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In this newsletter:
- On Exhibition
- Last Week's Panel Discussion
- Jinian's Take + Feature Interview with Brenda Longfellow
- Save The Date for Book and ZIne Fest!
- Joining Us at Artspace!
- In the Community
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The Circle Project / What Fools These Mortals Be...
 This playfully layered collaborative work made by 14 formerly incarcerated women with Vancouver artist Adad Hannah in a series of tableaux vivants (living pictures) is a must see. The piece embraces beauty and joy as well as engaging in a melancholy that asks us to question the logic and inevitability of the prison system. On exhibition until Feb 25, 2023.
This Friday, Feb 3!
Join us at Artspace for a public reception, 6-9pm. This event also serves as a closing event for our exhibition partners at ReFrame Film Festival, and will also feature a Love Positive Women Valentine Making activity by WHAI (Women and HIV/AIDS Initiative) for free in our new maker space.
For all details about exhibition and associated programming CLICK HERE
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Last Weekend's Panel Discussion...
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What Role Can Art Play in the Overdose Crisis? on January 28 was a resounding success with about 100 people in attendance. This powerful afternoon, facilitated by ReFrame Film Festival, featured powerhouse speakers Mkwa Ghiizis/Crystal Hebert, Zoë Dodd, Brenda Longfellow, Alex Bierk, and Jeff Bierk speaking from the heart about lived experience on the front lines of overdose prevention, art and healing, and salient social critique. Our huge thanks goes to all involved. Please stay tuned for the full audio recording coming soon via ReFrame Film Festival.
Thanks to Peterborough Public Health for providing naloxone training, Trent Radio for recording the event, Tragically Dipped for the fresh batch of incredible donuts, and of course ReFrame for making it all happen.
 
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Jinian's Take +
Conversation with Brenda Longfellow
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Jinian's Take
What Fools These Mortals Be is a visual feast, the hand-built backdrops and costuming work together to create an immersive experience. The "pond" set piece, surrounded by beautifully painted paper flowers, particularly drew me into its universe adding an enticing depth to the forest background.
Yet there is a tension created by the tableaux vivants (living pictures) arising from the discomfort of the actors being made to stand still and their natural, human inclination for movement. This is true in a more theoretical sense too. We strive for constant progress, we grow up with a timeline laid out before us - an expectation of how our lives are meant to progress perhaps - but for many of us that isn't how life plays out. This is something many of us experienced for the first time in the beginning of the pandemic when everything stopped.
Being chronically ill, I am all too familiar with the desperation that can come with being forcibly put on hold. It's a pain, I would suspect is echoed in the pain of being frozen in time while incarcerated.
But while the living figures communicate this tension, the expressively crafted sets and costumes communicate joy and celebration. The combination of the beautiful with the tense speaks how complex this feeling of being frozen in time can be. For even as the characters hardly move the story progresses. Time still progresses and still matters. You still matter. Joy, pain, and growth are still possible even if one has been made to stand still.
In Conversation with Brenda Longfellow (excerpt)
Brenda Longfellow is a Canadian Filmmaker and York University Professor. As co-creator of The Circle Project she agreed to do an interview with me to accompany the work currently on exhibition.
When asked about her current personal art practice, Brenda expresses how it has developed into more collaborative projects. “Over the last ten years my practice has shifted from linear documentaries on women artists and the environmental crisis to large collaborative projects that involve co-creation and new participatory modes of creating art in and with the community. I feel deeply honoured and grateful to have been part of these processes, and have learned so much from all of my collaborators."
 You can definitely see this community and collaboration-oriented focus in the work of The Circle Project. Brenda goes on to describe its founding ethos, having "really just naturally evolved out of a series of talking circles my research partner [Brenda Morrison] and myself held in Vancouver with a group of formerly incarcerated women. Our process is very much inspired by Indigenous processes of circle work, so all the collaborations we do begin and end with circles as a way to build good relations with our collaborators. We had a mandate to do public art projects that could begin to challenge the way we think about incarceration as a social necessity and natural part of the criminal justice system but we never know the shape or form these will take until they have been worked out through circles and brainstorming sessions with the women."
CLICK HERE for the full interview.
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Save The Date for Book + Zine Fest!
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Book + Zine Fest / March 3-4
Join us for our annual Book and Zine Fest, a celebration of regional press, zine, and comic arts! Drop in to peruse the work of talented comics artists and graphic novelists, letterpress printers, and other purveyors of books and paper makers and other paper arts. 
- Friday, March 3, 6-9pm During First Friday Ptbo events!
- Saturday, March 4th, 10am-4pm
And, in the lead up to B+Z, we’re offering two key, free events for creatives working with zines and/or interested in book-binding.
- February 17, 7-9pm Folding Party - If you have folding, cutting, stapling, and any other prep to do that you can bring to Artspace, you can join us in the evening from 7-9pm and we can all do it in the same room.
- February 26, 12-4pm Book Binding Workshop - Full description TBC
Stay tuned for event updates on our website and socials. And please help us spread the word by sharing our Facebook Event.
Please note that masking is strongly requested at our facility, unless exempt. Gallery entrance and washrooms are wheelchair accessible, earplugs available on site.
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 Hello Readers!
I'm Jinian Harwig, Artspace's Trent Intern for the winter-spring term.
I am an emerging artist primarily working in video, film, and digital media. I'm particularly curious to learn about how Artspace shows and supports non traditional art forms.
I suffer from a chronic illness and much of my art explores feelings of helplessness, rage, and despair that come from a body under constant siege.
You may recognize some of my work as I has been featured in two of Artspaces' previous online exhibitions: Culture X: Bodies in Nature, Bodies Online, and Cultural Studies Student Show Online.
I look forward to adding my unique perspective to the goings on at Artspace this winter.
Stay tuned for more reviews here from Jinian,
and you can see more of her work at her website.
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Peterborough City highlights the work of Casandra Lee, John Climenhage, Brooklin Holbrough, and Jeffrey Macklin. Their work will be rotating through different municipal locations throughout the city over the next 12 - 18 months. Read more about this at KawarthaNOW
City counsel voted to extend individual artist grant program for three more years! Starting as a pilot program in 2022, to help support artists through the pandemic the program gave away 20 grants to local artists. After some consideration it was decided to continue the program. The city is committing to putting $50,000 per year for the next three years towards these grants. Read more at The Peterborough Examiner
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Artspace gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the following organizations.
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