HIGHLIGHTS
Art gallery retrospective traces 50 years of innovation This year marks a momentous milestone for MSVU Art Gallery – its 50th anniversary. To celebrate and reflect, the gallery will spend this year exploring the last five decades. One major endeavor is a new exhibition and online project curated by Lisa Bouraly and featuring media work by David Clark. 50 Bits and Pieces: an MSVU Art Gallery Retrospective presents 50 unique yet illustrative moments from the gallery’s history, highlighting exhibitions, programs, publications, acquisitions, and projects culled from the archives. While the original exhibition was set to open in 2020, new dates (November 13-December 17, 2021) mark the Gallery’s return from its COVID-closure. The extended timeline presented an opportunity to engage with the archival material in new ways. The result is an online interface, created by Clark, that offers a preview of “bits and pieces” selected by Bouraly from the archive. Each month until October, five moments from the Gallery’s history will be added to the interface in the form of digital collages, including passages and excerpts from documents, speeches, research notes, exhibition installation photographs, videos, and media coverage. In November, the culmination of these 50 moments and their corresponding archival material will be adapted into an immersive installation in the Gallery. “This interactive navigation is meant to enable visitors to create their own connections, impressions, and interpretations of the Gallery’s archives,” Bouraly and Clark note in the Collaborators’ Statement. That statement opens with this question: To what extent does an art gallery’s exhibition and collection history live up to its stated objectives of representing and supporting artists, especially women artists? For Art Gallery Director, Laura Ritchie, the project and anniversary offer an opportunity to both reflect and look 28
Agnes Nanogak: Goose drawing series
Africville: A Spirit That Lives On
Denyse Thomasos: Tracking: Bombings, Wars & Genocides, A Six-Month Journey From New York To China, Vietnam, Cambodia & Indonesia
Convocation Box contents mailed to 2020 graduates
Honouring recent MSVU graduates The past year has been a difficult one for our newest graduates as the traditional steps of celebration—donning a gown, crossing the stage, and capturing photos—were certainly altered. “We are so proud of our graduates, who have taken the many challenges of the past 14 months in remarkable stride,” says Dr. Ramona Lumpkin, interim president and vice-chancellor. “My hope is that, years from now, they will look back on this time and remember what got them through it: their tenacity, their resilience,
and the support and kindness of others.” And like the pandemic has shown, adjusting and being able to change direction quickly is paramount. In November of last year, MSVU held its first-ever virtual convocation ceremony, celebrating both spring and fall graduates. The recorded event recognized the academic achievements of almost a thousand students from more than 30 countries. MSVU was pleased to bestow honorary degrees on Anne Innis Dagg, Anna Maria Tremonti, and Dr. Lynn Jones. This spring, grad celebration videos, divided by faculty, recognize the academic achievements of close to 700 students.
Despite the unfortunate but necessary cancellation of in-person spring 2021 ceremonies, MSVU made sure to celebrate the significant accomplishments of its graduates. Each graduate received a special grad box and will have the opportunity to return to campus to borrow academic gowns and hoods and take photos when deemed safe to do so. While public health restrictions prevented the in-person installation of MSVU’s new Chancellor, Dr. Margaret Mary Fitzpatrick, S.C. was able to attend campus earlier this year and officially be installed as chancellor. Congratulations to all 2020 and 2021 MSVU graduates and welcome to the alumni family! FM
Steve Higgins: Beyond the Terminating Vista (Rebuild) forward to the future: “Scanning the traces of the Gallery’s history in images and video and data, we get to learn a lot about ourselves, what has been important to us, and where we need to go in the years ahead—it’s a great opportunity to be excited and hopeful.” With the future in mind, the Gallery has set an anniversary goal to establish a
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$100,000 endowment so that it has the resources it needs each year to showcase special programs, events, and offerings in support of the community. To contribute and learn more about this endeavour, please visit www.msvu.ca/donate. Complete details on the exhibition and to view and explore the online interface, set your sights on www.msvuart.ca. FM Folia 2021
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