DISCLAIMER – the events and links herein are not maintained by the Nelson and District Arts Council, and we do not guarantee accuracy of the information they contain.
Join mystery author Deryn Collier on Wednesday, November 21st at 7:00 PM at Oxygen Art Centre in Nelson for The Aunt June Files: Turning Family History into Fiction. In this multi-media presentation, Collier delves into family history in order to develop a new mystery series. Set in Montreal in 1947, the series will feature her own ancestors as characters.
This event is funded by a grant from the Columbia Basin Trust through the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance. There is a $5.00 suggested donation at the door to support Oxygen Art Centre.
Pairing stories with photos, documents, and audio clips taken from family archives, Collier unveils the mystery behind the mystery of creating a new series from scratch. This engaging presentation will be of interest to writers, readers, family historians and anyone who loves a good story.
Many readers are familiar with Collier’s popular mystery novels, Confined Space and Open Secret, both set in the Kootenays. She lives in Nelson with her family. You can find more about her books at www.deryncollier.com.
Singing The Blues with Bessie Wapp NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME
9 classes: Sept. 27 – Nov. 29 (no class on Oct 18 and 25) 7 – 9pm Thursdays
Course Description:
Life is the only experience required to growl, groan, wail and moan! Each week we’ll learn a blues song, and explore the rich swamp of the human voice in a relaxed & supportive environment. On the last class we’ll sing with a live band for invited guests.
Course Fee: $310 + Material fee: $5
TOTAL FEE: $315
Script Analysis for Actors with Jordana Champagne
6 classes: Oct. 19 – Nov. 23 6 – 8pm Fridays
Course description:
Take the guess work out of your performance by learning script analysis techniques in this 6 week workshop. We’ll cover everything from understanding story itself and how to break down a script and apply it to your performance.
Course fee: $160 Material fee: $10
TOTAL FEE: $170
We are excited to invite you to our Oxygen Education Open House on Saturday November 24th, 1 – 3 pm.
Have you ever wanted to see what goes on for over four months of the year at Oxygen? Well here’s you opportunity to view (and listen to) the work of our talented students that have taken Oxygen adult education courses in 2018. There will be clowns roaming, ukuleles playing and an exhibit of drawings, paintings and original prints on display. This might be just the inspiration you need to dive in and take a course at Oxygen starting in February.
For students that want to contribute work (created at Oxygen in 2018) for this Open House please drop off your work at the Centre on Friday November 23 between 1-3 pm.
We’ll look forward to seeing you there!
Oxygen Art Centre is pleased to announce Ephemeral Existence, an exhibition by Nelson-based contemporary artist Hildur Jónasson. The exhibition will be the first public showing of work done by Jónasson, while participating at the Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard, Norway last year. Included in the show will be a selection of works on paper, as well as a sculptural installation that accompanies a video of a performance made by Jónasson on the Svalbard Glacier.
Join us to celebrate the opening of Ephemeral Existence on Friday, November 30th from 7-9pm. The exhibition will run from December 1st thru to December 22nd, 2018. Oxygen Art Centre’s exhibition hours are 1-5pm Wednesday to Saturday. Hildur Jónasson will give a talk about her work on Saturday, December 1st at 4pm. Admission is by donation. The exhibition will be followed by a residency at the Oxygen Art Centre from January 7th to 31st, 2019.
Born and raised in Iceland, Jónasson’s experience with volcanoes, geysers and glaciers informs her practice, as does the folklore and mythology which animates the Icelandic landscape. The far northern landscape, with it’s subtle light shifts, eerie sense of presence, and vast space, holds a special fascination for Jónasson. In particular, the artist notes, that ice fields and glaciated landscapes form part of the “cultural fabric of Iceland”. Their rapid disappearance, amplifying the effects of the global environmental crisis, effects Jónasson personally. A noticeable absence of ice now clouds her childhood memories of glacial landscapes, once within view of her family home, instead, for Jónasson, a sense of loss pervades.
In 2017, returning to the circumpolar landscape, Jónasson sought to record and respond to this loss through her art practice. A practice as diverse yet interwoven as the land itself, consisting of lithography, intaglio, cyanotype, painting, pen and ink, graphite, wax and casting. Working largely in an achromatic palette, the artist pulls, etches, casts and rubs ghost-like imagery into fibrous materials.
Included in the exhibition, Farewell Embrace, a performance art video shows Jónasson encased in a shroud-like blanket standing in the landscape. Rolling her body across a gritty summer glacier, reminiscent of the way in which children roll down a grassy slope in a burlap sack, but there is no child-like laughter of a bright summer’s day, instead the scene is sober, the light that of twilight echoing a sense of grief. Using the shape and weight of her body as a tool to imprint the texture of the Svalbard glacier, this work evokes impermanence and futile effort to capture the retreating ice. Continuing her introspection of the arctic environment, this January, as an Artist in Residence at the Oxygen Art Centre, Jónasson will again turn her attention to the silent casualties of climate change – the disappearing glaciers.
Jónasson’s first engagement with the Oxygen Art Centre was in 2002 when as a graphic designer, she created the Centre’s logo. It was around this time that she began to translate her interests into the visual arts, eventually studying printmaking at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and then years later, participating in residencies at the Banff Centre, Toni Onley Artist’s Project (Mountain Island Arts) Residency and The Arctic Circle Residency Program. Most recently, she completed a self-directed study in textile arts at Kootenay School of Arts at Selkirk College. She has had solo and groups shows since 2010 with solo shows in Halifax, NS (2015); Reykajavik, Iceland (2013); and Whitehorse, Yukon (2017, 2014). This coming year, Fata Morgana, another body of new work will be exhibited at the Kootenay Gallery of Art in Castlegar.