Portable Culture: Soheila Esfahani

  Billions are said to be in global circulation. In the United States alone, five hundred million are manufactured every year. They are everywhere, including inside and outside of our large retail shops. Their ubiquity and number, however, do not guarantee their visibility. Few of us look at, let alone think about the wooden shipping...

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Difficult Woman: Emily Vey Duke

*This article appeared in the Summer 2018 Visual Arts News’ Special 40th Anniversary Issue Emily Vey Duke—one half of the creative duo Duke + Battersby— exudes this refreshingly raw honesty that makes people feel like they know her. She’s a bit of a Halifax art world legend, and speaks candidly about her own experiences with...

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JJ Lee’s Hyphenated Realities

Exploring Chinese-Canadian identities through the lens of "Chinese Food"

*This article appeared in the Summer 2018 Visual Arts News’ Special 40th Anniversary Issue Driving down the Bedford Highway in Halifax, you pass signs for China Town restaurant—a Nova Scotian behemoth dating back to the 70s, with that kitschy “Chinese-style” font in huge fire-engine red letters across faux panelling that you can’t miss. Artist JJ Lee’s...

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Beyond The Island, Another Island

Erik Moskowitz, Amanda Trager and Amish Morrell in Conversation

Cape Breton has existed as a Shangri-La of sorts for Americans for over half a century, firmly rooting itself in the imaginary of New York’s avant-garde circles, political radicals, draft dodgers, back-to-the-landers and, more recently, those simply looking for an affordable getaway.

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WAKA OKABAYASHI: Beauty in Biophilia

Waka Okabayashi on human-plant relationships

“Something happens when you’re walking and you’re kind of selecting which plant you want ... Sometimes I’m just walking and I’m not even thinking of collecting plants, but I see a plant and its almost like our eyes meet.”

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Pattern Clash: Andrew Cairns

Creating spaces for projection + finding freedom in paint

“It can be powerful and provocative to bring decoration in. It’s unexpected and not always seen as high fine art."

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Magazine Launch Party!

Join us at the Visual Arts News magazine launch party for a toast, snacks, and 3D glasses on Thursday, May 17th, 6 – 8pm at the Art Bar +Projects, 1873 Granville Street in Halifax. We’re celebrating 40 years of Visual Arts News with a special anniversary issue packed with more local content, including Nova Scotia’s Future...

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Lou Sheppard: Spaces Between

Exploring the undefinable + unspoken

Living and working in K’jiputuk (Halifax), Lou Sheppard uses performance and media installation to explore the rifts between human experience and our attempts to define our place in the world. Sheppard turns data sets, medical texts and geographic information into movements of drawn line, dance and music. Their work tugs and pulls at the structures...

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Redessiner les marges

Mario Doucette et l’identité acadienne vue de l’extérieur

Nous avons seulement eu une perspective de notre histoire, c’est la perspective des British. Les livres d’histoire ont été écrits d’après leurs témoignages.

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Neon Defiance

Stephanie Wu on Internet culture, self care and the role of allies today

"For a long time, the Internet felt like the safest space to have conversations about race, gender, sexuality and mental health, when the communities I was brought up in shamed these things."

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