RESEARCH ASSOCIATES

Margot Francis * Howard Lam * Krys Verrall * Andrea Fatona * Louise Bak
Tracey Bowen * Tyler Pearce * Christine Connelly

Howard Lam, CMCE Coordinating Committee member

Howard Lam teaches Media Arts (Film and Video Production) and Media Studies in the Arts and English departments at Woburn Collegiate, Toronto District School Board. He has researched and developed media and cultural studies curricula in the areas of globalization, critical multiculturalism, and media production. His current interests are in digital cultures and schools; youth and video games.

Krys Verrall, Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology and Equity Studies in Education;
Research Associate, The Centre for Media and Culture in Education OISE/UT

I locate my research at the intersections of Fine Arts Cultural Studies, Black Cultural Studies, and critical Sociology with a focus on the relationship between the fine arts and social movements. My doctoral research traces political and artistic movements back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with particular attention to flows between New York City and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Between 1968 and 1970, for instance, two seemingly unrelated events dramatically altered awareness of racism and experimental art in Canada. These were the Human Rights Conference at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia (Dec. 1968), and the Halifax Conference, organized by New York Conceptual Art impresario, Seth Siegelaub, at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Oct. 1970). Although apparently unrelated, these two events and the intense activism and cultural activities that underpinned them, provoke the question: How does the history of social activism in Canada intersect with developments in contemporary art? Works of art relevant to my research are Canadian and American experimental film and early video, underground newspapers, visual art, performance, music, and avant-garde theatre. My background as a visual artist and writer, combined with studies in music, dance and performance have brought a fine arts practice-oriented perspective to my scholarship. Further, my experience teaching studio and critical thinking skills to undergraduate Fine Arts and Humanities students since 1996 has given me an understanding of some of the pressing concerns for contemporary media and culture in education.

Selected Publications:
Verrall, Krys, “The Black Conversation” (Under review) 2002. Verrall, Krys with images by Bill Burns, “Fine Points on Memory and Escape” in Money, Value, Art: State Funding, Free Market, Big Pictures. Eds. Sally McKay and Andrew Patterson. Toronto: YYZ. 2001.

Verrall, Krys, DYEBLUE: studies on time, identity and creative production, website and CD ROM. An interdisciplinary multimedia project. Produced with assistance from the Art Gallery of York University and the Faculty of Graduate Studies, York University, 1998-1999.

Verrall, Krys, Art director, co-editor and contributing artist, POP/EYE: 9 painters & a magazine. The Magazine. A collaborative artists’ book project in 10 volumes. Toronto: From a Pit collective, 1997.

Recent Conference Presentations:
“Fixed Confluence: Interdisciplinary Language in Social Theory and Fine Arts Practice” Panelist, What is Interdisciplinarity? University Art Association of Canada (Nov. 2002).

“Cross-over: artscanada’s mid-sixties Black conversation” Panelist and co-chair session Radical Material: Making Waves in Art, Print Art and Print, Canadian Communication Association annual conference (May 2002).

The Centre for Media and Culture in Education at OISE/UT, Independent Images, Monthly Screening and Discussion Series. Co-curator and presenter (Dec. 2001).

“Portrait of the Artist as …: Identity, Representation and Professionalization.” Session chair and respondent. University Art Association of Canada (October 2001)

“At the Limit: 60s-style Revolutionary Art/Politics.” Panelist, Art/Culture Panel, CSAA 2001. (May 2001)

“Images & Stories of Dissent: An Interdisciplinary Look at Radical Protest and Cultural Production.” Panelist, Interdisciplinarity and Social Change, Paradigms Lost and Paradigms Gained: Negotiating Interdisciplinarity in the 21st Century, University of Calgary (May 2001).

Selected Exhibitions:
2001 Walking Woman-Incident Showcases. Installation Red Head Gallery showcases. A Walking Woman Collective project with artist Tegan Smith, architect Paula Bowley.

1998/99 DYE BLUE, an artist’s/curatorial project for the Internet & CD-ROM. The Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (Solo project)

1997 i.e. desire, Samuel J. Zacks Gallery, North York (Solo exhibit)

POP/EYE: 9 painters and a magazine, From a Pit collective, College Park, Toronto (Group show)

1996 Canadaustralia Exchange, York University, Toronto, Canada; Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada; University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia (Group show)

1995 True to Form, From a Pit Collective, The Dufferin Mall, Toronto (Group show)

1994 Running the Gauntlet . . . , Student Centre Gallery, Toronto (Solo
exhibit)

Neck and Neck, I.D.A. Gallery, Toronto (Two person exhibit)

1987 Samhain Order out of Chaos-Ritual Dwellings, Harbourfront Galleries, Toronto (Group show)

Selected Bibliography:
Rapport, Michael. “Bringing art to the people” Varsity, November 11, 1997 ? Vol. 118, No. 21.

John Bentley Mays. "Two shows that show the unshowable", Globe and Mail, Toronto, September 9, 1995


Louise Bak
, Graduate Assistant, CMCE
tel: 416-923-6641x 2275
fax: 416-926-4751

Louise Bak is the author of Tulpa (Coach House Books, 2002), Gingko Kitchen (Coach House Books, 1997) and emeighty (Letters, 1995). Bak is the co-host of Sex City, Toronto's only radio show focused on intersections between sexuality and culture. Her performance work has appeared in numerous galleries, festivals and video collaborations. Bak also hosts a reading/performance series called The Box. She is currently a doctoral student at the University of Toronto in Cultural Studies and Women's Studies.

Tracey Bowen, Graduate Assistant, CMCE
tel: 416-923-6641x 2275
fax: 416-926-4751

Tracey Bowen is a photo-based visual artist, freelance curator, and PhD candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her art work focuses on the technical manipulation of the "scale" on which images are viewed and how this manipulation can create a disconcerting ambiguity of reality. Her doctoral research examines the effects of navigating the World Wide Web on visual artists and their art making practices. The overriding question that drives the research is: How are traditional visual art-making practices affected by the current digital culture and, in particular, cyberspace? Specifically, how does the exploratory practice of Web navigating- a way of moving through sites and places on the Web, inform the exploratory approach to experience that artists use while engaged in their art-making practice? The research will focus primarily on studying the ways in which artists explore ideas for art making and the investigative dynamics of purposeful Web navigating as well as a secondary interest in how these exploratory practices are interpreted autobiographically.