Speakers & Artists
Michelle Wong
Keynote Address | Friday, July 1, 12:00 pm
Working In the film and television industry for over 30 years, Michelle’s production credits cross all formats, from television movies to feature length documentaries, performing arts specials and theatrical feature film. After receiving her Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Alberta, Michelle began her formal film training at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) working with the Oscar award winning women’s Studio D where she directed and produced her first documentary Return Home about her grandparents’ journey from China to Canada. A decade later Michelle directed the emotionally powerful Pieces of a Dream: A Story of Gambling, which looked at the tragic death of her brother. Michelle also directed Do Wok A Do, a whimsical short drama based on her childhood upbringing in St. Paul Alberta.
Her most recent credits include Executive Producer on Undetectable: How Stigma Has Gone Viral in the Fight against HIV produced by Snapshot Studios, business affairs consultant and Executive Producer on the independent feature Dusk and Dawn by writer/director Roseanne
Supernault to be filmed later this summer, and EP/consultant on the feature documentary Common Ground which looks at energy, ignorance and the impact it is having on our futures.
Michelle also works as the Head of Business Affairs at Seven24 Films, producers of Heartland (CBC), Jann (CTV), Family Law (Corus), Fortunate Son (CBC), and Wynonna Earp (CTV Sci-fi).
Over the years Michelle has served on a number of media arts organizations as board member, most recently the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), Women in View (WIV), and she is the lead consultant on a series of business affairs ‘learn by doing’ webinars created for the Canadian Independent Screen Fund (CISF) to benefit IBPOC producers.
Michelle is also a founding member of Creatives Empowered, an Alberta-based collective of artists and creatives who are Black, Indigenous & People of Colour, empowering each other as an allied community.
Adrian Stimson
Artist Talk | Friday July 1 6:00 pm
Adrian Stimson is a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation, Treaty 7 Territory, in southern Alberta, Canada.
Adrian graduated with a BFA (with distinction) from the Alberta University for the Arts, and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. He is an interdisciplinary artist and exhibits nationally and internationally.
Adrian’s paintings are primarily monochromatic, depicting bison in imagined landscapes. They are melancholic, memorializing, and sometimes whimsical. They evoke ideas cultural fragility, resilience and nostalgia. The British Museum recently acquired two paintings for their North American Indigenous collection.
Adrian’s performance art looks at identity construction, specifically the hybridization of the Indian, the cowboy, the shaman and Two Spirit being.
Adrian’s installation work primarily examines the residential school experience. He has used the material culture from Old Sun Residential School on his Nation to create works that speak to genocide, loss and resilience. Recently Adrian participated in a collaboration with Yoko Ono and her ongoing Water Project, Contemporary Calgary, 2021.
Adrian’s public sculptural work includes; Spirit of Alliance in Saskatoon; Bison Sentinel in the healing gardens of the First Nations University of Canada, Regina. Most recently Inii Bison Heart, a full scale bronze Bison was installed in Calgary.
Adrian was a participant in the Canadian Forces Artist Program, which sent him to Afghanistan. Two exhibitions resulted: “Holding our Breath” and “Terms of Engagement” that both toured across Canada. Team Stimson is currently shortlisted to create the prestigious memorial: The National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan, to be located in Ottawa Canada.
Adrian was awarded the Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts in 2018, REVEAL Indigenous Arts Award –Hnatyshyn Foundation 2017, Blackfoot Visual Arts Award in 2009, Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005 and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003.
Adrian has exhibited in three International Biennales, Photo Quai, Paris, France 2009, The Shoreline Dilemma, Toronto 2019 and Nirin, Sydney Australia 2020.
Cheryl L’Hirondelle
(POSTPONED – TBD) Artist Talk | Saturday, July 2, 6:30 pm
Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish) is an interdisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter and critical thinker whose family roots are from Papaschase First Nation / amiskwaciy wâskahikan (Edmonton) and Kikino Metis Settlement, AB. Her work investigates and articulates a dynamism of nêhiyawin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place incorporating Indigenous language(s), music, audio, video, VR, sewn objects, the olfactory, and audience/user participation to create immersive environments towards ‘radical inclusion’ and decolonisation. As a songwriter, L’Hirondelle’s focus is on both sharing nêhiyawêwin (Cree language) and Indigenous and contemporary song-forms and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies toward survivance. Cheryl has exhibited and performed nationally and internationally.
She is the recent recipient the 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art. In addition, she was awarded two imagineNATIVE New Media Awards (2005 & 2006), and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006 & 2007). She is currently a PhD candidate with SMARTlab at University College, Dublin, in Ireland.
Joseph Naytowhow
Performer (Sturgeon Lake First Nation)
yahkāskwan mīhkiwap (Light Tipi) | Saturday, July 2, 11:00 pm
Joseph Naytowhow is a gifted Plains/Woodland Cree (nehiyaw) singer/songwriter, storyteller, and voice, stage and film actor from the Sturgeon Lake First Nation Band in Saskatchewan.
Fifteen years of study with a Buddhist master, combined with his nêhiyaw/Cree traditional knowledge and experience as an interdisciplinary artist has nurtured Joseph’s generosity and compassion for sharing cultural knowledge.
Kelly Andres
Workshop Facilitator (Calgary)
Welcome to the AMAAS Dimension | Thursday, June 30, 7:30 pm
Digital Ecologies 101 | Saturday, July 2, 9:30 am
Kelly Andres is a research-based artist of settler origin. She has produced installations, performances and sensorial experiences that blend cosmologies and ecologies. Andres recently completed a practice-based Ph.D in Fine Arts at Concordia University, Montréal, titled Radicle Assemblages (2020). Her current research intertwines ecological art practices, plant studies, performative placemaking, co-creative community/urban planning, and experiential approaches for multi-species interactions. Recent exhibitions include Particle + Wave, Calgary, Les yeux dans l’eau, Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop University in Sherbrooke, Sandstone City, The Lougheed House, Calgary, The Garden of Speculations, articule, Montréal, le Centre des arts actuels Skol, Montréal, La Maison des arts de Laval, Laval. Andres’s past work has been generously supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Daniel Gervais
Performer (Edmonton)
Live Performance | Saturday, July 2, 10:00 pm
Daniel Gervais is a 2x Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Champion. He has a Master of Music degree in classical performance from the University of Alberta. He has nine albums to his name including Instrumental Album of the Year at the 2010 Western Canadian Music Awards with his band Hot Club Edmonton. Some performance highlights include 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the 2012 London Olympics, and fiddle soloist performances with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Daniel lives in Edmonton with his wife and four young children.
Peter Hemminger
AMAAS Mentor (Calgary)
One2three4ormore: Grant Writing Round Table Sessions
Saturday, July 2, 1:45 pm
Peter Hemminger is a writer, editor, cultural worker and arts advocate currently based in Calgary, Alberta. He is the Executive Director of the Quickdraw Animation Society and the host of The AM on campus and community radio station CJSW 90.9FM, along with other, more sporadic projects. His primary interest is contributing to a more open, collaborative and idiosyncratic culture.
James Kuehn
Workshop Facilitator
Discovering Augmented Reality | Saturday, July 2, 9:30 am
James Kuehn explores the intersection of technology, creativity, and shared experiences. During his MSc. Digital Media Design at the University of Edinburgh, James assembled engaging projects from 3D animation to urban embedded art using AR. He finished his studies with an award-winning interactive installation titled “Digital Self…ish.” This open art allows the audience to participate with impermanent projections. As a college instructor, James brings a genuine enthusiasm to the playfulness of digital communications.
Tyler Klein Longmire
Performer (Calgary)
COVIZ-21: Experiments in Computer Vision | Friday, July 1, 7:30 pm
Tyler Klein Longmire is an animator based in Mohkinstsis, Calgary AB Canada, Treaty 7 territory. His practice spans from animated films, to media art, to interactive spectacles for the stage, screen, or installation. They are currently working on a new animated film, Renderfamily, with support from CADA, the AFA, and the NFB; developing a lil’ video game in collaboration with the Old Trout Puppet Workshop; and freelancing with Montreal animation studio E.D. Films. Recent work includes contributions to the award-winning Indigenous People’s Experience at Fort Edmonton Park, and designing a real-time CGI, motion-capture, augmented reality online performance with Alberta’s Major Matt Mason Theatre Collective, 366 Days by David Gagnon Walker. He serves on the board of the Calgary Animated Objects Society, and is a producing member and former Production Director of the Quickdraw Animation Society. Check out their website at www.tklongmire.com!
Kerry Maguire
Writer in Residence (Calgary)
Writer in Residence Conference Wrap Up | Sunday, July 3, 9:30 am
Kerry Maguire is a writer, multidisciplinary artist and electronic musician from Moh’kins’tsis. In her practice, she collaborates with images of landscape, and with steel, water, and clay to posit precarious, nascent archives of place. Using techniques of imprint, transfer and decay, she explores writing, experimental printmaking and digitization as a way to create an unstable index of reality.
Kerry has exhibited her installation work, prints, sculpture and sound work in Austin, TX; Brooklyn, NY; Ireland; Latvia; Estonia; and across Canada. She has received travel grants to conduct sonic research in Ireland and material exploration on Toronto Island. Maguire has participated in artist residencies at Artscape (Toronto), The National Music Centre (Calgary, Canada), the New York Studio Residency Program (Brooklyn), and The Burren College of Art (Ireland).
aAron Munson
Workshop Facilitator (Calgary)
The Roots of Inattention: Mindfulness and the creative process
| Friday, July 1, 3:30 am
aAron Munson is a Canadian filmmaker, cinematographer and multimedia artist. His work has taken him from his personal studio to war zones, high-Arctic weather stations, reindeer nomad camps in Siberia, and the Arabian Desert. aAron’s projects tackle extreme human experiences, both far from and close to home, utilizing film, video, photography and sound to create explorations relating to mental illness, memory, and the nature of consciousness.
Erin Saunders
Performer (Calgary)
CoViz_2021: Experiments in Computer Vision
| Friday, July 1, 7:30 pm
Erin is an illustrator, animator and general maker of things. She is of settler origin based out of Mohkinstsis, Calgary AB Canada, Treaty 7 territory. She’s an alumni of Alberta University of the Arts, graduating with a degree in design and illustration in 2016. She’s been in love with animation since, and has worked as a 3D animator on several films and features, including work for New Machine Studios, Telus Storyhive and the National Film Board — and is currently Production Director at the Quickdraw Animation Society.
Matthew Waddell
Workshop Facilitator (Calgary)
Intro to 3D Graphics | Friday, July 1, 10:00 am
Augmented and Immersed | Friday, July 1, 11:00 am
Start your Engines | Saturday, July 2, 10:45 am
Matthew Waddell is constantly seeking fresh and startling ways to examine how technology manipulates and warps our understanding and experience of the world, as well as our cultural and individual identities. With a creative practice at once organic and synthetic, his work blends images, animations, and interactive software programs to distort analog reality through a digital lens. The results are often uncanny: familiar yet otherworldly, and often profoundly disconcerting. Matthew’s recent projects have been showcased at Contemporary Calgary, The Alberta Gallery of Art (Edmonton), Eastern Bloc (Montreal), and the WRECK CITY Residency (Calgary).
MISSION
AMAAS exists to advocate, educate, and celebrate the media arts in Alberta.
VISION
The media arts in Alberta is advanced through the generation of awareness, strengthening of connections, and continuous advocacy. AMAAS builds a sustainable and vibrant future for media arts in Alberta.
DEFINITION OF MEDIA ART
AMAAS defines media art as independent artist initiated and controlled use of film, video, new media, audio/sound art and related media.
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