2019 EDAA Finalists Exhibition

With works by Alyssa Bornn (Winnipeg, MN), Colton Hash (Victoria, BC), Ahreum Lee (Montreal, QC), Claire Scherzinger (Victoria, BC), and Jordyn Stewart (Beamsville, ON)

06 – 28 September, 2019

The 2019 Finalist Exhibition brings together five exceptional works that expand the possibilities of digital art practice, providing a robust national assemblage to mark the 5^th edition of the Emerging Digital Artists Award.    

The selected works reveal the evolving and ephemeral nature of digital technologies to consider challenges in respective communication, perceptions of time and endurance, and disconnects between narrative and site.

Through acts of confiding and pursuit, both Alyssa Bornn and Ahreum Lee use typing tools to engage in fraught conversations that speak to the futility and power imbalance inherent in simple technologies. The works combine durational lags in pacing with electronic communication aesthetics, evoking a visceral reaction to a ruptured exchange that unfolds over time. Disorientation in communication is further articulated in the imaginary, dystopic jungle of Claire Scherzinger’s work, in which decade-old video gaming visuals implore viewers to experience a landscape based in real time. In relation, speculative landscape visualization and construction are interpreted in the works of Colton Hash and Jordyn Stewart, who both use collected data and documentation to create abstract renderings of natural sites.

In embracing the precarious potentials of digital technologies, these works offer altered perspectives and storylines that prompt new interpretations of both the virtual and physical environment. 

Now in its fifth year, the Emerging Digital Artists Award celebrates early-career, screen-based artists who demonstrate criticality and creativity in their use of digital media. The EDAA is proudly presented by EQ Bank in partnership with Trinity Square Video.

The winner of the award will be announced publicly on Friday, September 20.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Alyssa Bornn is an interdisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and organizer based in Winnipeg. Her practice regularly employs traditional photographic methods alongside alternative and outdated digital modes of image capturing, writing, and constructed spaces to explore the act of image building as well as our relationship to images.

She holds a BFA (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba and is a member of Open City Cinema, a co-programmer for the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, and an active member in Light Terrors – a loose collective showcasing moving image and audio works as live performance.

Colton Hash is an artist who currently resides as an uninvited guest on Lekwungen territories of Vancouver Island. Hash’s practice is inspired by the wild and anthropogenic landscapes that surround him. He integrates scientific understandings, social concerns and intuitive experience through multimedia creation. Hash’s politically oriented practice has received regional recognition with the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art from the ProArt Alliance. Hash has received a B.Sc. in Computer Science, Visual Arts and Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria, and recently completed an art residency with Ocean Networks Canada.

Ahreum Lee is a musician and interdisciplinary media artist who immigrated to Canada from South Korea. Lee began her career in media arts as the co-founder and frontwoman of an experimental art-rock band Juck Juck Grunzie. After spending nearly a decade producing records and touring internationally with the group, she began to extend her practice into video and multimedia installation work.

Lee has exhibited her work extensively in Korea. Since moving to North America, she has exhibited and performed at Fonderie Darling and Studio XX (Montreal), Axis Lab (Chicago), and participated in the Intersections | Cross-sections conference (Toronto). She is currently completing her MFA in Intermedia at Concordia University.

Claire Scherzinger is an interdisciplinary artist who currently lives in Victoria, BC. Her practice is centred on the process of building new worlds, which she develops through drawing, painting, gaming engines, and podcasting.

Scherzinger holds a BFA from OCAD University and an MFA from the University of Victoria. Her work has appeared in exhibitions across Canada, the USA and the UK. She was also a purchase prizewinner of the 2015 RBC Painting Competition. She recently wrote and produced a sci-fi audio drama, Arca-45672, based upon the world of her paintings.

Jordyn Stewart is an artist from the Niagara Region. She holds a BA, Specialist in Art and Art History at the University of Toronto, joint program with Sheridan College. Stewart is a recent MFA graduate from the University of Waterloo and was a recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Master’s Scholarship. She has exhibited in galleries such as Trinity Square Video (Toronto), Hamilton Artists Inc., Gallery Stratford and Cambridge Art Galleries. Stewart is currently Co-Curator of Art Spin Hamilton and Training and Production Coordinator at Ed Video Media Arts Centre (Guelph).

Exhibition Technician: Ryan Ferko

IMAGES (left to right): Alyssa Bornn, MORE, LESS, ABOUT THE SAME (2019); Colton Hash, Acoustic Turbulence (2019); Ahreum Lee, Memory Palace (2019); Claire Scherzinger, The Last Ansible Transmission (2018); Jordyn Stewart, Landscape Technician (2019)