BANFF, AB, March 19, 2018 – Interdisciplinary visual artist Lou Sheppard (Halifax, Nova Scotia) will embark on a multi-city, national speaking tour starting March 21, 2018 at AXENÉO7 in Gatineau, Québec. Sheppard is the winner of the 2017 Emerging Atlantic Canada Artist Residency, which includes an eight-week fully funded residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity followed by the opportunity to travel in Canada to speak about their experience and project.
Sheppard’s major project in Banff was an aural record of the shifting masses of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. Called Requiem for the Polar Regions, this new work tracks daily changes in ice by analyzing available satellite imagery and then translates this data into musical notation. The project exists as an online installation, a gallery installation, and a series of live performances.
Sheppard’s tour dates include:
March 21, 2018 // AXENÉO7 (Gatineau, Québec)
March 23, 2018 // Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Banff, Alberta)
March 27, 2018 // Access Gallery (Vancouver, British Columbia)
March 29, 2018 // Open Space Artist Run Centre (Victoria, British Columbia)
The Emerging Atlantic Artist Residency is a partnership with Banff Centre and the Hnatyshyn Foundation, and funded through the support of the Harrison McCain Foundation. The Residency aims to strengthen cultural connections between eastern and western Canada by giving one emerging visual artist from Atlantic Canada the opportunity to create new work within the inspiring surrounds of the Banff Centre over a period of eight weeks.
For more information, visit banffcentre.ca
About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity: Founded in 1933, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is a learning organization built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and creative development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become the global organization leading in arts, culture, and creativity across dozens of disciplines. From our home in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to inspire everyone who attends our campus – artists, leaders, and thinkers – to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to society through cross-disciplinary learning opportunities, world-class performances, and public outreach. In 2018, Banff Centre celebrates 85 years of creative practice. banffcentre.ca
About The Hnatyshyn Foundation: Established by the late Right Honourable Ramon John Hnatyshyn, Canada’s twenty-fourth Governor General, the Hnatyshyn Foundation is dedicated to promoting and funding emerging, developing, and mid-career artists and curators in Canada through grants, residencies, and prizes totaling $200,000 annually. Its programs are funded by donations from individuals, private foundations, government, including the Department of Canadian Heritage, and corporations. rjhf.com
Lou Sheppard is Canadian artist working in video, audio and installation practices. Of settler ancestry, Sheppard was raised on unceded Mi'Kmaq territory, and currently lives in K'jiputuk (Halifax.) A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, their work has been exhibited both in Canada and internationally, and was included in the Antarctic Biennale and the Antarctic Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennial. Current projects includes Requiem for Polar Regions, a visual and aural composition of shifting concentrations of sea ice; and a new project researching the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. Sheppard recently completed a residency at the Cité des Arts in Paris in 2017, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, and will be an artist in residence at Khyber in Nova Scotia and a Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence in Toronto in the spring of 2018. lousheppard.com