ANIMATION IN 60 SECONDS:
A still from “Bat Milk” by Brandon Blommaert

“We’re all sweaty and smelly here,” says Maral Mohammadian, associate producer of the NFB’s Hothouse 5 series when asked about how they felt on deadline day. Others, such as participants Jim Verburg and Neely Goniodsky, are done sweating it out. “We’ll I’m feeling okay because I was done about a week ago,” Verburg chuckles.

Verburg and Goniodsky are just two of six participants, including Brandon Blommaert, Philip Eddolls, Sara Guindon and Sylvie Trouvé, selected for this years installment of Hothouse, a three-month intensive program in which participants create minute long animations. Though all six artists interpreted this year’s theme, “The Time I Changed My Mind,” in vastly different ways, they agree that the atmosphere at the NFB and peer support has been one of the best things about the experience.

“I’ve been dreaming about the Hothouse for many years now,” Goniodsky says. “I’m excited to be a part of it and the experience of working at the film board and with everybody has been amazing. It’s a dream come true in a very big way.”

Hothouse 5 screens alongside Travellers’ Guide to Hothouse, CinéRobothèque (1564 St-Denis) on Thursday, Dec. 4 at 8:30 p.m. Free.

by SACHA JACKSON

Girls with big brains

DOLLYWOOD: From Brain Child

Brain Child, a new installation by Toronto-based artist Allyson Mitchell, is on view at la Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (4296 St-Laurent) until Dec. 14. The work consists of a large, knit brain suspended over an assembly of ceramic dolls, some thrifted from stores around Ontario, and others produced in collaboration with a group of OCAD students, from original molds procured on eBay.

The project began with the discovery of a small ceramic girl in a pink bejewelled bonnet. “I was struck by the familiarity of the figure,” says Allyson, who had a fetish for all things Little House on the Prairie as a child. But what struck her most was the figurine’s odd proportions.

“The head is so gigantic. It offers such potential for queering the image and imagining these girls as… giant-sized-brained monstresses.”

Playing with notions of gender, perception and beauty, Brain Child is installed so that it has alternate readings; appearing both phallic and fallopian depending on where you stand.

My favourite part of the installation was the figurines made by Mitchell that did not quite make it out of the molds. They sit crumpled in place, as though too burdened by the weight of their genius to remain at attention.

by STACEY DEWOLFE

 

Nano-publishing at Expozine

Shannon Gerard is the author of the autobiographical comic series Hung, and many other artists’ books on the themes of faith, wishing, hope and loss. She also crochets crazy stuff like houseplants and sex-ed finger puppets.

ANATOMY LESSON:
Gerard’s Boobs & Dinks

Gerard shares her DIY chops with budding zinesters enrolled at OCAD in Toronto. “I like teaching nano-publishing because it doesn’t comfortably fit within an institutional framework,” says Gerard. “The course presents strategies for promotion and distribution of self-published materials as alternatives to the conventional book trade, which automatically challenges the usefulness of the school environment.”

Expozine regular Gerard is joined by 250 fellow subversives at this weekend’s zine fair, Nov. 29–30 from noon–6 p.m. at Église Saint-Enfant Jésus (5035 St-Dominique), with tables manned by individual producers, small literary imprints like Invisible Publishing, Pistol Press and Buschek Books, and American distros like Bodega and Microcosm. Free.

by VINCENT TINGUELY

Circles, cycles and seasons

Summoning knowledge and wisdom from ancestral women of different cultures is the base for Marie-Claude Rodrigue’s new solo choreography Territoires Féminins. Rodrigue, who has Abenaki roots through her great-grandmother, weaves together ritualistic tales to a soundscape of music and collected poetic texts from healing circles.

WOMAN’S WORLD: Rodrigue

A compelling performer, Rodrigue’s character is surrounded by natural elements like rock, earth, water and wood and slips through a multitude of rites of passage such as grief, birth and death while emphasizing circles, cycles and seasons through video projections.

Rodrigue, a former long-time dancer with O Vertigo, explains that her choreographies are fuelled by her long-time work in Qi Gong, which she describes as “working with energy in order to search for an inner calm to feel the movement of energy within us.”

At the MAI (3680 Jeanne-Mance) tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 30 at 3 p.m. Catch the choreographer in conversation after the Friday night show. Tickets: (514) 982-3386.

by MARITES CARINO

Is it art?

ROCK CLASSICS MIMED: You fancy yourself quite the music historian—you know your Faces from your Small Faces and your Genesis from Genesis P-Orridge and you’ve spent a good number of hours, possibly days, weeks or years studying the sleeves of your album collection. But can you tell an album cover by simply seeing it mimed?

That’s the question posed by It’s a Question of Mime, a new game created by The Quietus, an online rock and pop culture mag, that asks you to identify classic album covers by watching them be re-enacted by a classically trained (or so they claim) mime.

Based in Britain, The Quietus was started earlier this year by a group of people tired of the mass and niche music press and who wanted to create something for the “intelligent music fan between the ages of 21 and 73.”

The game itself is simple: you’ve got 30 seconds to type the title of the album the mime is depicting, and the quicker you guess the album, the higher your score. It’s harder than you think. Test yourself at thequietus.com (click on Features).

Arts hole

REFOUND: This is the last chance to catch artist Heidi Barkun’s solo show, Le Temps Retrouvé, which explores the themes of time, place, object and memory through found art. It’s on view at the Visual Voice Gallery (372 Ste-Catherine W., #421) until Nov. 29. • DOCUMENTING URBAN ART: Next: A Primer on Urban Painting, Pablo Aravena’s feature-length documentary about graffiti, is launched on DVD this Saturday, Nov. 29 at la Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent). The party starts at 10 p.m., as part of The Goods with resident DJs Scott C and Andy Williams. Tickets are $5 before 11:30 p.m., $10 after.

Artistat

The number of emerging Quebec artists who are featured in the new book Behind the Object: The role of action in contemporary sculptural practice, which launches tonight, Thursday, Nov. 27 at 7 p.m. at Articule (262 Fairmount W.): 9