Pierre Lassonde Artist-in-Residence Program
The Pierre Lassonde Artist-in-Residence Program was created in 2021. This annual non-recurring residency will support the research, development, and creation of a project proposed by a successful professional visual artist. The selected artist will develop a project in the Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts on the Mount Allison University campus over the residency period. Working in the context of an undergraduate Fine Arts program, the Artist-in-Residence will engage with students, faculty, and the greater university community as they develop their research.
The Pierre Lassonde Artist-in-Residence will be appointed in the School of Fine Arts for a six-month period, from January to June, and will be supported with suitable office space, shared work space, and administrative support. The Artist-in-Residence will coordinate with the Head of the School of Fine Arts to engage students and faculty in their residency project.
The Residency offers a salary over the six-month period, funding to employ student assistants, and a Research, Travel and Expense account. The Artist-in-Residence will work primarily on campus to develop their proposed project, employ student intern(s) to assist in the development of their project, present public talks, exhibitions, or equivalent events, participate in departmental talks or activities during the winter semester, and be available to meet with students (individually or coordinated with classes).
2023 Pierre Lassonde Artist-in-Residence
The Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts is pleased to announce that Ana Rewakowicz is the 2023 Pierre Lassonde Artist-in-Residence. The Montreal, Quebec-based artist was selected from nearly 60 applicants. Rewakowicz is developing a project in the Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts on the Mount Allison University campus over a six-month period, from January to June.
Ana Rewakowicz is an interdisciplinary Polish-born artist, researcher, and mentor of Ukrainian origin, based in Montreal, whose artistic practice concentrates on the creation of different patterns of engagement employing imagination, poetics, technology, and participation, to develop a more sensitive and visceral relation with materiality and meaning by creating installations, in which the viewer/participants are provoked to new points of view through emotional entanglements. Her objective is to make the ineffable and abstract (concepts, ideas, emotions) more affective to serve as a conduit motivating people to active responses.
"The focus of my residency is water and climate change in the context of interdisciplinary collaborations. Engaging with students and faculty from different departments, as well as local communities, my objective is to use creative approaches to develop a more embodied awareness of water through presentations, workshops, and my own artistic production to create various platforms of interdisciplinary interactions that allow us to think imaginatively with water.
I am a strong believer in art's power of imagination and building interdisciplinary bridges. Art can help us ask different questions and learn how to envision and create different kinds of relationships with our surroundings. To face such complex problems as water pollution and climate change, we need to develop more-than-rational ways of thinking and acting and learn how to co-operate and collaborate in new ways and on multiple levels. By creating emotional entanglements, art may be able to bring us closer to narrowing the gap between what we know and what we do." - Ana Rewakowicz
2022 Pierre Lassonde Artist-in-Residence
The Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts is pleased to announce that Tara Bursey has been selected as the inaugural 2022 Pierre Lassonde Artist-in-Residence. The Hamilton, Ontario-based artist was selected from nearly 60 applicants. Bursey will develop a project in the Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts on the Mount Allison University campus over a six-month period, from January to July 2022.
Tara Bursey is an interdisciplinary artist, arts worker, and educator, with a keen interest and background in labour history and working-class identity. For the Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts residence program, Tara will draw from personal experiences in art production, mentorship, gallery education, programming, and curatorial practice. Their project will hold space for interdisciplinary creation and inquiry connecting the labour history of New Brunswick with the labour of artists and cultural workers today.
"I will use my residency to engage students in collaborative work that reflects their interests and ideas about art and labour through conversations, workshops, and meetings in an 'open studio.' The residency would be an opportunity for the cross-pollination of ideas of students, faculty, and visitors, and a sustained exploration of how art, craft, exhibition-based practices, publishing, and print production can be a vehicle for critically connecting the past and present realities of artists, and other working people." - Tara Bursey