Artist in Residence

Susan Feindel, SAMPAA Artist in Residence

SAMPAA is honoured to announce Susan Feindel as the first SAMPAA Conference Artist in Residence. Her proposal and innovative work won over the selection jury as being the right person to contribute to the endeavour of linking arts and sciences for effective conservation. SAMPAA would also like to thank all the artists who responded to this call for submissions and those willing to participate in the conference by showing some of their works and/or attending the workshop.

Susan Feindel's Website

Artist: Susan Feindel (sfeindel@eastlink.ca)

Cultural Background:

My forebears farmed, fished, hunted and manufactured in Nova Scotia for 250 years. Recent generations have explored the inner province and its oceanic fringes for the joy of learning about its cultural and natural richness.

As artist I accompany scientists to ecologically sensitive areas, where industrial and political demands call for scientific analysis. This practice is valuable poetically in my work, and supports my concerns for the health of our environment and its inhabitants.

Working in Ottawa, urban sprawl and the effects of agriculture on soil informed my work in the 1990's. During this time and in the late ‘80's I also focused on the fishing community of Port Medway, Nova Scotia, where I've maintained a studio for 20 years. I've watched first hand, many changes in the fishing industry in Port Medway. My return to live in Nova Scotia (1997) led to full time concentration on the habitats of Canada's Eastern Fishing Banks, an exotic and impossibly distant subject, inaccessible to me when I was younger. I made it my mission to try to bring this place closer to human consciousness.

The Kejimkujik Seaside Adjunct drew my attention to the notion of protected biospheres. It wasn't “just a park”. At sea, my first art works were of ocean habitats that eventually became Marine Protected Areas.

Thoughts on the topic of Protected Biospheres:

Protected biospheres have significant scientific, anthropological, bio-regenerative values, but from the perspective of this visual artist, protected biospheres also represent intellectual value conserved for the common good. To accept this premise is to understand protected habitats as living poetry, as artworks that are self-regenerating, as priceless figments of imagination and mythology, regardless of whether we have ever set eyes upon them. Their existence offers symbolic rights and freedoms to roam, think and explore intellectually.

(For this writing I was inspired by the work of Amy Balkin: Her work, This is the Public Domain , 2003, involved purchasing a parcel of land in Tehachapi, California, to be held in common for public use in perpetuity. Trying to find a judicial framework for its public handover led her to attempt to transfer intellectual property rights to the land to enable its public use as an art work.)

Work History:

In exhibition, my artwork relates to landscapes above and beneath sea level, to human activity in industry, medicine, technology and science. I link the human body to natural habitats by my choice of paint application and consider concepts that bring distant landscapes closer to human consciousness. Over the years I've developed a vocabulary in paint for addressing ecological issues that relate to diverse subject matter: ploughed fields, soil and agriculture; medicine and industry; the military; the Arctic and the Oceans. I utilize paint, sediment, and digital technologies, light, film and paper works.

While aboard an oceanography vessel or traveling with scientists, I spend most of my waking hours learning and in art production. During the SAMPAA Conference I will want to attend many presentations as well as produce art work. Conference papers may become material for work that I do during the conference, and I expect them to have an impact on my understanding and work, well into the future.

During the conference I will present a selection of art work for exhibition. Conference participants are invited to visit my temporary studio in the Atlantic Theatre Festival exhibition hall, and at posted times I will be available to discuss specific works from my collection. My other presentations include participation in the Conference Linking Arts and Sciences Workshop, May 24, and a paper on the writings of Petra Halkes, artist and critic, who wrote Aspiring to the Landscape , University of Toronto Press, 2006.

Thank you in advance for your enthusiasm and interest in the artist residency. I look forward to meeting you all,

Susan Feindel

__________________________________________________________

Original Call For Submissions for SAMPAA VI Artist in Residence

Linking Art and Science in the Biosphere

SAMPAA invites Nova Scotia artists to submit proposals to be their first artist in residence at their Sixth International Conference at Acadia University, May 21-26, 2007. While the conference is usually a forum for scientists, managers and environmentalists from North America to discuss and share information on protected areas, this year's organizers are inviting interested artists to submit proposals to work as artist in residence at the event.

If you live in Annapolis, Digby, Yarmouth, Shelburne, or Queens County, you live in a world-recognized biosphere reserve. And, if you live elsewhere in Nova Scotia you may live near a protected area.

The Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve (SNBRA) was designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in September 2001. This designation recognizes the area's rich biodiversity, cultural history, and the importance of two large contiguous protected areas in the region -- Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area.

SAMPAA believes that artists play a pivotal role in celebrating the biosphere and our part in it. The artist in residence will exhibit a selection of current work and participate in a panel discussion/workshop with scientists and protected area managers. The panel discussion/workshop is scheduled for Thursday, May 24th. In addition, the artist in residence will be expected to create and present work at the conference, May 21 through May 25 inclusive.  Artist fees for this residency are $1500 with up to an additional $1000 for travel, materials and shipping. Studio space, meals and accommodation will be provided. For more information on SNBRA go to www.snbra.ca .

Nova Scotia artists working in any discipline, including performance and installation practice, are invited to apply. Please submit a current CV, five digital images (jpg format at 1024 x 768 pixels at 72 dpi) or brief video/audio excerpts of recent work on a CD, an artist statement and a description of work you propose to create at/for the conference. Please include a stamped self-addressed envelope for returning your submission to you. Depending upon the response the selection committee may need to make multiple copies of your CD, all will be returned to the artist. Submissions must be post marked not later than Thursday, February 15, 2007. The successful artist will be notified by March 1, 2007. 

Inquires directed to: info@sampaa.org (please include SAMPAA Artist in Residence in the subject line)

Submissions sent to:

Tanya Bryan, SAMPAA VI Executive Assistant

c/o Environmental Science

Acadia University

Wolfville, Nova Scotia

Canada B4P 2R6