a tiny world's fair

a tiny world's fair originally planned in partnership with and to be held at Art Gallery of Regina has been re-visioned as a virtual experience in prelude to the actual show we hope will happen in the not to far away future at the Art Gallery of Regina. The show features artists and makers from across Canada working in all sorts of mediums, all with the intention to create tiny worlds.

Feeding the Masses

Tom Brown

Tom Brown

Miniature Working farm toys

Ed Finch

Interview with Edward D. Finch

Face In the Clouds

Marsha Kennedy

Marsha Kennedy
Artist Statement
Face In the Clouds

A common theme underlying these works include forms that share a very temporal existence. The water and fire move, the drapery shifts, the waves and smoke disperse, the ice melts away and the clouds and nebula take another form. They represent forms and energies that are in transition. It is this lack of a distinct and fixed structure that stimulates a perceptual response known as pareidolia.

Pareidolia is described as being a type of illusion which involves a vague or obscure stimulus that has been perceived as something clear or distinct. This perceptual tendency is a neurological and psychological occurrence whereby the brain interprets vague images as specific ones and is referred to as simulacra. The perceived image is often a face and is described by the astronomer Carl Sagan as an ability that is hardwired to our brains and that, as soon as an infant can see, it recognizes faces. This perceptual tendency has been used to explain many religious and nonreligious apparitions, visions and sightings. A vision of Satan in the smoke of one the Trade Center Towers on September 11, the face of Jesus seen in one of the towers of the Pillars of Creation nebula and another in the Eagle nebula, are all examples of pareidolia. These illusions are common and range from the ridiculous to the divine.

A similar response, called Apophenia, is the perception of connections between unrelated events. Many unusual experiences and occurrences such as the prophecies of Nostradamus, the Book of Revelations, the Bible Code and many other supernatural phenomena have been attributed to apophenia. The psychologist, Carl Jung, called this ‘synchronicity' and described it as an underlying principle for meaningful coincidences.

Title of Work (30 miniature paintings): Face In the Clouds / 2005 / Oil and 22Kt. Gold leaf on MDF board / 12.06 h x14.06 w cm (5” x 6”)

Many of the thirty miniature paintings of Face In the Clouds are fragments of skies, water and drapery taken from art historical seascapes and religious paintings. Among the miniatures from historical works are images from the media and the contemporary world. The drapery in one miniature is a fragment from a media photograph from the controversial Abu Ghraib photographs of Iraqi prisoners. This particular image is a prisoner in a crucifixion-like pose with a poncho blanket thrown over him. The small black lines are wires, connected to the prisoner's fingers, intending to terrify and tease him with a mock electrocution.

Face In the Clouds plays with the prophetic messages, codes, myths and symbols that dominate much of popular western culture and shape, not only our world view, but our reality. Together these images suggest some of western culture's deepest values, hopes, and dreams, along with other images that reveal our deepest fears and tragedies. The miniatures of the Challenger explosion within this series bring together our greatest technical dreams and achievements together with human error and vulnerability. The Challenger story is now embedded in our culture as a contemporary form of the Greek legend of Icarus.

Comme Hamlet

Tony Chong

This a short version of the film 'Comme Hamlet' . A loose adaptation of the Shakespearian play based on schizophrenia, passion, violence and family.

Comme Hamlet is an abstract dance journey travelling through the tormented mind of an unstable individual. Loosely based on the classic play, the film takes us on a ride of incest, passion, violence and paranoid schizophrenia. Created and completely shot within the walls of Le Gesù, a functioning church in Montréal, QC, Canada. What is real and what is only taking place within the mind of this 'Hamlet'? What is madness to each one of us? This dance/theatre film, is a story of a flawed individual who wreaks havoc on the people around him.

Comme Hamlet, by Tony Chong

Silk Cyclone

Rob King

Nominated for the Performing Arts & Entertainment Award at the upcoming 2013 Yorkton Film Festival, “Silk Cyclone” is a dance project, inspired by the 1912 Regina cyclone (tornado).

Featuring the dance performances of Margie Gillis, Robin Poitras and Daniela Beltrami (and with the help of dance improvographer Susan McKenzie) the video is also an homage to pioneering silk dancer Marie-Louise Fuller. Nicknamed “Louie” or “Loie,” Fuller's work during the late 1800's was considered by her adoring French and European fans to be the embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement. Fuller's work continues to be an influence on modern choreographers.

At the beginning of the video, you'll see a quick film clip from the pioneering French filmmakers, the Lumiere brothers. However, that's not Fuller herself in the clip. Rumour has it that she wanted too much money, so the Lumiere brothers hired another performer to portray Fuller.

For this project, Java Post Production did the colour correction, visual effects and deliverables. “Silk Cyclone” is directed by Rob King and edited by Jackie Dzuba. The DOP is Andrew Gordon and the composer is Todd Bryanton. “Silk Cyclone” is produced by Rattlesnake Films, Rouge-gorge and Jackie Dzuba.

Love Songs for Robots

Mistaya Hemingway

Mistaya Hemingway is a freelance dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and urban thinker living in Montreal. She began her career in Europe with the Dutch National Ballet, followed by a brief stint at Alberta Ballet and then nine years with La La La Human Steps, performing in onstage and screen version of Amelia, Amjad and Les Boréades. Mistaya also spent time in New York City studying acting and then in Chicago dancing for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Her artistic experience covers a wide range of styles and inspirations, from classical to improvisation and performance theatre. In the last few years Mistaya has been creating her own screendance projects, performing in music videos and working with dance in visual projections and mixed media. Mistaya is inspired by collaborations with others and fuelled by her passion for music that fills the soul to overflowing.

Interview with Mistaya Hemingway:

A Prairie Playground

Frans Lotz

What is your current area of artistic interest?

Can an art object be taken seriously if also happens to make a person smile? Through sculpture I play with scale, materials and a touch of humour to pose this question visually. My tiny renditions of objects I know intimately through use and experience go beyond the visual. There is a satisfaction in roasting a little leather sausage, trying not to burn or overcook it, while getting the grill marks just right. It makes me feel hungry and it makes me smile. Leather is so close to meat that grilling it feels like telling the truth and telling a lie at the same time. This is the feeling I want to share.

An important aspect of my work is for it to be touched as well as seen. The feel of a tiny sledgehammer, its weight, the way it's become oily from being handled, is as compelling as its visual resemblance to the original.

What is an an interesting or surprising aspect of yourself as an artist?

Something few people know, besides the fact that I even exist, is that I am inspired by tools and inventing my own, only to realize they already exist and that I have spent three times as long to reach the same conclusion.

If you could have an artistic super power, what would it be?

If I could have an artistic superpower, it would be to have rocket boots so I can make up for lost time.

(Thanks to Saskatchewan Craft Council Emma International Collaboration 2018)

Tampopo Redux

Mistaya Hemingway and Alan Kohl

Welcome to the kitchen of Tampopo Redux, an alternate reality where movement and taste come together. Here, contact and the taste for foods inspire dance. Six dancers explore the sensory, tactile, and sometimes humorous relationship between the body and food. Inspired by the 1980s Japanese cult film classic Tampopo, this short dance film is an experiment with collaborative improvisation among the dancers, the camera, and viewers. An explosion of colours and sensuality!

Conception: Mistaya Hemingway
Réalisatrice: Mistaya Hemingway
Réalisateur: Alan Kohl

The Moving Heart

Karlie King and Ashley Johnson

The ‘Moving Heart' is a collaboration exploring visual art and visceral art. Karlie King and Ashley Johnson bring together internally sourced dance creation with ceramic heart sculptures.

We ask the questions:

• What happens when we remove art from the walls, hold in our hands and connect it to our lived experiences?
• Can moving bring us closer to knowing ourselves?

Our process includes touching, sounding, listening and sensing. We mold and shape and become. In creation of this project we dive into researching the ways anatomy and physiology connect us to our inner landscapes and pull us closer to creating from the inside out.

Untitled Peter Trip Project (Excerpt)

Johanna Bundon, Jayden Pfeifer and Lee Henderson

Untitled Peter Tripp Project (Excerpt)
Johanna Bundon, Jayden Pfeifer, and Lee Henderson

Johanna Bundon, Jayden Pfeifer, and Lee Henderson's durational performance-installation incorporates movement, voice, custom electronics, and image. Pulling from the mythology of American midcentury DJ Peter Tripp's insomnia experiment and publicity stunt, the trio explore mediated presence, physical absence, endurance, telephony and broadcast media.

Mini World

Dick Moulding

Dick Moulding and his Mini World

Women's Pow Wow dances

Chasity Delorme, Jayda Delorme & Jordynn Rayne Delorme

Chasity Delorme and her daughters Jayda Delorme and Jordynn Rayne Delorme created this Women's Pow for stage in celebration of Mother's Day last spring's as part of Stream of Dance 2019.

Isolation

Graham Kotowich

“Isolation” is an exploration of physical limitation within confined space, shedding light on how small things accumulate, and form something large to reveal the positive side of isolation.

Prelude for body and breath

James Viveiros

Two bodies resonating in counterpoint, the music weaves through their intimacy.

The music of a viola da gamba plays like a bow on two bodies, making them vibrate and interweaving the invisible thread of their intimacy. Two instruments of flesh and breath in communion, in fluctuation, in resonance. A living painting in chiaroscuro, emotions like a quiet and deep river, a link that is woven together in patterns and passages.

Narrative - 'Kulu'

Chancz Perry

Charming and lighthearted, this lively short uses an energetic movement vocabulary that pulls from both jazz and contemporary dance in order to examine a typical day in the life of a pair of urban dwellers. Two dancers move through a vibrant animated world accompanied by an upbeat, percussive soundtrack by composer, Adam Basanta. Will they find love in the city? Or will they remain two strangers on a train?

We follow the two through a typical journey – the trip from home to work. As this is a physical journey that almost everyone experiences day to day, it makes Kulu highly accessible to the average viewer. Kulu incorporates elements of the theatrical, pushing the boundaries of straight up dance by having the artists use facial expressions as well as their bodies as a means of storytelling. Dancers Chancz Perry and Nickeshia Garrick both have a gift for the theatrical – bringing in the audience, and engaging them with their talent for dance and their comic timing. The animated world that they exist in is painted in a delicate palette of pastels and earth tones. The characters in the film move effortlessly from this cartoon reality to even more fantastical realms and soon we find them dancing on a bed of light. This viewer is left intrigued - where will they end up next? Kulu takes the dance film genre on a journey to the magical.

Kulu received awards from the 42 Annual WorldFest Houston International Film and Video Festival (U.S.A. Platinum Remi Award Winner), NextFrame: UFVA's Touring Festival of International Student Film and Video (U.S.A. First Place Winner), and the Canada International Film Festival (Canada Rising Star Award for Excellence in Film Making).

Abstract - 'Pushing Beyond The Pale'

Chancz Perry

In “Pushing Beyond the Pale” Chancz Perry and Erik Brinkman weave a living sculpture out of flesh and steel; two naked bodies, one dark-skinned, one light, entangled in a web of frayed rope and elegantly twisted metal. The dancers struggle against each other's wills and against physical boundaries, negotiating the literal and conceptual space between human conflict and co-operation. Filmed in overlaid incisive bursts, the camera follows each subject's path of exploration, aggression, and hesitant alignment, through to a surprising denouement.

“Pushing Beyond the Pale” began as a live dance performance combining the distinctive talents of performer Chancz Perry and artist Erik Brinkman. It was then interpreted by director Barry Liu and set to an original soundtrack by James O'Callaghan. The film is a gloomily lit homage to the contradictions inherent in masculinity - swiftly shunting between solitude and fraternity, between hostility and homoeroticism. The contrasting figures are starkly displayed, as is the tender vulnerability of the well-muscled human body. In comparison, the normally intractable structure of solid steel becomes pliable and seemingly organic in the hands of the dancers. The film recalls a primal ritual, affirming an instinctive revulsion to an industrial world. At the same time, the elusive narrative implied by “Pushing Beyond the Pale” points towards something transcendent: a unity of purpose and shared burden that carries a promise of redemption.

Oleg Kisselev's Body Logic

Art Babayants

Prayers in the Valley

Chasity Delorme, Jayda Delorme, Sadie Turning Robe

A Documentary about Shaun Leach's Dioramas in the Style of Ken Burns

Shaun Leach

Shaun Leach is an outsider artist who aims to delight adult audiences with his work. He endeavours to transport would-be voyeurs to a charming world that conceals comedic titillation. He also makes paintings, murals and World War II-inspired dioramas.

Tiny Treats

Sandee Moore

Sandee Moore has been collecting miniature food since 1996. This video represents a portion of a collection she has been gathering since 2004.