fertile ground: Listening event with divide the silence

Please join us for an aural activation of Miriam Berndt’s ECU Urban Screen commission, fertile ground.

In September, mixed-media visual artist, Miriam Berndt, and Van Ber of composer duo divide the silence, hosted a sound-collage workshop in Emily Carr’s Integrated Motion Studio. Using various objects and instruments, participants were asked to respond to Berndt’s video work, fertile ground, a four-minute exploration depicting the multiple layers of history within the area known as the False Creek Flats. The collective soundscape, transformed by divide the silence, will debut October 9th, adding a new layer to fertile ground.

This event is free and open to all.

fertile ground strives to tell the complex story of the False Creek Flats through images sourced from archives, databases, news outlets, community organizations, and original photographs. The resulting video collage combines approximately three-hundred individual frames to form a rhythmic movement, pointing toward a futurity of co-existence and hope. fertile ground illuminates the transformation of the False Creek Flats over time and inspires a sense of interconnectedness, hope, and cultural pluralism, making the claim that a complex and even oppressive past can cultivate the most fertile ground for the coming together of peoples.

Miriam Berndt is a mixed-media visual artist, landscape designer and environmental planning consultant, living in c̓əsnaʔəm (so-called Marpole, Vancouver BC). She is the daughter of Theresa from Kahkewistahaw First Nation, Jim of Irish ancestry, and the stepdaughter of Chris from the Six Nations of the Grand River. Her artwork explores themes of generational healing, hybrid identity, and land-based epistemologies. Her practice in art and design employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining the processes and materials of visual art and landscape architecture, to tell stories of place through abstract expressions and integrated design solutions.

divide the silence specializes in mixing, engineering, and original music composition for screen, stage, fine art, live, and recorded mediums.

The Urban Screen, located on the north-east wall of the Wilson Arts Plaza, is an initiative of the City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program in conjunction with the Libby Leshgold Gallery at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. The screen operates daily from 8am-9pm.