SOVA Visiting Artists-in-Residence January 2013

DAWSON CITY - Two visual artists, Jin-me Yoon from Vancouver and Steven Loft from Toronto, recently spent part of January working with students at Yukon School of Visual Art in Dawson City, Yukon. Both artists were accommodated at the Macaulay House Residence, provided with the generous support of the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture.

Jin-me Yoon

For the past two decades, Yoon’s lens-based work in photography, video, performance, and installation, has explored questions concerning history and place, supported by her underlying interest in the formation of the subject and subjectivities. Her current work on Hornby Island, British Columbia further opens this dialogue about displacement, emplacement and place.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Yoon immigrated to Vancouver in 1968 where she lives and works. She teaches at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, has exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally, and is currently represented by the Catriona Jeffries Gallery in Vancouver.

While in Dawson City, Jin-me Yoon worked with SOVA students in the Performance unit in the 4D class taught by Nicole Rayburn. Yoon’s knowledge in the fields of performance and video, and the intersection of these mediums, her interest in conceptual issues surrounding Canadian identity, place, and cultural narratives, along with her extensive teaching experience at the post-secondary level, made her an ideal candidate to work with the students at this juncture in their 4D studies.

Steven Loft

Steven Loft, of Mohawk-Jewish heritage, is a curator, writer and media artist, and is the current Trudeau National Visiting Fellow at Ryerson University. Loft’s work addresses issues of cultural identity, human rights, and communication, and provides new perspectives on Indigenous art and cultural discourse.

Given the rise of the Idle No More movement, as well as the ongoing hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence, Loft's work with the students in Bill Burns’ 3D class explored the ways in which Aboriginal artists have, and continue, to manifest an activist approach to their art, one that could be classified as an “aesthetic of resistance”.

Mr. Loft, visited our sculpture and multiples (3D) class over in January. He discussed the implications of Alanis Obomsawin’s 1993 NFB film Kanehsatake 270 Years of Resistance  (about the 1990 OKA crisis) and provided a historical and cultural context for the film. A discussion of the ideas of native philosopher Vine Deloria, Jr., some ruminations on “whiteness”, a look at the Indian Act and how the Assembly of First Nations operates was particularly appropriate to our sculpture projects on the Miniature and the Gigantic. Steve was able to tie the notions of the miniature from Susan Stuart’s arguments from our main reading (On Longing) regarding the individual and the internal and to tie the idea of the gigantic to the social or the external.

Later that same week Steve generously provided hands on advice in a series of one to one meetings in the sculpture studio. Thank you Mr Loft.