Of course all of you out there reading this already know about our Writer-in-residence program, but this week Toronto’s Leah Sandals recommended us:
It’s not often I see writer-in-residence programs at artist-run centres, but Edmonton’s Latitude 53 has bravely entered the fray in the last few years with one, and I commend them for it. I find it even more impressive, in the Canadian ARC context, that they put their writers to work not on catalogue or brochure essays, but on blog posts that are widely accessible. I would love to see more programming like this from ARCs and other public galleries alike.
She’s looking forward to Anne Pasek’s tenure, as are we, and shares a few thoughts on Anne’s first post. Read them on her blog.
Thanks, Leah!
This month we’re very happy to welcome Anne Pasek as our third Writer in Residence, taking over from Fish for another six-month term. Here’s a little bit about her:
Anne Pasek is an alumnus of Grant MacEwan and the University of Alberta. She began her education in painting and drawing and then switched to art history due to growing suspicions that she might be a better nerd than an artist. She’s put in her time at many art institutions around town including Latitude 53, The Art Gallery of Alberta, and The University of Alberta Museums while even spending a brief foray at the Smithsonian American Art Museum to see what our neighbours to the south were up to. Turns out it was a lot of pictures of bison and socialites.
Anne brings to the job a wealth of experience interpreting art for diverse audiences and a near evangelical love of art theory. In the coming months she hopes to foster an on-going dialogue with Edmontonians about local and transnational art issues while working towards democratizing theory and improving access to ideas, particularly in light of Marshall McLuhan’s upcoming centenary.
We’re looking forward to her first posts—we hope you are too! As always, you can find out more information about the program and our past writers, as well as all their posts, at blog.latitude53.org/writer
Harcourt House arts centre—one of Edmonton’s other Artist Run Centres, who we recently collaborated with for DRAW—recently launched a new blog, so you can follow their activites and programming as closely as you do ours.
And, if you love hearing about what’s going on here at Latitude 53 and follow us on Tumblr, we’d love it if you recommended us.
Do you think you could run this blog? Our communications coordinator (Hi!) is departing this summer for Glasgow and we’re looking for someone to take over. We need someone who can:
Supervise and update this blog, including video podcasts and working with other staff and the Writer-in-residence
Notify and liase with media about our programming and events
Put together promotional materials like our quarterly newsletter
That means skills in web and social media, writing and basic design. Take a look at the full description and send in an application by July 23rd. Today is also the deadline for applicants to replace our outgoing Program Officer, who’s also headed to a far-off city in the fall.
This year we’re changing it up a little bit at the Rooftop Patio Series. We’ve still got all the things you loved over the last three years though: delicious weekly featured cocktails (and they’re good—we had a little tasting party meeting with some of our Special Events Committee last week), snacks courtesy of Boston Pizza on Jasper, Blue Plate Diner, Mongolie Grill, Café Select and Haweli. And of course we have a roster of great guest hosts from the community—you can see the list on our website, but it includes organizations like Sled Island Music Festival, M.A.D.E. in Edmonton, Exposure: Edmonton’s Queer Arts & Culture Festival and a very special Canada Day party hosted by the National Portrait Gallery. But there’s more.
Patio Series Sponsors
The Rooftop Patio is a big part of our fundraising season, and part of its appeal is the knowledge that every drink helps Latitude 53 with our not-for-profit activities in programming, publications, and more. This year ATB Financial, Capital Power, JCI Edmonton and FSC Consulting Engineers are helping us out as our Rooftop Patio Series sponsors.
Summer Member’s Series
You already know about this if you’ve been following the blog here, but in July and August we’ll have four local artists who just happen to be Latitude 53 members showing in the community gallery, one each week. Here’s some details to whet your appetite; there’s much more to come.
- Scott Smallwood is an assistant professor of music at the University of Alberta. You might previously have seen a few of his solar-powered noisemaking works installed as part of Maria Whiteman’s De Anima at FAB Gallery in March.
- Marc Siegner is a printmaker and co-founder of SNAP. His Star Hotel series comes out of a recent residency at Red Gate in Beijing, and deals with homeless people displaced during the pre-Olympic clean-up.
- Gerry Dotto is a conceptual artist who works most often in printmaking, artist’s books and digital media. He’s been active in the Edmonton art scene since 1982.
- Elaine Wannechko is a multi-disciplinary artist who you might have seen in our podcast—she’s a regular at Latitude 53 as a volunteer, visitor and artist, appearing alongside T.L. Cowan in the Twisted She Project at Visualeyez 2009.
Restaurant Gift Vouchers
Not only have our generous food sponsors at Boston Pizza, Blue Plate Diner, Café Select, Mongolie Grill and Haweli provided us with food for the patio season, but they’ve been kind enough to offer deals to our guests. Come to Latitude 53 cocktails and stay downtown for dinner!
Follow Patio on the blog
Right here on this blog we plan to offer all kinds of content during the summer patio season. Interviews and updates from members and friends, the latest gossip and photos of every Thursday night on our patio. Stay in touch!
This is the first post by Latitude 53’s new Writer In Residence, Carolyn Jervis. She’ll be writing critically about Latitude 53 programming, the community and more on a regular basis over the next six months. Read more about the Writer In Residence program.
Hello to those in orbit around Latitude 53’s online land. Hopefully over the six months of my tenure as writer-in-residence this blog can not only be a hub for my musings about goings-on in Edmonton’s scene, but also be an opportunity for collective critical thinking about our small but mighty art scene.
But before I get into what I’m hoping to accomplish with this position, let’s break the ice. Here are some words about who I am, in case you are curious:
Continue reading...
We’re very excited to announce our new writer-in-residence program and its first six-month residency, held by Carolyn Jervis. Read all about it.
This program was one of the prime reasons we started this blog. We hope you like it!
We’re just getting started here and you can expect some great projects to come centered around this blog. But in the mean time, we’ve got the first episode of our video podcast below, featuring artist Gabriel Coutu-Dumont, whose show Sketches of Synchronicity is still up until the end of the week. For more on our current programming, head back to latitude53.org.
In the next few weeks, expect lots of updates about our upcoming 53 Ways to Leave Your Lover and of course our next set of shows by Brenda Draney and Patrick J. Reed.
