A virtual ceremony celebrated 2020 recipients of the Windsor Mayor's Arts Awards and grants from the Windsor Endowment for the Arts.
Students, alumni, and instructors from the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences were among 13 local artists, supporters, and organizations honoured Friday, May 22, in a virtual ceremony for the 2020 recipients of the Windsor Mayor's Arts Awards and grants from the Windsor Endowment for the Arts.
Alumna Kristina Bradt (BFA Visual Arts 2017) received WEA's $3,000 Lois Smedick Emerging Artist in Visual Arts Grant. Her project will use field recordings collected from spaces and environments in the Windsor-Essex community. These clips will be rendered into three-dimensional images and used in an final installation as a way of interpreting the sonic identity of the region.
"I will be collaborating with my brother, emerging sound designer Andrew Bradt, to work with the patch software and microphone set up," said Bradt, who also works as a preparator for the Art Gallery of Windsor. "I hope to have the finished work installed and shown locally in 2021."
The COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing restrictions have caused Bradt to adjust her shooting and recording plan.
"We will be taking social distance recordings in public spaces and focusing on the absence of sound in a space and how that changes its livelihood or purpose," she explained. "I think empty streets without excessive traffic, empty parks and beaches, or Friday night walks downtown with no people, are spaces that will still have unique sounds but so much different from the norm."
The installation will be triggered by the people moving in the gallery space, so once pandemic restrictions lift, it will juxtapose a room full of people affecting the projection of sounds captured in a lot of very empty spaces.
English and creative writing students Iovan Stefanov and Nick Hildenbrand received the $3,000 Literary Arts Infrastructure Grant towards their collaborative work of poetry, Marshwood Songs.
"It will include 30 poems and feature illustrations from local visual artists that celebrate the culture and natural environment of Southwestern Ontario," said Stephanie Barnhard, president, Windsor Endowment for the Arts, announcing the grant.
Hildenbrand and Stefanov expressed their "deep appreciation" for the mentorship of English and Creative Writing faculty Tom Dilworth, Andre Narbonne, Marty Gervais, and Lorenzo Buj.
Nicholas Papador, associate professor in the School of Creative Arts was awarded WEA's $2,000 Elizabeth Havelock Grant in the Arts for a recording project featuring music of Jordan Nobles, a Vancouver-based Canadian composer who specializes in creating spatial music and open instrumentation compositions.
"The music to be included on the recording ranges from rhythmic and colorfully kaleidoscopic to completely ambient and serene with a beautiful and longing harmonic language," said Dr. Papador. "Because of the flexibility of the scores, the interpretation of the pieces on the recording will be unique and personal both for me and the Windsor Percussion Ensemble students."
The project will feature SoCA students and alumni as performers and in production. While formal recording sessions may be pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, pre-production for the recording is well underway with click tracks and demos being digitally distributed so all the participants can begin their preparations from home.
Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens said the awards show appreciation and value attached to creative endeavour.
"Art changes lives, and it does not exist without the artists, arts organizations, volunteers, and teams of people working every day," he said. "The arts are vital to our quality of life, our sense of identity, and our understanding of our stories and of the people and places that make our community come alive."
Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science alumni awarded grants also included:
- Arts Organization Award of $1,000 to the Arts Collective Theatre (ACT), Chris Rabideau (BA 2008, B.Ed 2009) and Moya McAlister.
- Arts Volunteer Award of $500 to Rod Turton (BA 2011, B.Ed 2012) for his work with Windsor Light Music Theatre
- The $3,000 Emerging Artist in Community Arts Grant to David Bergeron (BMus 2015, MFA 2018)
- The $3,000 Emerging Artist in Literary Arts Grant to Samantha Badaoa (BA 2018). Current City of Windsor Youth Poet Laureate 2019-2020
- The $3,000 Community Arts Infrastructure Grant to Arts Can Teach, April Morris (BFA 2013, B.Ed 2014, MFA 2018)
Read more about each of the honorees on the City of Windsor website.
By Susan McKee
