Oskinîkiskwêw (young woman) – Amanda Strong
Exhibition dates: June 4 – July 2, 2016
Gallery hours: Wednesday – Saturday from 1-5pm
Opening night: Friday June 3, 2016 from 7-9pm
Artist Talk: Saturday June 4, 2016 at 4pm
Summer’s almost here and at the Oxygen Art Centre that means it’s time for our artist in residence and exhibition season! To start off the season we will be presenting the work of acclaimed filmmaker and director Amanda Strong. Strong is an Indigenous filmmaker, media artist and stop motion director. She is of Michif descent and currently lives in unceded Coast Salish Territory know as Vancouver. Her company Spotted Fawn Productions is an animation and media-based studio focusing on the creation of short films, commercial projects and workshops. Strong says that her work centres around blood memory and indigenous ideology and seeks to portray the truth in myth. Strong will be here in Nelson to install an exhibition of her work including the screening of three films and to give a talk about her creative practice and processes involved in producing her films. Along with the films, the exhibit will include some of the puppets, props and set elements used in the making of the films. This will be the first time Strong has exhibited her 3D creations along with her films in a gallery setting and she is excited to see the relationship between the two forms.
Amanda Strong is originally from Ontario where she studied Illustration, media and photography at Sheridan College. She uses the skills gained in her studies as a departure point in the creation of what has been called a hybrid style film where she combines stop animation and new media technology together. Her films also merge traditional genres such as documentary, animation and narrative into new manifestations. Strong is motivated by a desire to use indigenous stories as a way of speaking the truth and she believes that the english language limits the expression of an indigenous perspective and that by employing sound and metaphor in her films she is able to communicate the truths of her people in a much more effective way.
Amanda Strong’s work as a film maker and director has received great acclaim in the film and art industry. Most notably the Cannes International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and the Ottawa International Animation Festival. She has also received numerous grants and awards including the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, National Film Board of Canada and National Screen Institute. Amanda is currently working on her latest short animation film Four Faces of the Moon for CBC Short Docs. The story is told in four chapters, exploring the reclamation of language and Nationhood, while peeling back the layers of Canada’s colonial history, revealing Canada’s extermination agenda on the buffalo.
Amanda Strong’s exhibition Oskinîkiskwêw (young woman) will open at the Oxygen Art Centre on Saturday, June 4th. An opening reception for the artist and her work will be on Friday, June 3rd from 7-9pm. The artist will give a talk on Saturday, June 4th at 4pm in the gallery. The gallery will be open wednesdays thru Saturday from 1-5 pm for viewing her work. The show closes on July 2nd at 5pm.
Oxygen Art Centre gratefully acknowledges support for this programming from British Columbia Arts Council, Province of British Columbia, Canada Council for the Arts, Columbia Basin Trust and City of Nelson.
