Struts Gallery

Performing Sackville
Wednesday, 7:30 pm

An open panel discussion with Margaret Dragu, Pam Hall, Ed Pien, Felicity Tayler, Jake Moore, & Paulina Abarca-Canin. Moderated by Dr. Jane Dryden.

An open and informal panel discussion with the audience about the issues arising when artists bring advanced practices which ar often developed in large metropolitcan centres into communities which are not. Are there issues which aise for the artists? And for the community?

Tom Sherman

Q&A + Videos: Thursday, 4:30pm at the Owens ArtGallery
Short Videos: Thursday, 7:00 pm at the Vogue Theatre
Keynote Address: Messages that Stick (and ways to escape the limitations of adhesion) Friday, 7:30pm at the Owens Art Gallery

Well-known and widely respected artist and theorist Tom Sherman will deliver the Keynote Address at this year's Annual Symposium of Art.

Tom Sherman is a naturalist of media environments. A naturalist describes the world as he or she discovers it, good and bad—simply the way it is. Sherman’s idea of nature includes culture and art and all debris spawned by humans that cover the earth. His current work examines the erosion of the vitality of art in cultures dominated by messaging (text messaging, voice messaging, instant messaging, e-mail and social-networking). In a broad culture of messaging, art that functions in self-complicating, ambiguous, poetic ways will likely receive diminishing attention. While deep reading and imaginative interpretations by audiences are increasingly unlikely, there are many opportunities for positive outcomes. The title for his presentation at this year’s Symposium is Messages that Stick (and ways to escape the limitations of adhesion).

Tom Sherman works in video, installation, radio and performance, and writes all manner of texts. His interdisciplinary work has been exhibited widely, including shows at the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Musee d’art contemporain, the Museum of Modern Art, Documenta X, Wiener Konzerthaus, Ars Electronica, and the Impakt Festival. He represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1980. In 2003 he was awarded the Bell Canada Award for excellence in video art. He performs and records with Bernhard Loibner (Vienna) in a group called Nerve Theory. His most recent book is Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment, The Banff Centre Press, 2002. He is a professor in the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University in New York, but considers the South Shore of Nova Scotia his home.

Tom Sherman will also show several of his video works, followed by a Q & A, at the Owens on Thursday 23 October at 4:30 pm.

IRiSs Lab: Integrated Ruptures in Sensory spaces
Sackville Music Hall: Saturday Performance from 4:00-5:00pm

An audio and visual imporvisation environment with media artists working with laptops, contact mics, tape loops, film and video projectors, prisms, mirrors, etc. The lab will be foloowed by a public performance by the artsts assembled from Sackville, Moncton, and Halifax communities.

White Noise with MC Mitchell Wiebe & DJ Jon Cleveland
Saturday october 25, 10:00pm at the Sackville Curling Club
The final event of the symposium, the White Noise cabaret is an eclectic evening of performances from visiting artists and members of the Sackville community. Anyone can sign up to do pretty much anything!


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Marginalia by Pam Hall and Margaret Dragu open studio artists in residence Marginalia is about creating discourse: both between the two artists who have undertaken this committed correspondence, and between audiences who experience the work both virtually and in real-time. Our process engages new technologies and old manual practices to explore the ground between art and life, between one coast and another, between two strangers deciding to "make a relationship". We are, like most Canadians, exploring how it might be possible to forge deep connection, mutual understanding, and complicity across great distance. In February 2004, we began making12” X 12” fabric squares/carrés that we call memory cloths. They are postcards/paintings/poems/journals/windows. They articulate our lives to ourselves and to each other. They are a soft “book of days” exchanged digitally several times per week. Each square represents one footstep: 1 foot print = 12 inches. Creating and exchanging these squares along with our daily correspondence represents a real and virtual journey to come together from the extreme east and west margins of Canada. (St. John’s, Newfoundland and Finn Slough, BC). At time of writing, we’ve made almost 3000 squares which are the basis for our work here and for the installation “MARGINALIA: Getting Out of the House” currently at Richmond Art Gallery in Richmond, BC until November16, 2008. Performance of Research and Pictorial Propaganda Public Intervention Performances byFelicity Tayler Pictorial Propaganda is a conceptual public art performance that uses the archetype of landscape painting as a pretext to create relationships. The work is an informal survey of the artistic engagement of the general public, the role of visual imagery as a propaganda device and a reflection on alternative value systems. In Sackville, the project will retrace the hisotry of the Owens Art Gallery from Saint John to Sackville and its impact on artists and artistic taste in the region. "This fall, Pictorial Propaganda will retrace the history of the New Brunswick Museum and the Owens Art Gallery from Saint John to Sackville. As they both can claim to be the “oldest” – the oldest continuing museum in the case of the former, and the oldest university art gallery for the latter, I am interested in these histories and its impact on artists and artistic taste in the region. In Saint John, I will set up a portable easel and reproduce landscape paintings from the New Brunswick Museum’s collection in the recently built tourist attraction of Market Square. In Sackville, I will reproduce landscape paintings from the Owens Art Gallery’s collection in various locations that reflect the daily movements of the town’s inhabitants. This will open a space for dialogue between myself and the local residents, they’ll even have a chance to trade something with me for one of the paintings that result from the performance. It is an opportunity to slow down time, create intimacy with strangers and to subvert the systems of global capitalism that are at work around us." check out her blog at: http://pictorialpropaganda.ca/ Ed Pien Artist Presentation - Owen's Gallery Monday 7:30pm Ed Pien makes drawing-based works that range from paper-cuts to large scale, mixed-media installations. check out his work at: http://www.edpien.com/ 12hr Drawing Marathon START Gallery host an evening of communal art making that will last from 7:30pm to 7:30am nonstop! We welcome sculpture, painting, performance, photography, games, music, and anything else anyone feels inclined to do! People are encouraged to collaborate and trade their creations with other participants in the hope of creating an open and fun environment to exchange art and ideas. The Drawing Marathon is open to everyone, artist and dabbler alike! (images at left from 2006 marathon) Special guest appearance by Ed Pien!

*Performing Sackville* Wednesday, 7:30 pm An open panel discussion with Margaret Dragu, Pam Hall, Ed Pien, Felicity Tayler, Jake Moore, & Paulina Abarca-Canin. Moderated by Dr. Jane Dryden. An open and informal panel discussion with the audience about the issues arising when artists bring advanced practices which ar often developed in large metropolitcan centres into communities which are not. Are there issues which aise for the artists? And for the community? Tom Sherman Q&A + Videos: Thursday, 4:30pm at the Owens ArtGallery Short Videos: Thursday, 7:00 pm at the Vogue Theatre Keynote Address: Messages that Stick (and ways to escape the limitations of adhesion) Friday, 7:30pm at the Owens Art Gallery Well-known and widely respected artist and theorist Tom Sherman will deliver the Keynote Address at this year's Annual Symposium of Art. Tom Sherman is a naturalist of media environments. A naturalist describes the world as he or she discovers it, good and bad—simply the way it is. Sherman’s idea of nature includes culture and art and all debris spawned by humans that cover the earth. His current work examines the erosion of the vitality of art in cultures dominated by messaging (text messaging, voice messaging, instant messaging, e-mail and social-networking). In a broad culture of messaging, art that functions in self-complicating, ambiguous, poetic ways will likely receive diminishing attention. While deep reading and imaginative interpretations by audiences are increasingly unlikely, there are many opportunities for positive outcomes. The title for his presentation at this year’s Symposium is Messages that Stick (and ways to escape the limitations of adhesion). Tom Sherman works in video, installation, radio and performance, and writes all manner of texts. His interdisciplinary work has been exhibited widely, including shows at the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Musee d’art contemporain, the Museum of Modern Art, Documenta X, Wiener Konzerthaus, Ars Electronica, and the Impakt Festival. He represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1980. In 2003 he was awarded the Bell Canada Award for excellence in video art. He performs and records with Bernhard Loibner (Vienna) in a group called Nerve Theory. His most recent book is Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment, The Banff Centre Press, 2002. He is a professor in the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University in New York, but considers the South Shore of Nova Scotia his home. Tom Sherman will also show several of his video works, followed by a Q & A, at the Owens on Thursday 23 October at 4:30 pm. IRiSs Lab: Integrated Ruptures in Sensory spaces Sackville Music Hall: Saturday Performance from 4:00-5:00pm An audio and visual imporvisation environment with media artists working with laptops, contact mics, tape loops, film and video projectors, prisms, mirrors, etc. The lab will be foloowed by a public performance by the artsts assembled from Sackville, Moncton, and Halifax communities. White Noise with MC Mitchell Wiebe & DJ Jon Cleveland Saturday october 25, 10:00pm at the Sackville Curling Club The final event of the symposium, the White Noise cabaret is an eclectic evening of performances from visiting artists and members of the Sackville community. Anyone can sign up to do pretty much anything!






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