Hi Foundations students, I hope you are home and staying well, and keeping your spirits up. We are taking part in a very meaningful moment – where the world is coming together to care for the most vulnerable among us. Remembering this larger purpose for this period helps me feel calmer, and better able to take care of myself and help my family. I hope you can remember the good you are doing too!

See the information in writing below to summarize what you are required to finish the Foundations Course. I will summarize it in this video – and also give you a mini-lecture to discuss the important ideas in the New Nature Morte/Still Life lecture. Listen to the whole thing – and I hope you can take some time to immerse yourself in meaningful activities like reading, writing, exploring new contemporary artists, and making art! Stay safe, Diane

SART 1050 Foundation Studio:

Adapted course materials

dborsato@uoguelph.ca

Important notes about final assignments:

Your final Re-Do project, and the OPTIONAL Still Life assignment in Foundation Studio can be done from home.

You will not have to go to campus for any reason, to use studios or materials for the rest of the term to complete this course. Tools and equipment, and the studio will not be available.

I would recommend you use your laptops, phones, and digital cameras at home to complete your projects. Artists are famously resourceful, in fact a few extra constraints can boost creativity, and create new meaning in your works. You can finish your works for this course using materials and things you find in your home.

Support:

Send your TA’s an email if you have questions about this information or your final work. Give us all a day or two to reply – since we are all multi-tasking work, travel and family responsibilities at this time.  

Chantal: ckhoury@uoguelph.ca

Emma: egonza03@uoguelph.ca

Emmanuel: eosahor@gmail.com

Grading:

 If you submit your Re-Do final image – we will give you a final grade based on all your work this term up to this project. And you will not need to do any more projects. If you want to improve your grade, or have time and would like to learn more and finish another artwork – great! Do the last assignment too – the Still Life. (Attached and on the blog course material page) We are happy to comment on and grade this work too – if you submit it by the deadline by email to your TA.

Your final works will be graded generously, with the consideration that they have been completed independently and without studio equipment and supports. And we all know this has been a stressful time – so do your best and we will consider all of these factors in your final grading. I do expect the works to be submitted on time for these adapted deadlines – keep in touch if you are ill or have other serious obstacles to doing so and we will take everything into consideration.

Foundation 1050 ASSIGNMENTS

1. Re-Do Image

As everyone has had a chance to see lots of works by artists in lectures, and discuss their ideas in tutorial – you can complete a version of this project for a new deadline. You may need to make modifications to your ideas to stick with rules for social distancing, and for staying home.

Re-visit lectures and references for this project:

https://experimentalstudio.ca/foundations/category/portfolio-4-re-do-photography/

Submit to your TA by email:

ONE or TWO FINAL IMAGES of your Re-Do

You must also include a title, your name, and a short description of your work.

Include an image of the original artwork you are re-doing too for reference

No prep work images are needed.

You will not need to hand in prep-work – just one or two final images, the reference image, and a short description.

 Deadline to email your TA will be at the end of the day on Thursday March 26^th. 

• Still Life Photo: OPTIONAL Final Assignment*

*NOTE: We will give students a final mark based on work submitted so far, up to the Re-Do project. If you are not happy with your grade, or want to learn a little more and get another work done for grading – do this assignment below.

            See attached for the Still Life assignment sheet.

See lectures and references for this project:

https://experimentalstudio.ca/foundations/category/portfolio-4-abject-photography/

See my on-line video discussing this final OPTIONAL project:

OPTIONAL Submit to your TA by email:

ONE or TWO FINAL IMAGES of your Still Life assignment (see attached)

You must also include a title, your name, and a short description, references for your work*

No prep work images are needed.

**Note the main concepts and compositional elements at play in your final work, and we will look for evidence you have explored the examples and descriptions in the lecture materials. Reference some works from the links above that have informed/influenced your thinking in your project.

 OPTIONAL Deadline will be at the end of the day on Thursday April 2^nd.

Note: If you hand in this optional assignment –we will mark it very generously – and it may help improve your grade up to now.

• NOTE: Group Presentation and Summary for TWO SIDES is cancelled. This assignment will no longer be required to complete the course.

WATCH Diane’s Video summary of all this information, and lecture summary for Still Life assignment:

TA’s Email:

Chantal: ckhoury@uoguelph.ca

Emma: egonza03@uoguelph.ca

Emmanuel: eosahor@gmail.com

Winter 2020

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The Power Plant

http://www.thepowerplant.org

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NAEEM MOHAIEMEN – What we found after you left

Current Chapter: Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017)

“The film presented this season is Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017), which probes a pivot of power in the 1970s between the Non-Aligned Movement (the anti-imperialist forum for states not allied to the United States or the Soviet Union) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (an alliance of Muslim-majority countries). Images of triumphalist transnational architecture and documentary footage from political congresses come together in a narrative woven by Algerian publisher Samia Zennadi and Indian historian Vijay Prashad that uncovers a history of the Cold War period from the perspective of Socialist states that were wary of the Soviet Union and Islamic republics.” – thepowerplant.org

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RASHID JOHNSON – Anxious Audience

“Johnson’s work harnesses the rich symbolism and histories of varied materials that have personal meaning and at times are signifiers of greater African-American cultural identity. Black soap, made from the ashes of burned plant matter and commonly used in West Africa, is mixed with wax and applied as pigment onto the white tiled surface — for Johnson, a way of complicating associations of cleanliness and healing. The rigidly uniform support equally evokes the tiles of subway stations as well as rational grids of minimalist art, and through Johnson’s frenetically incised portraits a vivid impression of human presence emerges.” – thepowerplant.org

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NAUFUS RAMIREZ-FIGUERO – Asymmetries

“The exhibition will encompass works from the past decade that reveal the range of Ramírez-Figueroa’s preoccupations, from conspiracy theories to bird song and Guatemala’s architectural history. It will also include a newly commissioned work, which takes as its starting point the cacaxte, a ladder-like tool for carrying objects on one’s back common among indigenous populations of Latin America. In this new work, Ramírez-Figueroa reinvents the object to consider its associations with colonial oppression alongside its mythical significance.” – thepowerplant.org

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DAWIT L. PETROS – Spazio Disponibile

“Spazio Disponibile – Italian for ‘Available Space’ – scrutinizes historical gaps in European memory, particularly that of modern Italy. Alluding to vacant advertising sections that appeared in Rivista Coloniale, a widely circulated early 20th century magazine and the official organ of the Italian colonial project, the title is also a reference to the colonial gaze that viewed the lands of Africa as ‘available’ space to occupy and exploit.” – thepowerplant.org

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MOCA Toronto

https://moca.ca

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CARLOS BUNGA – A Sudden Beginning

“Inspired by the simplicity of the museum’s architecture and the rhythm of its columns, Bunga will both stress and challenge the structure’s physicality. His formidable installations and nomadic sensibility will deepen his long-standing inquiry into some of the most poignant subjects of our time: stability, certainty and permanence. Incorporated into the exhibition are several new sculptures made from locally sourced furniture — side tables, writing desks, gilded frames and cabinets — that are reworked into painterly cityscapes. ” – moca.ca

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SHELAGH KEELEY – An Embodied Haptic Space

“In the visceral, site-specific installations she has been producing for over 40 years, Keeley balances the speed and rigidity of digital photography with the slowness and freedom of drawing in an expanded field. At the root of this installation are photographic traces of the MOCA building pre-renovation. Through her new wall drawing, one space in time is transferred into the present, as traces of labour are interwoven and transformed by a gestural response to the site. Keeley’s multimedia practice explores our built environment and the human body, detailing the ways in which they resonate as traces of social history.” – moca.ca

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MEGAN ROONEY – Hush Sky Murmure Hole

“Having spent her teenage years in Markham, Ontario, Rooney’s experiences of suburban North America inform her choice of materials, colour palette and subject matter. Her work explores notions of traditional femininity through the lenses of domestic space, the political haven of the garden, consumption-based societies and the mythological. At the same time, Rooney probes how our bodies are informed by and respond to the environments, systems and inanimate objects that surround us.” – moca.ca

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* SERIES OF PERFORMANCES COMING UP! *

Presented as part of the exhibition.

Friday, March 27 at 7 pm (Chapter I) 
Saturday, March 28 at 2 pm (Chapter II) 
Sunday, March 29 at 2 pm (Chapter III)

Choreography: Temitope Ajose-Cutting
Sound: Paolo Thorsen-Nagel
Performers: Temitope Ajose-Cutting, Leah Marojevic, Megan Rooney, Moira Rooney
Direction, Text and Costumes: Megan Rooney

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SARAH SZE – Images in Debris

“Simultaneously a sculptural installation and functional projection tool, Images in Debris lends equal weight to images and objects, exploring the edges between the two and bringing both into dialogue with the surrounding architecture. At its centre is an L-shaped desk, inspired by the artist’s own studio desk, which, acting like a projector at the centre of a planetarium, casts images onto an intricate structure extending from the desktop and across the gallery walls.” – moca.ca

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DORNITH DOHERTY – Archiving Eden: Exchange

“Archiving Eden: Exchange presents x-ray images of 5,000 seeds — the smallest number required to preserve a single plant species. Housed within a vault-like structure, the installation by artist Dornith Doherty comes to life during seed exchange events, where visitors are invited to remove an image from the vault’s walls and replace it with a transparent envelope containing a single Canadian seed. Over time, the installation will change both physically and visually: from representational to actual, dark to light.” – moca.ca

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