '93), Matthew Berrigan (BA/BEd '06) and Tracy Inaba (BEd '92) were among 23 outstanding Alberta teachers selected to receive the prestigious 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award.

Sports Hall of Fame

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Chinooks women's basketball team (1970/1971) was inducted into the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame at this year's celebration. The team won the provincial and national championships and represented Lethbridge with pride.

Members of the team included: (Back row, L-R) Wilma Winter (coach), Dixie Dow, Linda Dogterom, Leona Voth, Minnie Van Dieren and Sharon Giduk (BA '73, BEd '75). (Front row, L-R) Marge Moore, Linda Voth, Rosemary Brodrick, Joan Cannady and Linda Dow (BEd '71).

Andrea Hlady (BEd'93) and Sharon Chmielewski (BEd'75) were also inducted at this year's celebration. Hlady was recognized in the athletes category. She was a two-time All-Canadian basketball player with the U of L Pronghorns. Chmielewski, recognized in the builder category, was honoured for building high school and high-level curling in Lethbridge with her work as an official, instructor and coach.

To view the entire issue of SAM in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:51:13 +0000

Shelley Scott (Theatre & Dramatic Arts) is presenting a paper called Asian Canadian Women Playwrights: The Ties that Bind at the GENesis Asian-Canadian Theatre Conference, May 3-9 in Toronto. The conference is the first of its kind in Canada.

Three U of L alumni have made the long list (Prairies and North region) for the 2010 Sobey Art Award. Daniel Wong (BFA '03) and Mary-Anne McTrowe (BFA '98), as The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonorealistes, and Robyn Moody (BFA '00) are all in the running for this prestigious award.

Deric Olsen (New Media) has been invited to be an artist/filmmaker-in-residence at the New Media Studio Laboratory (NMSL) at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Regina, July 5-9. While there he will work on high definition post-production and delivery methods, and present New Format, New Challenges: Exploring Techniques in High Definition Disc Authoring and Design.

Alumnus Zoran Rajcic (BMgt '94) won the Western Hockey League's 2009-10 Marketing/Public Relations Award. Rajcic is the director of business operations for the Everett Silvertips.

The Faculty of Fine Arts video site (www.lethbridgefinearts.ca) is a finalist in the Best Non-Commercial Website category of Digital Alberta's Media Fresh awards. The web designer was New Media major Jesse Johnston and the advisory committee included:
Dr. Desmond Rochfort, Emily Luce, Chris Morris, Venkat Mahadevan and Katherine Wasiak.

Dr. Ed Jurkowski (Music) presented a paper entitled, How Formal Function Theory can inform Nineteenth-Century Deformed Sonata Designs: A Case Study using Bruckner's Symphonies, at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Arizona (Tucson, Ariz.) during the annual joint meeting of the Rocky Mountain Societies for Music Theory and Musicology.

Dr. Arlan Schultz (Music) had his composition Ikos-kun tu 'bar ba premiered by The Rubbing Stone Ensemble at a concert at the Rozsa Centre in Calgary.

Karen Mahar (dean's office) received a $3,000 scholarship from Alberta Advanced Education in recognition of her exceptional work in her first year as a graduate student. Mahar is now in her second year of an MA in English.

Deanna Oye (Music) and Peter Visentin (Music) presented recitals of solo and duo music at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba and Canadian Mennonite ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Winnipeg last month. They also conducted master's classes and lessons in the areas of collaborative piano and violin. Visentin gave a lecture on his research into musicians' injuries to the Medical Rehabilitation Faculty of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba, and Oye also played a solo recital in Brandon, Man. following a week as senior piano adjudicator at the Brandon Festival of the Arts.

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:13:16 +0000

Nick Wade (Art) has been invited to show and speak about his work, The Ruin 2005, at a conference dedicated to Eve Sedgwick. Called Spanking and Poetry at the Graduate Centre, CUNY NY on Feb. 25, part of the conference is dedicated to innovative uses of language in many disciplines, including visual art.

Mary Kavanagh (Art) and Michael Campbell (Art) both had work purchased by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts in its recent round of new acquisitions. Kavanagh's work, Tarnish: Silver Drawings (2005), is a process piece resulting in a large textile. Campbell's work, Tranquility Base (2006), is a video/audio/sculptural installation.

The winners for the annual student writing competition, Plays and Prose, supported by U of L alumnus Terry Whitehead, were announced recently. James Wade captured the Play Right Prize for his play Muse Control. Marian Godfrey won first prize in the prose competition for Takeoff, while second prize went to Henry Heavy Shield for The Art of Fasting. The third prize was awarded to Dave Bryant for Out of Sight on Barstool Row. This is the second consecutive year that Heavy Shield has earned a prize for his writing.

Mary-Anne McTrowe (Art) was asked by recent Art Now speaker Brian Goeltzenleuchter, to create work to be featured on his Contraposto Home Decor website for Winter 2010, based on items in his product line. She chose to knit cozies for three of the candles offered for sale on the site: Roman Ruins, The Kiss, and Totem.

Daniel Wong (Art Gallery) and Mary-Anne McTrowe (Art), as The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonorealistes, travel to San Diego in March to participate in a group exhibition entitled Family Matters at Sushi Center for Urban Arts, which runs from Mar. 4 to Apr. 24. In addition to their installation, they are also presenting a musical performance.

Tido Janssen (Music) was recently elected president of the Alberta String Association (ASA). The ASA is a non-profit, charitable organization that supports and develops programs serving a network of string professionals, string students, and string-interested parties that advocate quality string playing and string education in Alberta.

Dr. Shelley Scott's (Theatre & Dramatic Arts) book, Nightwood Theatre, A Woman's Work is Always Done, has just been published by Athabasca ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Press.

Lisa Doolittle (Theatre & Dramatic Arts) was named Ms. November (Dance Historian of the Month) in Dance Collection Danse, the national dance archive and publishing organization based in Toronto.

Denton Fredrickson (Art) and John Granzow (Psychology – grad assistant) have their collaboration, Instruments of Removal, appearing in the first issues of the new online publication Boulder Pavement.

Deanna Oye (Music) performed on a concert of international musicians at the Hospitalkirche in Schwaebisch Hall, Germany. She and violinist Jasmine Lin (Chicago Chamber Players) performed Edvard Grieg's 3rd Sonata for Violin and Piano in December.

UNews - Daniel Wong

Alumni earn spots in Oh Canada exhibition

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