SJAC invites you to join us as we welcome artist Emily Phillips to present a free artist talk on her exhibit, ‘Into the Fundy Forest’, currently showing in our Port Saint John Gallery!
Meet the Artist: Emily Phillips | Saturday, June 25, 2022, 1pm | Free! | Please note: face masks are required
Emily’s artistic statement: My artistic inspiration comes from nature’s ability to affect the spirit. The beauty, drama, and diversity of the lands of New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy region move me to capture my feelings and sensations in paint. When hiking, I am highly sensitive to the shifting of light, interaction of colours, arrangement of shapes, and variety of textures, particularly as these elements relate to the architecture of the forest. I continue to experiment with new ways to represent this depth of experience as my artistic practice evolves, manipulating style, media and other art and design elements. Through my paintings, I aim to evoke in my audiences the same attachments I feel to these places, along with an appreciation for their intrinsic value.
Today we welcome three new summer interns to ArtsLink NB!
Gabrielle Carruthers grew up in Bathurst, New Brunswick, and began studying tuba in high school at age thirteen. She played tuba with the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra from 2013 until finishing her Bachelor of Music degree at the Université de Moncton in 2017. Currently, Gabrielle studies tuba at the master’s level at McGill University. Before moving to Montreal, she played with local orchestras such as Tutta Musica, Symphony New Brunswick, and the East Coast Brass quintette. With her background in music, Gabrielle looks forward to working with other artists at ArtsLink NB this summer!
Jean Schnell is very fond of both the physical and musical arts. They write, “Music and art have been a common practice in my family for many years. I play guitar, piano, ukulele, and bass. I also enjoy singing and writing music. I love animals of all kinds but cats are definitely my favourite. Currently I am a high school student but I hope to pursue secondary school in the future.”
Lessa Thornton is a high school student wishing to pursue animation as a career. She writes, “I am an active member of New Brunswick arts programs as I am in my local Saint John Youth Orchestra, as well as the provincial New Brunswick Youth Orchestra where I play French Horn. I have participated in local and provincial music festivals and will be a proud member of SHAD McGill this year. In my free time I am always doodling designs down or consuming different types of media to inspire my art (if I have no homework to do). I am always looking for new ways to explore the arts and interact with interesting people within the community.”
Many of our members contacted us to say that they were interested in our last anti-oppression intensive workshop but weren’t able to make it on a weekend. With that in mind, we’re re-offering the same workshop during the work week!
Carmel is back to facilitate, this time on Wednesday and Thursday, May 25th and 26th.
This workshop continues the series presented to ArtsLink NB members on business development and career-management subjects. Past topics have included budgeting, documentation, and critical arts writing. The decision to hold this workshop virtually was made due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and to allow participants to attend from across the province.
Workshop Description
Dreaming Inventive Futures: Anti-Oppression in the Creative Sector is a two-day workshop and discussion space that combines foundational anti-oppressive modalities, peer-based learning, personal reflection, and active discussion as teaching tools. During this digital space, participants will explore approaches to anti-racist curation, responsible and curious storytelling, organizationally care-based artistic practices rooted in disability justice frameworks, address ways to disrupt genre and aesthetic hierarchies within cultural industries, and discuss sustainable methods to intentional cross-practice collaboration.
These themes will be grounded in disrupting tokenism in the arts sector, moving beyond defensiveness and fear in creative work, imagination, and accessibility. The aim is that participants will feel supported and motivated to engage in systems change work within the arts as well as more confident in continuing anti-oppressive conversations in their work personally and professionally.
About Carmel Farabakhsh
Carmel Farahbakhsh (they/them) is a community educator, arts maker, and youth worker. They have collaborated on the Khyber Centre for the Arts board for four years, and are enjoying their new position as co-director of local music festival EVERYSEEKER. They recently transitioned from a five-year term coordinating South House Sexual and Gender Resource Centre to working as the Executive Director at the Youth Project, seeing a direct link between this community work and access to creative spaces and the arts community.
As the Executive Director of the Youth Project, Carmel holds a youth-centric approach to organizational movement and support. Carmel builds their vision from their community education background and aims to apply an anti-racist and trauma-informed framework to their work. They also collaborate and organize with local initiatives, artist-run-centres, and community partners with an aim to create wider 2SQTBIPOC community and support systems within the HRM.
Registration
The sessions will take place May 25 and 26, 2022. The intensive workshop will be held virtually via Zoom and is free for members of ArtsLink NB. Sessions will run from 9am to 4pm each day. To register, cultural sector workers should send an email to Jericho Knopp, jeri@artslinknb.com, with their name, their field or organization, and a brief description of why they’re interested in taking the workshop.
