CREATIVE THINKING AT ITS FINEST JOIN THE CONVERSATION #CUalumni concordia.ca/finearts Rising to new heights: Students from the Department of Contemporary Dance obtain the tools, training and mentoring to focus on their choreography and creative process. PAGE 2 | CONCORDIA.CA/FINEARTS FORWARD-THINKING, DISCIPLINED, DIVERSE Our faculty is among Canada’s foremost for the study and creation of visual and performing arts Right-brain or left-brain? Performance or Anchored in Montreal, our fine arts FINE ARTS AT GLANCE: creation? Art history or contemporary programs explore human connections dance? Over four decades, students, to our society and to our world. Our • 4 research centres professors and alumni from Concordia’s professors are at the forefront of innovative Faculty of Fine Arts have built a solid teaching while our research strengthens • Canada Research Chair reputation in all spheres of creative thinking. cultural knowledge. • 9 Concordia University Research Chairs Our community produces work that’s Some 3,700 undergraduate and graduate • other research chair/special research omnipresent in galleries, on stage, in students pursue their studies in our professorship libraries, on film, in media headlines, nine departments. We remain a top in traditional or digital formats and in choice for students; some 80 per cent of • 9 departments public spaces — locally, nationally and graduate applicants hold degrees from internationally. other institutions, and approximately • 58 programs 80 per cent of accepted undergraduate What we offer is unique. We feature applicants confirm their registration. • 3,700 students Canada’s widest range of fine arts disciplines in one faculty — 58 programs in the visual, Our curriculum is grounded in hands- • 3,200 undergraduates performing, design and digital arts. on work, technological exploration, • 570 graduate students scholarly crticism and art therapies. Our educational approach provides a toolkit • 224 international students for big thinking. • 7 full-time faculty Our alumni and professors have earned almost every important arts distinction: • 28 part-time faculty Tonys, Pulitzers, Junos, Jutras, Grammys, Sobeys, Prix du Québec and Governor • 5,900 fine arts alumni worldwide General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Such accolades reaffirm how fine arts education enriches our society. CONCORDIA first Graduate Diane Morin, MFA 03, becomes the first recipient of the 204 Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec’s Contemporary Art Award of $00,000 — the first accolade of its kind in Canada. CONCORDIA.CA/FINEARTS | PAGE 3 Skawennati Fragnito, GrDipl 96, BFA 92, artist and co-director of Hexagram-Concordia’s Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace “We’re interested in how we train young people to be producers of new media, not just consumers, so they can make things and tell their stories.” — Jason Lewis, associate professor, Department of Design and Computation Arts; 204 Trudeau Fellow; co-director, Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace research network; research director, Obx Laboratory for Experimental Media; co-director, Skins Summer Institute; researcher, Hexagram-Concordia Centre for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technologies PAGE 4 | CONCORDIA.CA/FINEARTS OPEN-MINDED Our students and professors experiment in nine innovative departments Our Department of Art Education Our Department of Creative Arts At our Department of Music, students produces skilled teachers through studio art Therapies uses art, theatre and dance perform, compose and improvise in genres training and apprenticeship. Our programs in therapeutic and rehabilitative settings. from jazz to classical and electronica. Our include the country’s first and only PhD in Students study client-therapist relationships, student community collaborates with art education. group dynamics, psychodynamic approaches peers to create music for drama, dance, and therapy techniques. Our department cinema, animation, installation art and Our Department of Art History, a national has robust research activity and a strong performance art. Areas of study include trailblazer thanks to its commitment to network of field placements in healthcare theory, history, instrumental and vocal Canadian art, takes a transcultural and and community agencies. studies including ensembles and private interdisciplinary approach. Our students study, composition, jazz, electroacoustics/ analyze the vital role visual and performing Our Department of Design and recording and music technology. arts play in forging our culture. Computation Arts features a matrix of labs where our students and Our Department of Studio Arts offers a Our Department of Contemporary professors examine the culture of design discipline-based approach to studio practice, Dance, one of the few departments in in contemporary society. In Design, balanced with openness to interdiscipli- North America dedicated to choreography students work with images, objects and narity and traditional and non-traditional and creativity, propels budding talent to the multimedia before specializing in print, techniques. Our undergraduates major forefront. Each student develops through websites, typography, furniture, 3D in drawing and painting, ceramics, fibres/ technical work, theory, creative thinking, rapid prototyping or display and design material practices, print media, sculpture, self-direction and studio exploration. installations. In Computation Arts, students photography or intermedia/cyberarts. Students stage their own choreographies train as designers, artists and researchers, and collaborate across disciplines. producing work that is aesthetically Department of Theatre students are engaging, conceptually provocative and guided by faculty members active on the technically innovative. local, national and international scene. Students build skills in acting, research, The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema production, design, playwriting and theatre prepares filmmakers, animators, historians, for social change. Opportunities for critics and theorists who appreciate film’s internships and practical experience are history and potential. Our students work offered by the department. in animation, sound and post-production labs, and studios, and can take advantage of modern screening facilities and important film and video collections. CONCORDIA first For the first time ever, one in four artists and curators featured in the 203 Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Oh, Canada” exhibit — the largest survey of contemporary Canadian art — hail from the Faculty of Fine Arts. CONCORDIA.CA/FINEARTS | PAGE 5 Our award-winning faculty: Gabor Szilasi (Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts 200), Christopher Jackson (Royal Society of Canada 2009), Raymonde April (Order of Canada 200) and Geneviève Cadieux (Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts 20) PAGE 6 | CONCORDIA.CA/FINEARTS FORWARD-THINKING RESEARCH We combine disciplines to exploit new technologies that push boundaries and uncover important social and cultural aspects of art BIG CHAIRS AND BIG IDEAS Performative environments: Chris Salter, Responsive textiles, wearable computers: an associate professor and director of With a team of graduate research We feature an extraordinary group of the Hexagram-Concordia Centre for assistants and electrical engineers and scholars, including research chairs, and Research-Creation in Media Arts and programmers, Barbara Layne, a professor numerous scholarly journals. Technologies, is founder of labXmodal. He of fibres and material practices in our • The Canadian Journal of Film Studies, focuses on performative environments and Studio Arts program, develops smart Journal of Canadian Art History and his projects include small- and large-scale textiles. These interactive fabrics serve as Recherches sémiotiques – Semiotic Inquiry. public-driven installations that blur the line a digital messaging system that connects between spectator and performer. He digital fibres to micro-controllers. Joanna • Student-run journals include Synoptique also investigates how to merge traditional Berzowska, a professor in the Department (film studies),InArte (art education) performance with computational and of Design and Computation Arts, develops and Concordia Undergraduate Journal media systems. interactive electronic fabrics. Her creations of Art History. harness and store power from the Aboriginal art and culture: Heather human body to light shapes and colours in INTERDISCIPLINARY Igloliorte, an assistant professor in the garments. Department of Art History, explores Our community explores cultural and how preservation of indigenous arts Contextualizing cinema: Haidee societal issues across disciplines. The and cultures has changed through digital Wasson, associate professor at the Mel Canadian Women Artists History Initiative technologies. A member of Concordia’s Hoppenheim School of Cinema, explores — led by Kristina Huneault, Concordia Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute media forms and practices in cinema, University Research Chair in Art History — for Studies in Canadian Art, she examines newspapers, books, radio, film, television unites researchers in the study of historical Inuit and Native North American visual and the internet. Her award-winning book, women artists in Canada. culture as well as colonization, sovereignty, Museum Movies (University of California resistance and resilience. Press, 2005), provides a rich cultural Other highlights include: history of cinema’s transformation from a Challenging