In the News: Luigi Allemano, Henry Tsang, the Libby Leshgold Gallery, Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun, and Leaning Out of Windows
The score for Academy Award-nominated animated short film The Flying Sailor, written by artist and composer Luigi Allemano. (Photo by Amanda Forbis / courtesy the National Film Board)
Posted on
This week: Composing for animation, making the sacred visible, rethinking the gallery and publications galore!
Welcome to our latest ECU news roundup, where we track the latest media appearances featuring our wildly talented community members.
Scroll down to feast on the brilliance of our students, staff, faculty and alumni.
And thank you for reading!
Luigi Allemano on Composing for Animation
Artist and composer Luigi Allemano directs musicians during the recording of the score for the Academy Award-nominated animated short film The Flying Sailor. (Photo by Amanda Forbis / courtesy the National Film Board)
During the astronomical award run of 2022 animated short The Flying Sailor, the CBC published a feature Q&A with the film’s composer, Luigi Allemano (BFA 1997/MFA 2014).
At the time, the film had just been nominated for an Academy Award.
“I'm still pinching myself,” Luigi told the CBC. “It feels a little surreal.”
Luigi, an artist and animator in his own right as well as an associate professor of film animation at Concordia University, speaks at length about the process, including recording during the pandemic and the creative decisions behind his score.
“I was trying to imagine if this sailor was imagining the most beautiful music as his life flashed before his eyes,” he says. “I’m pretty sure every note that you hear in the final score was composed and notated in fairly specific detail. The trick was to make it not feel that way.”
You can also hear Luigi speak to Animateducated about The Flying Sailor via YouTube.
Visit Luigi’s website to learn more about his work.
Read our feature story about The Flying Sailor now via ECU’s website.
Henry Tsang’s White Riot
Henry Tsang’s White Riot is based on Henry’s 360 Riot Walk video work, which launched in 2019. (Image courtesy Henry Tsang)
Over the past several months, artist and ECU faculty member Henry Tsang’s 2023 book White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots gained tremendous media attention.
White Riot is based on Henry’s 360 Riot Walk video work, which launched in 2019. It also draws on the series of panel discussions Henry subsequently organized.
News outlets including the Toronto Star, CBC, the Vancouver Sun, Montecristo Magazine, The Conversation, Rabble, Stir, Pancouver and CityNews all ran articles on the book. CityNews Bookshelf also ran a two-part video interview with Henry (watch Part 1 and Part 2 via YouTube), and Henry was a feature guest on The Commentary podcast.
Speaking with Stir, Henry said studying history can help explain the present.
“This kind of awareness helps us understand how things got to the way they are today — that there is a historical precedent for the anti-Asian violence that has bubbled forth and hurt a lot of people,” Henry tells Stir. “It’s still in people’s hearts and minds because they have this attitude that some people are less than human, or that they have the right to inflict their violence and anger on others; that they have more rights than others.”
Visit Henry’s website to learn more about his work.
Read our feature story on White Riot now via the ECU website.
The Libby Leshgold Gallery’s Soft Launch
During a March 23 event at the Libby Leshgold Gallery, musicians Giorgio Magnanensi, Elisa Thorn, Meredith Bates, and Nick Anderson performed along with an installation by artist and musician LOSCIL titled Adrift, consisting of a collection of four pieces of endless music. (Photo by Rachel Topham Photography / courtesy Libby Leshgold Gallery)
Soft Launch, a recent exhibition at the Libby Leshgold Gallery at ECU featuring artists loscil, Justine A. Chambers and Ryan Tacata, was featured in Pancouver and in a national CBC article following its opening in March.
“I’m opening up the space of possibilities for this particular venue,” Vanessa Kwan, director + curator of gallery + exhibitions at ECU, told Pancouver. “For me, what is really fascinating is when we come out of our disciplinary assumptions and allow for other things to happen that we don’t expect.”
“This is a place for research and a place for exploration, and a place for lifelong learning for artists,” Vanessa told the CBC. “I want it to be expected that we might encounter artists who are actively exploring new parts of their practice in the gallery space in real time.”
Read our feature story on Soft Launch now via the ECU website.
Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun on Coast Salish Art
“Sacred is every part of our being, and every part of our lives in our existence here. That’s been the central point of my work here,” says Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun, of his work in the 2023 ECU MFA exhibition. (Image courtesy Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun)
Recent MFA grad Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun (MFA 2023) was the subject of a feature article in The Discourse. The interview was also republished via Indiginews.
In a wide-ranging interview, the Snuneyumxw artist and storyteller spoke about sculpture, history, his work in the 2023 MFA exhibition and the meaning of the sacred.
“A lot of my work has been centered around a quote from elder Bill White, that Coast Salish art is to make the sacred visible,” he tells The Discourse. “I’ve been thinking about that and unpacking that. What does that mean to me? There’s certain kinds of sacred that aren’t meant for the public. And when we work as Salish artists, we don’t represent that in public.
“But there’s a lot of stuff that my great grandmother would talk about, that sacred is all around us. Sacred is every part of our being, and every part of our lives in our existence here. And so what does it mean to make art in light of that? That’s been the central point of my work here.”
Eliot also spoke with Indiginews in 2022 about his journey to becoming an artist.
Visit Eliot’s website and follow him on Instagram to learn more about his work. Watch Eliot speak about his 2021 public art project, at Beban Park Swimming Pool in Nanaimo, Xe’xe’ Squpastul u tu Thewum Qa’ ‘i’ Kwatlkwa, via YouTube.
Leaning Out of Windows in Print
The Leaning Out of Windows book book tracks the project’s exploration of how knowledge can be translated across disciplinary communities. (Image courtesy Occasional Press)
A new print edition documenting the six-year SSHRC-funded Leaning Out of Windows project led by artists and ECU faculty members Randy Lee Cutler and Ingrid Koenig was spotlighted on CBC Books and in the Vancouver Sun.
Titled Leaning Out of Windows: An Art and Physics Collaboration, the book was published by Occasional Press, which operates out of the Graphic Research Unit at Emily Carr, in partnership with Figure 1 Publishing.
The book tracks the project’s exploration of “how knowledge can be translated across disciplinary communities to create new scientific and aesthetic perspectives,” according to the summary on CBC’s website. “It’s a collaboration between scientists and artists seeking to understand the differences between the language they use and how knowledge is developed and visualized.”
Visit the Leaning Out of Windows website to learn more about the book. Visit Figure 1 publishing to order your copy.
Read our previous stories about the Leaning Out of Windows project via the ECU website.