Author Archives: soddleif

Botanical Colour by AJ Salter

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has seen many adaptations of conventional exhibitions toward online formats. Students in VISA 362, a third year photography class taught by Andreas Rutkauskas, were asked to consider what online dissemination of their photography can offer an audience. Branding and marketing as an artist are important skills in this time especially, therefore they were asked to consider using this assignment as a way of exploring a visual brand or alter ego.

Below is a snapshot of what one student, AJ Salter, completed for the project, a documentation exhibit on the benefits of sustainable clothing focusing on the education and exploration of natural dyes and sewing a garment by hand.

“For VISA 362O with Professor Andreas Rutkauskas, I ran this online exhibition for an assignment with the theme Speculative Exhibition. I believe that social media is a fantastic way to reach people and is relevant more than ever during the current socially distant times when people are still looking for ways to connect with others. I would like the content to revolve around continued themes I have already worked with, but in a new way.

After looking at fast fashion, vintage clothing, and discussing the importance of being mindful of wastefulness I curated an exhibition that documents a step-by-step process where I make a garment by hand starting with using locally sourced natural dyes to create the colours.

By documenting this process on social media, it allows viewers to follow along and learn the process as well as extra information and techniques I posted using the captions for the photos or videos as well as the story feature. I believe this added to my previous themes of fashion and waste and incorporated the element of time that also exists in my previous works; such as the time it takes to make clothing that is durable vs how long typical fast-fashion pieces made in bulk will be worn before being thrown out. From start to finish the exhibition was documentation and informational in nature, with the final product marking the end of the show.”

You can view the entire process on Instagram @botanicalcolourexhibition

2020 Mural: Upstream

The summer of 2020 was the first year that visual arts lecturer David Doody taught a fourth-year painting class, leading the students through the many steps necessary to plan, pitch and deliver a public mural.

Eighteen students worked to create a full-scale permanent public mural in the heart of Kelowna’s Cultural District. Over the course of the five-week class in July and August of 2020, the students met and worked collaboratively to paint a colourful two-storey mural adjacent to the CTQ Consultants building on St. Paul Street.

This mural, entitled Upstream, depicts a larger-than-life multicolored salmon swimming upstream in front of a canary yellow Archimedes screw pump. The composition of this mural was designed by artist and UBCO Lecturer David Doody, to highlight and illustrate CTQ’s Harrison Hot Springs screw-pump project. If you stand back, you can see the Archimedes screw pump (dating back to 250 BC) in the background behind the spectacular salmon. This project depicts an actual project that CTQ completed for the Village of Harrison Hot Springs. The iconic canary yellow screw pump was designed by CTQ to protect the Village from annual flooding. The design of this screw pump was engineered to specifically reduce the salmon mortality rate down to zero and to support this valuable and sensitive fish habitat.

Support for this project was made possible with the generous donations from Sunbelt Rentals, CTQ Consultants Ltd., Opus Framing and Art Supplies and Fresh West Official.

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Scary Instructor & Terrifying Students!

For 14 years the Caravan Farm Theatre, located outside of Armstrong, has created a Halloween-themed production, The Walk of Terror, that engages community in an event that Artistic Director Estelle Shook says “blurs the line between artist and audience”.

This highly interactive production incorporates the artistry of professional and non-professional performers who are part of the Caravan community. This year artists came from across Canada as well as from within the Okanagan region to perform in the show, including UBCO students from the Creative and Critical Studies Department directed by performance instructor Sonia Norris. Norris began performing with the Caravan Farm Theatre twenty years ago and teaching at UBCO this fall provided the opportunity to share this experience with her students.

Norris and seven students, Dora Chen, Sage Cannon, Peter Navratil, Hawk Mendoza, Joel Evans, Avril Wood, and Breanne Ruskowsky, performed in four different vignettes along the Walk of Terror and also spent the day working as part of the production team setting up the farm for the performance.

This “terrifying” experience was an amazing opportunity for the students to perform in a professional production, but also to work collaboratively with a theatre company that is deeply committed to, and supported by, community engagement. Hopefully this experience shall lead to future creative collaborations between the Caravan Farm Theatre and UBCO students!

Photo credit: Zev Tiefenbach

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Interdisciplinary Performance

Animals, was the year end performance created/directed by Neil Cadger in collaboration with students in THTR 280/480 Devised Public Performance. Approximately 250 people attended the 8 performances which were situated throughout the building at Bumpershoot theatre.