2011 Finalists
2011 Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award Finalists video (6:32)
Quicktime Video (18.6 MB)
The Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award Foundation would like to thank everyone who submitted works for this year's award and congratulates the following for being selected as finalists:
Equine Studies
Susan McEachern’s Equine Studies is a technically impeccable and conceptually
layered photographic series that explores social and historical aspects of the animalhuman
relationship. Prompted by the artist’s personal experiences with her own
daughter’s passionate yet disciplined involvement in horse riding, the three sections
of Equine Studies—Herbivores, Still Seeking Athena and Fight/Flight—combine
large-scale colour prints and subtle texts. They summon questions of gender, class
and competitiveness (whether in current leisure pursuits, military history or |
Investigation 1
Investigation 1 is an intriguing interdisciplinary project combining the handiness of do‐it‐yourself culture with the sophistication of new media, organized by The Artifact Institute and originally presented at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. In a unique blend of relational aesthetics and institutional critique, creators/performers Tim Dallett and Adam Kelly engage the public in documenting, conserving and repurposing over 1,000 discarded electronic devices collected from arts and cultural organizations across Halifax. Investigation 1 has been presented in several venues, achieving considerable public response and motivating visitors to think and talk about sustainability and the ethics of built‐in obsolescence in new media. |
See Below
Susan Feindel’s installation See Below offers a total immersive experience of the deep ocean environment through a group of huge black and white canvases (based on sonar side‐scan imagery) covering the floor of a dimly‐lit gallery, with an ambient sound‐scape and small pin‐pricked map drawings illuminated from beneath. Original in conception and execution, the installation combines science, technology and art, dramatically invoking the ecological fragility of the oceans off Canada’s Eastern continental shelf, and, by inference, around the globe. See Below was a Finalist for the Masterworks Award in 2009, and has since been presented in the Ottawa Art Gallery (2010) and MSVU Art Gallery has published an extensive illustrated catalogue about it. |
The Warming Hut
The Warming Hut is an innovative architectural space created by Architextile Lab (a design team led by textile artist Robin Muller and architect Sara Bonnemaison) as a temporary shelter for skaters at the Oval on the Halifax Common in the winter of 2011. This exciting tipi‐like structure employs various technologies to warm and delight the user, including seats woven from heated straps, mittens that transmute the visitor’s heartbeat to an audio pulse, and a huge, magical, softly flashing snowflake chandelier. Fun, functional, and aesthetically engaging, the glowing structure was enjoyed by many thousands of winter visitors and enthusiastically covered by local and international newsmedia. |
