The Tett Artist Residency is fostering creativity and ing local artists.
Celebrating the culmination of the three-month Tett residency program, the showcase is running from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1 in the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning. The cohort of artists includes Baiqing (Audrey) Chen, MA ’25, Meenakashi Ghadial, BEd ’24, Sheldon Traviss, and Sophia Fabiilli. The exhibition includes digital media, oil painting, pottery, and creative writing.
Chen primarily works in digital media, video editing, and production. She likes to blend technology and art, creating pieces in a variety of media. For the showcase, Chen created the wooden frame of a house and projected 3D environments of each room onto the frame, inspired by Taylor Swift’s “Lover” music video. As the images move, each room has a distinctly individual feel, captivating the viewer.
By participating in the exhibition, and taking inspiration from Swift, Chen hopes to draw attention to digital art.
“I wanted to let more people know about digital media […] I think a part of the reason I chose Taylor Swift is because I think a lot of people in our age know Taylor Swift or listen to her music,” Chen said in an interview with The Journal.
Chen purposefully chose bright colours to draw the attention of her audience in hopes of bringing a focus to digital work, a medium often overlooked in most galleries. “I wanted to bring digital media into the Tett Centre,” she said.
Ghadial is a visual artist who primarily uses oil paintings to explore themes of marriage, love, and intimacy. She has two paintings in the gallery, a figure study of her grandmother in Brampton, and another stunning piece entitled “Does Your Mother-In-Law Love You?”
The piece shows two beautiful women in vibrant clothes seated on a bench, looking up in prayer. An older woman stands above them holding out her hands. The painting is visually engaging with vibrant colours and attention to detail in the women’s faces and clothes.
Community engagement was an important part of the residency. While at the Tett Centre, Ghadial ran a variety of workshops including a family history-oriented activity, eco-friendly printmaking with turmeric, and a performance piece highlighting stories of queer heartbreak.
Ghadial’s work was previously included in a showcase running from Mar. 5 to May 11, 2024 at Union Gallery, where her work meditated on themes of familial love and loss.
Read More: ‘Love ends. But what if it doesn’t?’ leaves audience reflecting on family legacies
Traviss is an artist living in Kingston who primarily works with graphite, digital drawing, and ceramic and wood sculpture. His Mohawk descent has inspired much of his work, and he’s currently pursuing cultural revitalization through the use of traditional Haudenosaunee cooking vessels.
Fabiilli is a playwright, screenwriter, and educator. As a creative writer, doing an exhibition like this was something new for her. Fabiilli’s previous work was a play entitled Liars at a Funeral which premiered at the Blyth Festival in 2023. Fabiilli’s work in the Tett Centre was inspired by the UK’s “Poetry Pharmacy” where participants are offered poems pertaining to their personal ailments such as heartbreak, love, or loss.
Fabiilli’s instillation consists of a community workshop where participants were instructed to write creative responses to traditional ailments such as heartbreak, and sadness, but also more niche concerns like “post-election feelings.” The creative responses ranged from poems to short stories, to simple words of advice.
The display was set up like a traditional pharmacy, where each piece of writing was displayed in a pharmacy bag with the corresponding label. Viewers were able to reach in and read the responses, the bags with the most crumples around the edges indicating the most prevalent emotions of the viewers.
The biggest challenge for Fabiilli was encouraging of the community to be open and honest in their responses.
This was mostly about facilitation, it was trying to coach other people into feeling comfortable writing these little phrases,” Fabiilli said.
The Tett residency program aims to give local artists the they need to grow creatively and foster art in Kingston. For many of the artists, the biggest advantage was the studio space.
“It’s a very creative building,” Fabiilli said, expressing how nice it felt to be surrounded by ionate, artistic individuals.
Programs like the Tett residency help foster creativity and bring awareness to various art forms in Kingston and across Canada.
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