2006 Lecture (January) - Arts Everywhere

In the year 2006 we were fortunate to present two Guelph Lectures—the first of which happened on Thursday, January 12th. The keynote conversation was between creative couple Atom Egoyan and Arsinée Khanjian, who had recently released their award winning film Ararat. Our literary guest for the evening was Jane Urquhart, who read from her most recent book A Map of Glass, and the musical guest was Guelph’s very own Nathan Coles Outfit. This evening also featured a pre-show performance by musician Ambre McLean. Tthe lecture’s MC and moderator was cultural journalist Robert Enright.

Download/View the 2006 Program PDF

Essays

Arts and Culture: Human Qualities as Economic Engines

First published March 2005

by Simon Brault

A little less than 60 years after the adoption of Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights –…

All Essays

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Highlights

The names Atom Egoyan and Arsinée Khanjian are often linked and most certainly mentioned when the topic of International Film success is discussed. The husband and wife team have frequently worked together and have, independently, been widely recognized.

Egoyan has produced a body of work in film, television, and theatre, winning numerous prizes at international film festivals, including the Grand Prix and International Critics Awards from the Cannes Film Festival and two Academy Award nominations. His films have been presented in major retrospectives around the world. Egoyan’s installations have been exhibited at museums and galleries in Canada and abroad, including the Venice Biennale. He was President of the Jury at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival, and his production of Wagner’s Die Walküre, performed by the Canadian Opera Company in April 2004, was remounted in Autumn 2006. His latest film in 2005, Where The Truth Lies, had its world premiere at the 2005 Cannes International Film Festival.

Khanjian appeared in the title role of the widely acclaimed romantic comedy, Sabah, by young Canadian director Ruba Nadda. She won a Gemini for best actress in a series Foolish Heart (1999), received a Genie for best actress in a feature film for Egoyan’s critically acclaimed Ararat (2003), and was also awarded best actress by the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa. In addition to her extensive roles in film, both Canadian and International, Khanjian has many prominent stage and television roles to her credit. She is an activist and a community-minded volunteer. In particular, she was the first person to hold the post of Associate Officer in the Film, Video and Photography office of the Ontario Arts Council, has been Bilingual Community Heritage Advisor for the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Communications and was on the Board of The Power Plant, Canada’s leading contemporary art gallery.

In 2005, Jane Urquhart was named an Officer of The Order of Canada, making it official: she is one of this country’s most beloved and celebrated writers. Urquhart’s first novel, The Whirlpool, was also the first Canadian book to received Le prix du meilleur livre étranger (Best Foreign Book Award) in France. The Literary Review (UK) called her next book, Changing Heaven, “An accomplished novel which boldly explores new ground.” Urquhart’s third novel, Away, remained on the Globe and Mail Bestseller list for 132 weeks—the longest of any Canadian book). It also won the Trillium Award for fiction and was a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Underpainter, Urquhart’s next novel, won her the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. The Stone Carvers, perhaps Urquhart’s most famous work, was called “breathtaking” by TIME, was nominated for The Giller Prize and long-listed for The Booker. Her most recent novel, A Map of Glass was released in the fall of 2005. Urquhart is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Storm Glass, and three books of poetry. She received the Marian Engel Award in 1994 for an outstanding body of prose written by a Canadian woman, and is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. She has also been given numerous honorary doctorates from Canadian universities.

Nathan Coles Outfit played its first show together at the 2004 Hillside Festival. Since then, the band has toured Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. They have shared stages with some excellent musicians including Jim Guthrie, Clark the Band, Constantines, Great Lake Swimmers and Jon-Rae Fletcher, to name just a few. On the strength of Nathan Coles’ songwriting, bassist Chris Hierlihy, guitarist Jordan Howard, and drummer Vish Khanna have joined to become a tight quartet, gaining an excellent reputation for their spirited live performances. While Coles earned great praise for his independently released solo EP, Bird (2003), he always hoped to record an album with a full band. With the Outfit assembled, most of 2005 was spent with producer Don Kerr (Ron Sexsmith, Rheostatics) working on their debut album, Twelve Upheavals that Brought the Redwoods to Flight, released to great acclaim on Facehead Records in November, 2005.

Robert Enright is a renowned cultural journalist, known as one of the country’s most eloquent and prolific thinkers on contemporary culture. He spent 25 years as an art critic for CBC and regularly contributes to the Globe and Mail and international art magazines Art News, Modern Painters, and Art Review He is University Research Professor in Art Criticism in the School of Fine Art and Music, and was honoured with an Order of Canada for his contributions in communications. He is the author of Eric Fischl: 1970-2000 and has contributed to several other books on artists, including Tony Tascona: Resonance and Don Reichert: A Life in Work. A collection of Enright’s interviews were published in a 1997 book called Peregrinations: Conversations With Contemporary Artists. In addition to writing about visual artists, he has conducted interviews and reviewed works in the theatre, dance, film and performance art worlds. He is the founding editor and now Senior Contributing Editor of Border Crossings, (Meeka Walsh is editor), a magazine Robert Fulford says “has become indispensable without becoming really well known… It tells us not what we should think but what we should consider thinking about.”

Essays

Arts and Culture: Human Qualities as Economic Engines

First published March 2005

Highlights