Making Space into Place: Eco Art and Media Festival at York U.
Students, Faculty, Community Try to Define Work & Learning Spaces Using Creative Arts, Media, and Environmental Education

TORONTO, March 8, 2000 -- How we make the spaces where we work and learn into more livable places is the theme of York University's Sixth Annual Eco Art and Media Festival. The festival, which runs from Mon., March 6 through Sat., March 11, will include mixed-media art displays, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, dance performances, and video screenings, all attempting to convey how environmentalism and art can help reclaim and redefine physical spaces into places we can call home.

York students from the faculties of Environmental Studies and Fine Arts are the primary organizers of this year's annual Eco Art and Media Festival. Natasha Myers, Festival Coordinator and a graduate student in Environmental Studies, is one of them. She says community members are defined by the spaces they occupy, so they must try to define them. "Through artistic expression and environmental education, we can better understand the interplay between human and spatial forces in the places we inhabit eight hours or more daily."

The festival will culminate in a community Gala Celebration, Sat., March 11 at 1 p.m. - 5 p.m., to be held throughout the first floor of the Faculty of Fine Arts Building and the adjoining Centre for Film and Theatre. Among the gala activities: live musical performances, including a student a cappella jazz ensemble whose voices will fill the space with multi-layered vocal harmonies; a live theatrical combat performance, depicting the destruction of space through war and conflict; interpretative dance performances; film and video-art screenings; mural painting; kids' arts and crafts; walking tours of campus galleries displaying mixed-media art, sculpture, painting, and photography pertinent to place and space.

Counter Culture, a vegan restaurant located on the 3rd floor of the Lumbers Building and run by Environmental Studies students, has mounted two installations for viewing all week. The first is a miniature food-producing eco-system consisting of three vessels linked by tubing that allows the transfer of water from one tank to another: from an aquatic fish tank (filled with tropical fish, plants, and algae) to a bio-filter tank that converts fish waste into plant-sustaining nutrients to a plant production trough containing edible plants such as wheatgrass and watercress. The display is accompanied by posters detailing the processes involved in the eco-system. The second installation is a plaster sculpture of three human forms, painted with insects, fish, or trees, emerging out of the cafÈ wall to reclaim their space.

Community outreach is traditionally part of the festival, and this year York University students will bring their theme of Making Space into Place to Oakridge Elementary School, where approximately 60 elementary school students at the Victoria Park/Danforth area school will define their own learning space by creating a gigantic art-work mural. The event will be held Fri., March 10, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., 110 Byng Ave., Toronto.

All events are open to the public, and will be held on York University's Keele campus, located at 4700 Keele Street. The agenda is attached.

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For more information, please call:

Natasha Myers
Eco Art and Media Festival Coordinator
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 30533 / (416) 604-1841
nmyers@yorku.ca

Ken Turriff
Media Relations Officer
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
YU/028/00

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York University's Sixth Annual
eco art and media festival
March 6 - 11, York University, 4700 Keele Street

Mon., March 6

Opening Space: Spirituality and Ecology, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., Morning Sessions in Room 306 Lumbers Building

Sacred Circle Dancing, 12:30 - 1:30 p.m., Room 306, Lumbers Building

Opening Ceremonies

Walking Gallery Tour, 4:30 p.m., Meet at Akasa Gallery, Student Centre

Visual Arts Reception, 5:30 p.m., Akasa Gallery, Student Centre

Tues., March 7

York Campus Sustainability Forum, 12:30 - 2:30 p.m., Room 306 Lumbers

Making Creative Space at FES: Crafting an Affirmation Spiral, 2:30 - 5:30 p.m., Room 223 Lumbers

Wed., March 8

Gender Fun House Performance, 12:30 - 1 p.m., Room 306 Lumbers

Claiming and Contesting Space & Place: Arts and Academic Forum, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m., Room 306 Lumbers

Open Mike Poetry Reading & Storytelling, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m., Counter Culture cafÈ, 3rd Fl. Lumbers

Thurs., March 9

Film Screening: "Bear" by Sara Marino, 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m., Room 306 Lumbers

Bike 2 York! Exhibition, 4 - 6 p.m., Vari Hall Rotunda

Fri., March 10

Making Space into Place at Oakridge Elementary School, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., 110 Byng Ave., Toronto

Dancing Space into Place: Movement Improvisation Workshop, 2:30 - 3:30 p.m., Dance Studio I, Fine Arts Bldg.

Sat., March 11

Gala Celebration, 1 - 5 p.m., 1st Floor, Fine Arts Building/Centre for Film and Theatre
*performance * film/video screenings * music * visual arts * *gallery tours * food * children's activities *

Throughout the week

Visual Arts Gallery Spaces, (works on show throughout the week), Akasa Gallery, Student Centre

Wild Garden Exhibition Space, Counter Culture, 3rd Fl. Lumbers

Print Media Display Cases, Fine Arts Building (across from the sculpture studio entrance)