UNews - Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ

Mills helping to engage through gallery

trevor.kenney — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:24:44 +0000

Dr. Josephine Mills is the director/curator of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Gallery and an associate professor in the Department of Art.

She has worked as a curator and public programmer in art galleries and artist-run centres in Saskatoon and Vancouver. Mills has a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and is a graduate of the Museum Leadership Institute at the Getty Center.

Her research interests focus on broader issues related to collecting for art galleries and for artists as well as on the relationship between art and notions of public in Canada. Mills is the president of the Canadian Art Museum Directors' Organization/Organisation des Directeurs des Musées d'Art du Canada and a past president of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and College Art Gallery Association of Canada.

The U of L Art Gallery is one of the most comprehensive galleries in the country. The gallery plays a central role for research, learning and community engagement at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. At the same time, the art gallery is a key component of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's public face and reaches audiences from Lethbridge, within Alberta and across the country. By making art works and the activities of the art gallery highly visible on campus, we foster understanding about the visual arts for the full range of students at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. We also attract members of the public to campus thereby giving them access to contemporary and historical exhibitions, to professional visual arts programming and to research produced at, and disseminated by, the art gallery and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

Alumnus headlines SACPA event

trevor.kenney — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:10:09 +0000

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA) will present a special evening session, Thursday, Apr. 29 at the Lethbridge Public Library featuring ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus Virgil Grandfield (BA '92).

Outsourcing Disaster: Human Trafficking and Humanitarian Failure in Aceh's Tsunami Reconstruction? is the title of the talk, beginning at
7 p.m. in the library's theatre gallery.

In 2006-2009, one of the most wretched places to be a construction worker in Indonesia was on a "humanitarian" reconstruction project in the tsunami-devastated province of Aceh.

Instead of receiving benefits from the largest, most generously-funded humanitarian operation in history, research indicates that tens of thousands of Javanese construction workers were falsely recruited for exploitative use and/or involuntary labour, under conditions defined as "human trafficking" or "modern slavery."

The social disaster throughout Aceh and Java was borne mostly by Javanese laborers, some of whom died in Aceh because of abuse and neglect.

Speaker Virgil Grandfield will contend that disproportionate numbers of trafficked victims were from larger projects managed by Red Cross, United Nations, development banks and NGO's.

In every community visited by investigative teams, witnesses have testified that many or most of 200,000 Javanese tsunami workers were unpaid, hungry and had to escape to find other work or ways to travel 2000km home.

Grandfield grew up in Texas and achieved degrees in political science at the U of L and journalism at Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Montreal (1993).

In the mid 90s, he started the first Canadian educational consulting agency in Mexico and in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch in Central America, began a career in the humanitarian field of work.

Grandfield became a Canadian Red Cross delegate after working in the Blood Reserve flood response in 2002 and was deployed to Aceh, Indonesia in 2005 as part of the International Red Cross tsunami operation.

Returning to Aceh in 2007, Grandfield discovered human trafficking of workers in Canadian Red Cross operations and resigned as a delegate in 2008 to find these "modern slaves" and their families and help them seek justice from those relief agencies which used and abandoned them in Aceh.

Beverly Muendel-Atherstone will serve as moderator for this event.

Pronghorns ready for CIS challenge

trevor.kenney — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:05:57 +0000

The two-time defending champion ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns will have to get by a number of usual suspects in order to capture a third consecutive CIS women's rugby title, beginning Friday in Vancouver.

The 12th annual CIS tournament, hosted for the first time by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia, gets under way Friday morning with six round robin matchups, culminating on Sunday afternoon with the gold medal final.

Joining Canada West champion Lethbridge in Vancouver are the AUS champion St. Francis Xavier X-Women, OUA champion Guelph Gryphons, QSSF champion Concordia Stingers, OUA finalist Western Ontario Mustangs, as well as the tournament host UBC Thunderbirds.

Lethbridge, Concordia and Western will battle in Pool A on Friday, while StFX, Guelph and UBC hope to make it out of Pool B. The top two teams from each group at the end of round-robin play advance to the semi-finals.

In Pool A, the Pronghorns will face a familiar foe and a new rival.

Lethbridge and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Western Ontario, which lost 39-7 to Guelph in the OUA final last weekend, have battled no less than five times over the past three years at the CIS tourney, with the 'Horns holding a 3-2 edge including a 2-0 advantage in the medal round. They'll meet at 11 a.m. (MT) Friday morning.

Meanwhile, Lethbridge and Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ will square off for the very first time at the CIS tourney Friday at 4 p.m. (MT), in the third and final Pool A duel.

The Stingers, whose best result at the national championship is a fourth-place finish in the inaugural tournament back in 1998, booked their ticket for Vancouver with a 13-10 overtime win on the road over previously undefeated Laval in the Quebec final.

The Pronghorns enjoyed another sensational season in 2009. The defending champs outscored their Canada West opponents 333-7 in six overall duels, including a 30-0 win over the five-time national champion Alberta Pandas in the conference final, en route to a fourth straight Canada West banner.

The Pronghorns' toughest opposition might come from Pool B as St. Francis Xavier and Guelph also come into the championship with perfect conference records and have been ranked just behind Lethbridge in the coaches' poll. Both the X-Women and Gryphons have revenge on their minds, as they fell to Lethbridge in last year's CIS final and semifinal round, respectively.

SSN Canada will have live webcasts of Saturday's semifinals at noon and 2 p.m. (MT), as well as Sunday's bronze-medal game at 1 p.m. and championship match at 3 p.m.

Supporting the next generation of artists

trevor.kenney — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:04:44 +0000

Visit Kelly Andres' website and you'll find a photo of a pair of feet, wearing yellow shoes and black tights, sticking out from a backyard tent; in another, a black beetle lingers on an outstretched hand; in yet another, a pair of lamps appear to be wearing gauzy gowns in a living room.

Andres is an artist with a penchant for transforming mundane, everyday objects into something whimsical or even absurd, as these images from her website illustrate. An interdisciplinary artist, her creations often employ digital technology and elements of performance art. The result is an unusual spectacle that engages many audiences – even those who don't 'speak art.'

"I tend to make work about my everyday. I'm kind of a sponge: whatever's around me at the time seems to come out in my work," says Andres. "For a while, I was working as an environmental educator and that started to come out in my work – I started to work with bikes and plants. I find whatever's happening in our lives is very relevant and usually needs to be talked about or reflected upon."

Her education has also taken an unusual trajectory. After completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art at the U of L, she opted to stay for her master's degree and work with faculty members Professor Mary Kavanagh and Dr. Joanne Fiske. She also worked with Professor Michael Campbell and other members of the faculty who provided direction and inspiration.

At the time, the U of L didn't have a Master of Fine Arts program, so the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ offered Andres a different option: an individualized, multidisciplinary Master of Arts, in which she could blend fine arts with women's studies.

"In doing so, I explored both the theoretical side of women and gender studies in art, and incorporated a studio practice as well," she explains. "It was essentially a double degree."

The program was a great fit for the budding artist and thinker, says Kavanagh, one of her supervisors.

"It doesn't take much for Kelly to continue to grow and learn and strive – that's what makes her a good artist," Kavanagh explains.

As a graduate student, Andres began to show her work all over the world, first in Vancouver, and then New York, followed by exhibitions in several European countries and Singapore, where she completed an artist's residency. As Andres didn't have a cohort of students with whom she could relate during her program, the international travel filled a gap, providing opportunities to connect with other like-minded artists.

"What's important about residency and exhibition forums is that Kelly was able to connect to a larger world and to bring these experiences back to her studies in a very direct way," Kavanagh explains.

In fact, Andres' desire to engage with the world is partly why she's been so successful, says Kavanagh.

"In the visual arts, we try to help students connect through their own work and explorations with current disciplinary theory and practice – we encourage students with the interest, capacity and drive to go into the world and engage beyond the classroom."

Talented artists like Andres have created a critical mass at the U of L in recent years, prompting the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ to create two new graduate programs: a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Music. Starting in September 2009, students wishing to pursue the next level of their education in art, dramatic arts, new media or music can do so at this institution.

James Dobbie, assistant dean, student program services in the Faculty of Fine Arts, explains that the new programs also reflect the evolution of the university. For many years, the U of L has had an undergraduate emphasis, despite attracting a large number of graduate students. But in recent years, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's research capacity has grown enormously, drawing more and more students to its graduate programs.

Although the U of L is smaller than other research institutions in Alberta, graduate students will receive resources they might not receive at larger schools, says Dobbie.

"The facilities we have are second to none in terms of what we can offer graduate students."

Graduate students in art, for instance, will receive individual studio space, a benefit which is rare at large institutions. As well, students in Fine Arts graduate programs will have superior access to funding opportunities, including a scholarship called the Advantage Award.

"For each month of studies, the student is guaranteed to receive $1,000 in income from the university," Dobbie explains.

One year after completing her master's degree, Andres is preparing to move to Montreal in the fall where she'll begin an interdisciplinary PhD at Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. Ultimately, she has set her sights on academia and says her experience working on her graduate research under Kavanagh and other faculty members has prepared her well. She's grateful to have received the mentorship she did as well as the opportunity to work independently.

"It was always my own work and my own voice, but Mary provided a lot of really great conversations. It was quite peer-to-peer at a certain level…It was great not to have your own ideas squashed down or evaporated, which allowed me to trust her and open up so my work could be more fluid."

UNews - Concordia ��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ

Mills helping to engage through gallery

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