Kent Monkman At The ROM Appropriating Western styles of portraiture for new perspectives on Indigenous identity WORDS BY ROWAN RED SKY | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS SPACES FEB 26, 2023 | ISSUE 11 From "Being Legendary" - Courtesy of the ROM ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Continue reading in Issue 11 Kent Monkman’s recent exhibit, Being Legendary , recontextualizes a variety of surprising objects from the Royal Ontario Museum’s collections, alongside paintings and sculptural art pieces made by the artist’s studio. A member of Fisher River Cree Nation, Monkman uses the framework of Indigenous cultural specificity to call attention to the way historical narratives of Canada have been written from a settler-colonial perspective. This dominating perspective has been cloaked as objective and universal for centuries by suppressing Indigenous peoples’ histories. Drawing inspiration from Cree story-telling traditions such as âcimowina – stories that carry knowledge – Monkman challenges Euro-Canadian narratives of history and amplifies Indigenous stories and knowledge from within the museum. As with his 2017 exhibit, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience , which sought to reinsert Indigenous voices into the past 150 years of Canadian history, Monkman appropriates and subverts Western art historical conventions... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

The Italian Team Leaders of the Immersive Revolution WORDS BY CAMILLA MIKOLAJEWSKA | CHICAGO | VISUAL ARTS MAR 21, 2023 | ISSUE 9 Massimiliano Siccardi ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Vittorio Guidotti Luca Longobardi Meet the creative team behind the revolution in immersive art: Art Director Massimiliano Siccardi, Creative Director Vittorio Guidotti, and Composer Luca Longobardi. MASSIMILIANO SICCARDI - ART DIRECTOR Massimiliano Siccardi, the Art Director behind many of Lighthouse Immersive’s exhibits, takes it upon himself to revive the works of artists like Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, and Frida Kahlo in new multi-sensory experiences. Massimiliano spent time studying contemporary dance in London before transitioning to video arts where he created mise-en-scènes for choreographers and theatre performances. He went on to become a renowned photographer and now incorporates all his experience into a stunning and immersive marriage between various forms of art. sM | What’s your experience watching the success of Immersive Van Gogh and how well it was received by the public? MS — I think that this work on van Gogh was painful, in a way, because this was my third time doing an immersive exhibit. And this time, I decided to speak of van Gogh as a man . I think that what I was surprised about was that people actually understood and realized that I was talking about presenting van Gogh as a man. sM | Why did Klimt feel like a natural extension of van Gogh? Did any differences between them make this work challenging? MS — Actually, it was a pretty natural extension because I thought about doing Klimt from the beginning. I thought about a trilogy of the three artists that, for me, are the best of the 19th and 20th century. One was van Gogh, the second one was Klimt, and the third one was Frida Kahlo. The real challenge at this point is to continue to speak, not only about the art, but mostly about the people behind the art. I think that I was successful in this, but of course the public will tell us if the experiment of this trilogy was really a success. sM | How were you able to surprise yourself and try something new, while meeting the expectations from the success of Immersive Van Gogh ? MS — These artists represented the idea of big changes for the cultural expectations of their time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to surprise and amaze the audience at the same level. Of course, we’ll see. In fact, with Klimt I brought something new because, for me, it also represents the next stage of the evolution of the immersive art and the emotional realm of immersive art. I always want to go to the next step. sM | What are other concepts, artists, or ideas that you would like to translate into the immersive space? MS — Frida is a very interesting artist because she experienced the Russian Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in the United States. She became an icon because she was the first to give her body to the service of her own art and was the first performer in the traditional arts. That’s why she’s still appreciated. So I worked on her being a pop artist—surreal, but also human. I think she is the first female artist shown in an immersive space in North America. In Klimt’s exhibit, there’s a scene in a painting where two people are trying to kiss but they never connect. I inserted a piece of choreographed dance in the show. These dancers represent what happens in the body the moment you’re going to kiss. There, my background in dance and theatre is being represented in how I make the images dance. VITTORIO GUIDOTTI - CREATIVE DIRECTOR sM | For Immersive Klimt , what did you want to do differently from IVG? And how did your team at Visioni Eccentriche continue to push boundaries with this project? VG — Immersive Van Gogh and Immersive Klimt are stylistically two very different pieces. Van Gogh has purely an emotional approach. Our efforts focused on enhancing the emotions evoked by the paintings. The concept behind Klimt is the idea of Revolution. The Viennese Secessionist painters challenged the art conventions of their time. We wanted to do the same, experimenting with new animation techniques and approach the graphic work from a more contemporary perspective, to give back to these paintings their meanings, but in a modern context. Another novelty was shooting a dance-video that I had the pleasure of directing. We filmed a choreography created by Marco Realino that reinterprets Klimt’s most famous work, The Kiss . This piece evokes the painting’s sensations and creates a harmonic contrast between past and present. Immersive Klimt is a revolution that starts quietly and ends thunderously. Our work is almost invisible at the beginning of the show, but increasingly more evident toward the end, when it completely upsets the nature of the paintings in a climax of minimalistic deconstruction where everything becomes a pure equilibrium of shapes and colors. ​ LUCA LONGOBARDI - COMPOSER sM | The soundtrack for Immersive Klimt Revolution is incredibly diverse. How do you think this diversity compliments the artworks and surprises the audience? LL — This diversity exists because everything in the music, even if not in an obvious way, is a nuanced reflection of the contemporary concept of ‘revolution’. It all starts with Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht , which is used in its entirety and becomes the fulcrum around which the original composition and other musical choices revolve. Tradition allows innovation because it reveals the embryo of language. And it is precisely this language that presents different nuances which, represented in such a unitary context, allows the viewer to exchange Klimt’s vision with ours. Immersive Klimt Revolution allows a conscious immersion in a place of sounds and images that makes us feel at the centre of something bigger, a place with which we can all finally resonate. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

The Last of Us: Natasha Mumba “Everybody’s working from a place of desperation” WORDS BY CARLOS IBANEZ | TORONTO—CALGARY | VISUAL ARTS IN FOCUS FEB 27, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Natasha Mumba By Kristina Ruddick ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Continue reading in Issue 11 Toronto’s Natasha Mumba stars in the highly acclaimed HBO drama , The Last of Us, as Kim, a survivor and member of Firefly. The Last of Us is an adaptation of the video game series of the same name, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. The show takes place in a post-apocalyptic America, a place of desperation where the main goal is survival for both the humans infected with a deadly fungus virus and for the remaining survivors. Too soon? In conversation with smART Magazine , Mumba doesn’t fail to make the comparison between her character’s struggle and the social dynamics that sparked during the COVID-19 pandemic . An aspiring director, Mumba’s involvement was also an immersive learning experience for her. Here she discusses the dynamics of working on a big-budget production, and her growth as an actor and creator. sM | The Last of Us takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been destroyed by a devastating pandemic. What lessons from the real-life pandemic we’re emerging from help to construct the social dynamics of this fictional pandemic? NM ── I think it made me more empathetic... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

"Le nozze di Figaro" at the COC A dose of good humour to rescue this "folle journée" of lust and jealousy WORDS BY DR. JANE ISABELLE FORNER | Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts JAN 27, 2023 | COMMUNITY ​ ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE From the Canadian Opera Company’s production of The Marriage of Figaro, 2023 - Photo by Michael Cooper Luca Pisaroni as Figaro (centre) and Andrea Carroll as Susanna in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of The Marriage of Figaro, 2023 - Photo by Michael Cooper I have always thought of Claus Guth’s Figaro as a shadow performance, as what would result if Mozart’s wicked doppelgänger had written an opera. It’s not just the gloomy colour palette or the looming, faded walls, but a pervasive aura: dark, brooding, sexually charged, and occasionally actually threatening, it gives us an aristocratic household in decay, gripped by conflict and emotional turmoil. The COC’s take on the production, opening the winter season on Friday, succeeded in infusing what I have always found to be a very clever, but simply far too dreary and angst-filled Figaro with a welcome dose of merriment and self-conscious parody. Perhaps a celebratory atmosphere was in the air for the occasion of Mozart’s 267th birthday – fitting indeed, for Guth’s production was originally created for the Salzburg Festspiele in honour of the composer’s 250th year in 2006. To this revival – under the direction of Marcelo Buscaino – the opening night audience responded in kind (indeed some in my row were worryingly hysterical at times), appreciative of the quality acting and genuine comedy to which the ensemble had evidently dedicated much attention. The quality of the performances was noticeably high in unfailing attention to comedic timing, blending with carefully handled moments of stillness and pathos alongside scenes of deeper conflict. Luca Pisaroni was a delightfully witty Figaro, offering a strong, rich vocal performance throughout, and charming in his portrayal as affable and slightly haphazard, and contributed many moments of comic relief. Memorable especially was his bemused wander across the stage holding a dead raven (perhaps a crow?) at arm’s length while continuing the ongoing dialogue. Gordon Bintner’s Count Almaviva brought enough of the requisite authoritarian bully persona to dominate the stage when necessary, but also leaned well into the signature desperate histrionics of this production. We saw a man out of control, acting blindly, irrationally, and often pathetically, but he avoided – mercifully, in my opinion – overexaggerated theatrics. I could perhaps have done without the axe to the Countess’s throat, but fault there hardly lies with the singer. If a slightly bigger sound would have been welcomed, Bintner overall offered a commanding performance. Lauren Fagan impressed as the suffering Countess, always projecting a firm control of line and a warm, lush tone. I did think that perhaps she might have had one less thing to worry about – on top of the philandering husband, a house in disarray, and the feverish amorous attentions of a page-boy – if she put her arms inside the enormous fur coat she sported during (the beautifully sung) “Porgi, amor.” It did, however, furnish multiple opportunities to make a great deal of very dramatic, sudden gestures (and for Susanna, played adroitly by Andrea Carroll, to get good practice in scarpering across the stage to readjust the coat on her ladyship’s shoulders). Under the tightly controlled musical direction of Harry Bicket, the impetus to slow the tempi down to an unbearable crawl, as Nikolaus Harnoncourt did, notoriously, once upon a time in Salzburg, was thankfully shunned. There was enough rubato throughout to allow space for languishing – memorably in the concluding phrases of “Deh vieni, non tardar” and “Dove sono,” for which Carroll and Fagan respectively received deservedly rapturous applause. The intentions of singers and orchestra were not always quite in sync, however, with several noticeable moments where those on stage seemed to be pushing for more flexibility in the line, causing brief disjunctions. For the most part, however, the vitality of the performance was matched on both levels, with Bicket bringing out varied contrasts in orchestral colour. Especially dynamic was what I can only describe as a pervasive, frenzied sexual energy onstage – again, a hallmark of this production, but one to which Friday’s cast brought comic and self-effacing vigour, never taking things too seriously, particularly in the almost erotic threesome between the Countess, Susanna, and Cherubino in Act II as they play dress-up, with Emily Fons singing nimbly and capably throughout as the wayward and lovesick young lad. Although I still can’t get on board with some of the more overly-stylised choreography and the persistent slow-motion sequences, some of the production’s more astute symbolic gestures are emphasised well in a lighter, parodic mode. Bartolo’s wheelchair (and later, cane) neatly captures the character’s struggle between his self-perception as a shrewd, important, stately intellectual, and the reality of his ineffectual impotence, sung and acted skilfully by Robert Pomakov. As Antonio, Doug MacNaughton struck a curiously Elizabethan note in black breeches, boots, and pointed grey beard, entertaining throughout – I particularly enjoyed his hammed-up dismissal during the lengthy Act II finale, where, like an inebriated Batman, he spread his black cloak, casting a large shadow and flitting away to mutter his plant pot-related complaints alone. Completing the Tim Burton-esque arrangement of maudlin-looking gentlemen in grey and black, Michael Colvin was a deliciously wicked Don Basilio, part mafioso enforcer, part slimy go-between, and Jacques Arsenault made an entertaining appearance as Don Curzio (or was it Doctor Strangelove?). Special mention must also go to Uli Kirsch, who, in the added role of the silent, mischievous, all-seeing Cherubim-Cupid, managed both a bout of flawless unicycling, and a spell sitting astride the Count’s shoulders without falling (props also to the latter’s core strength, and ability to multitask basso coloratura and significant physical exertion). I couldn’t find out who exactly Figaro’s body double was, hanging upside down during a passage of Act IV, but at least none of the singers were actually required to perform upside down; the frequency with which one or all of the ensemble onstage at a given moment had to sing whilst lying supine on the floor, the staircase, or on top of (or, indeed, underneath) someone else, certainly deserves added congratulations. ​ Whether it’s an eternal weakness for rising major sixths or the grumpy musicologist in me, I’m not sure I can quite forgive Friday’s audience for erupting into laughter just as the Count began his stirring plea, “ Contessa, perdono. ” We can all think of a time when an over-enthusiastic dilettante, who simply insists on clapping or shouting “Bravo!” the very second the music has ended, has ruptured the stillness, the brief silence after a particularly poignant aria or symphony – in this case, the moment of almost religious supplication that initiates the gorgeous final ensemble passage before the finale – when we feel suspended in time, and we sit there, desperately hoping we can hold on to the feeling for just a few seconds more before the demands of concert etiquette take over. The house quickly seemed to realise that this passage was not, in fact, supposed to be funny, and subsequently quietened. After the somnolent heap of singers awakened for the lieto fine , in the acidic glow of purple and blue lighting, staring solemnly forward, the final tableau comes across far less like the ensemble is about to run off to festiggiar’ , and rather more like they are the last survivors on Earth after an apocalyptic catastrophe, preparing to board the final spacecraft. If this production will be unlikely to become a favourite of mine, as striking as it is, the COC’s approach injected a dose of good humour into the bleakness, the capable comic performances reminding us of the fundamental principle of Figaro : that we act foolishly and erratically out of lust and jealousy. It is, after all, a folle journée (à la Beaumarchais) that is supposed to be the frustrating, messy, and flirty kind of crazy, not the follia of the clinically depressed and psychologically tormented. After all, we have plenty of other operas to turn to for that ( Salome opens Friday, February 3). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Meet the Producers: Alice, Darling “We wanted to show that things don’t have to be physical for it to be bad enough to leave” WORDS BY HAILEY SCOTT | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS IN FOCUS FEB 27, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Lindsay Tapscott and Katie Bird Nolan by Jake Sherman ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Continue reading in Issue 11 It’s easy to identify when physical harm has been done─it can be seen and felt by both the observer and the subject. Psychological harm, on the other hand, can be harder to identify, even if you’re the one being harmed. Alice, Darling , directed by Mary Nighy and starring Anna Kendrick, challenges the “sticks and stones” proverb by illuminating the dangers of domestic psychological abuse and the emancipating power of a support network. Following Alice’s vacation away from her long-term boyfriend, the film unfurls her inner turmoil as she questions whether her boyfriend’s true love is actually psychological manipulation. The emotional complexity of Kendrick’s titular character leaves audiences to grapple with the three-dimensional complexity of her psyche and romantic relationship with her boyfriend Simon. The psychological thriller turns a cottage weekend into a distorting representation of emotional abuse where Alice begins to question the reality in which she lives. Alice, Darling showcases genuine experiences that are often sensationalized in mainstream media as a means of shocking entertainment. Perhaps their subtle and... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

A MAMbo Restrospective How an innovative concept traded neutrality for a cohesive and socially responsible exhibit WORDS BY GLESNI WILLIAMS | BOLOGNA | VISUAL ARTS SPACES FEB 26, 2023 | ISSUE 11 "Ongoing action, duet version" by Alexandra Pirici - Photo by Ornella de Carlo ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Continue reading in Issue 11 Behind the walls of a former municipal bakery, inaugurated in 1917 as a means of increasing the waning bread supply during the First World War in the medieval city of Bologna, lies the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bologna. The space was later expanded and, after several years of closure, was opened again in the 70s as a storage facility. After restoration work on the building began in the mid-90s – overseen by Italian architect Aldo Rossi – MAMbo officially opened its doors to the public in 2007. Today, its industrial history is still visible and plays a prominent role in the museum’s exhibition spaces. In the main hall for temporary exhibitions, Sala delle Ciminiere ( The Chimney Room ), the bakery’s two chimneys are still visible and are often part of the curatorial narrative. MAMbo has a long history of supporting the arts, especially offering space and a stage for performing arts. The most notable was Marina Abramovič’s Imponderabilia which, during its 1977 premiere in Bologna, was promptly shut down by local authorities. In the 21st century, MAMbo continues to offer its spaces as a means of creating dialogue. That dialogue is especially prevalent in the most... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Sheku Kanneh-Mason Brings His Elgar to the Toronto Symphony The celebrated cellist delivers some KANNEH-MAGIC WORDS BY EMMA SCHMIEDECKE | Roy Thomson Hall JAN 21, 2023 | COMMUNITY Danforth Music Hall - Photo by Miles Forrester ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Gary Kulesha and the TSO Sheku Kanneh-Mason by Ollie Ali, Sheku Kanneh-Mason by Ella Mazur | for Issue 11 of smART Magazine In a 100th anniversary celebration season full of guest stars and eclectic programming, audiences were treated to an evening in Great Britain (with a splash of Canada) at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) this past weekend in Roy Thomson Hall. The program consisted of Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for String Orchestra, the world premiere of Canadian composer Gary Kulesha’s Symphony No. 4, and Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, performed by string star Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Nearly the entire program was British-centric: a British opener and a British concerto presented by a British conductor (conductor emeritus Peter Oundjian) and a British soloist. The evening began with Vaughan-Williams’ beautiful Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, a tragically underplayed work outside of its native England. The piece got the audience into the British sound world of sweeping melodies, open harmonies, and string writing of the most satisfying kind, and the orchestra delivered on all three. The audience took a brief sojourn back to Canada with Toronto-based Gary Kulesha’s Symphony No. 4, which offered an accessible introduction to Canadian contemporary music for those unfamiliar with the genre. There were no wacky chords or strange counterpoint in this symphony, though it did offer little tastes of dissonances between unusual instrument pairings to remind the listener that it is a new work that seeks to explore uncharted territory. After the intermission, we came to the event everyone had been waiting for: the performance of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor by Sheku Kanneh-Mason. You could tell this was the performance everyone in the hall had come to see by both audience attendance that packed the seats and the enthusiastic reception given to Kanneh-Mason before he had even played a note. When he walked onstage, you could feel his warm personality, accompanied by an open smile, that made the audience comfortable and ready to enjoy what he had to offer with this performance. To have a young artist of his notoriety play with the TSO is a feather in the group’s cap. Including him in the season line-up brings concert goers both new and old to their table, and whether those audience members came because of concerto choice, or for his playing, they were not disappointed. Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the TSO As a cellist who has performed this concerto with an orchestra, I welcome the chance to hear another interpretation of a work, especially by someone who is from the country where the piece originates. However, any soloist who chooses to play this piece needs to contend not only with learning the notes and discovering their own feelings towards the music, but also the lore that comes with it. Legendary British cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who popularized the piece in the 1960’s and ’70’s, has become so intertwined with this work in so many ways: her dramatic interpretation of the piece, a British cellist whose performances revived the British concerto enough to put it back into the core cello repertoire, and the tragic theme of the work’s first movement being assigned as a musical illustration of her early death from multiple sclerosis that robbed her of her ability to play at the young age of 28. The concerto is imbued with a certain sense of gravitas because of its association with du Pré, and many cannot help but compare any performance of it to hers. This adds a sense of duty to the work that each cellist who plays it needs to reckon with, and Kanneh-Mason’s performance balanced this responsibility with his own unique interpretation. Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the TSO The performance of the concerto’s iconic first movement fully transported the listeners into Elgar’s world of a devastated England trying to re-establish itself after the First World War in 1919 while mourning for an entire generation of young men lost to the horrors of battle. Kanneh-Mason’s playing had a playful manner to it, which was best showcased in the second movement, the most jovial portion of a concerto that is characterized by its crying melodies and nostalgic themes. His interpretation of the third movement was very melodious, allowing the rare tender moments this piece gives us to shimmer. The fourth movement is the most complex, bringing back all the major themes heard in the previous three movements, and requires the soloist to demonstrate dexterity in both technique and emotion, something Kanneh-Mason accomplished in this performance. Throughout the concerto, I do wish his sound was a bit more robust; the passages that took him into the higher registers of the instrument made the music soar, though his middle register was lost at times. This caused the orchestra to curb their collective sound during these moments, but they played with a wonderful sensitivity that lets the soloist shine at all times. Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the TSO All in all, the audience experienced a performance by a young artist who is bringing classical music to the masses and to multiple generations of diverse listeners. At the end of the day, that is what those of us in the classical music world want: to use our talents to share with our communities all the history, beauty, and emotion that classical music has to offer. ​ Tune in for the exclusive smART Magazine interview with Sheku Kanneh-Mason in Issue 11, out February. ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Paola Reyes Melendez SAN FRANCISCO — AiR TOUR — Issue 10 "Woman on Display" by Paola Reyes Melendez Paola Reyes Melendez sM | Given your longstanding involvement with the Precita Eyes Muralist Association, what role do you think murals play in unifying and beautifying elements in a community space? PRM ── Murals play a vital role in representing and connecting with the community; that is the beauty of public art. It is a reflection of how we see our environment, involving culture and a collective voice. Most murals are seen by local residents and workers, which mends the gap in accessible art for all. Murals are a living art form that invites people into a space with proud, vibrant colors singing “We’re here.” Continue the AiR tour in print: ISSUE 9 | ISSUE 10 Sign Up to K eep Up! Our newsletter brings you the best in the visual and performing arts. Exclusive interviews. Global coverage. Local perspectves. sM | How has Frida Kahlo's defiant expression of her cultural background influenced the notion of "identity" in your works? PRM ── Frida Kahlo has created an unforgettable image of her roots, celebrating Indigenous Mexican culture and pride. As well as being a communist and feminist artist. Since moving to San Francisco, I have found a large community of strong Mexica individuals who have been able to connect to my indigenous ancestors and be proud of being a Mexican woman. However, the ongoing struggle with violence against women urges the country to step up and provide more resources to investigate, prosecute, punish, and provide reparation for gender-based violence. This has pushed me further to unite strong individuals to demand all our voices be heard in hope for progress will be passed down to future generations. sM | What is one social issue that your art speaks to the most? PRM ── My artwork tackles the evolving climate crisis and its relationship to our daily lives. With this complex social issue, I hold a mirror up in the hope to inspire the fight against climate change. Since nature has a special place in my heart, the feeling, enjoyment, and respect for what the earth has to offer is like no other; this feeling began when I visited my first waterfall and was in awe of the sight. PREVIOUS NEXT

In The Garden: The Weather Station On The Power of Radical Softness WORDS BY SHERENE ALMJAWER | TORONTO | MUSIC HOMEGROWN NOV 14, 2022 | ISSUE 9 The Weather Station by Danielle Rubi ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Tamara Lindeman by Brendan Ko Tamara Lindeman Since forming in 2006, the members of The Weather Station — a four-piece Canadian folk band — have changed and lead singer Tamara Lindeman has evolved. In the band’s 16-year career, they’ve released six studio albums, the most recent being Ignorance (2021) and How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars (2022). Lindeman, who wrote and produced all the songs on Ignorance , pulls inspiration from both her introspective musical style and the social atmosphere of the world at the time of its creation. While Ignorance sweeps listeners through thoughts on advocacy and climate, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars looks through a more personal perspective, and was recorded live with Toronto-based jazz musicians. Lindeman joins smART Magazine to discuss the latest album, the Toronto music scene and venues that inspired it, and how climate activism found her. sM | When did you know Ignorance needed a follow up album? TL ── Ignorance always felt very complete and certain, but I had also written all these other songs that just didn’t fit with it. I felt sad that these songs were left to sit on a hard drive somewhere … and I knew by the time I was finished putting out Ignorance , these other songs would be too old to go back to. So, I just had these “orphan songs” that I wanted to record for myself. It was also a bit of an experiment recording live with a band. Then the decision to put it out was made many months later and I was never sure it was the right decision. But some of the lyrics feel really relevant, and I hear a lot of intersection between the two records, so I feel that it was the right move in some ways. sM | This latest album has been described as your softest yet, in a time where there’s such an incentive against softness. What’s your argument for staying mellow? TL ── I have a shirt that says, “Radical softness is a boundless form of resistance,” and I never buy shirts that say things, but I had to buy it because I needed to wear it for myself. There’s a lot of fear in the world, and fear tends to manifest as anger and rigid thinking and, right now, we’re all afraid. People are complicated and when you’re dealing with complicated stuff, like climate change, asking people to imagine the world slightly differently is near impossible. And so, I think of all the times in my life when I felt that being gentle allowed me into spaces that maybe wouldn’t have if I was too intense. It’s hard because I can be a little malleable as a human — that’s my weakness — but I also like to think of it as a strength. It’s all of these traditionally feminine qualities that I think have a lot to say to the world. We still prioritize strength and traditionally masculine qualities and yet, in a world that is quickly changing, where we have to manage our pain and fear more than anything, I think some conventionally feminine qualities of care and softness are what’s needed. sM | How has your environmental advocacy developed in both your art and personal life? TL ── At the end of 2018, I went down a climate change rabbit hole and, the more I read, the bigger the impression it made on me. There’s this story I like about Exxon researching climate change in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s and concluding, “Yep, it’s going to happen.” But then they created a misinformation campaign saying the science wasn’t settled even though they settled it themselves. I never think poorly of people, but that blew my mind. My whole life elapsed in this reality of forces trying to pretend science isn’t real. And yet, I’ve spent life feeling guilty for existing. That was what lit the spark. I already cared, but I thought, “I can’t not talk about it,” because I felt so much shock and indignation. That was what pushed me into talking about it publicly and in my music. When I look at how critical these years are, if I waited until I retired, it might be too late. I need to find the next way to advocate. What can I do in the next 10 years? The world is at a critical point, and it’s about everything. It’s human rights. It’s the climate. Everything is connected. sM | How does it feel to be back on stage and interacting with people after the last two years? TL ── It’s interesting. We want our audience to wear masks, but it’s harder to connect because you can’t see faces. I’ve found that some people are excited and some are afraid. There’s a level of discomfort in the audience that I think about. I imagined people would interact more, so maybe I haven’t figured out how to put people at ease yet. That’s not my strong suit. I think I need to grow as a performer and become a master of ceremonies because we’ve all been through a lot. At the same time, it’s been so incredible. I feel really blessed; I can’t believe I get to sing every night. I love it. It’s been bittersweet. It got me thinking about history and how, maybe for the rest of our lives, we’ll be in between crises. It doesn’t mean we won’t play our music or put on shows — after all, people played music in the ‘40s and during the First World War. Before, I was talking about things on the internet, but now that I’m physically in the world, it’s different. I think that this record coming out was the last thing that I had to attend to, and now I’m a little bit more free. There are days when just doing music feels pretty hollow because I’m like, “This is not enough,” so I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet. Tamara Lindeman by Ella Mazur sM | Looking at all the local artists that joined you on this album, why is it important to you to give other Toronto artists a platform? TL ── There’s a side of this record I haven’t communicated yet: it’s an homage to a type of Toronto music that is really centered at the Tranzac music venue. I never felt like I was fully part of this scene because I didn’t go to jazz school like everyone else, but I’m an admirer of this music; it’s some of my favorite music. It’s important to me because it feels uniquely Toronto. This side of Toronto is part of the reason I stay in this music community. This music and the Tranzac are a whole other side to the city. I intended this record as a loving nod to aspects of that music scene, and having some of those musicians on the album was part of it. By having a bit more of an audience across the world, I can hype up artists from here and talk about this style of music. That was all a part of my intention. Obviously, the record is very me, but I wanted to make sure that people knew who the musicians on it were. sM | Which artists are currently inspiring you? TL ── Sometimes I go through phases where I don’t listen to a lot of music — I’ll listen to a lot of podcasts instead and vice versa — but the record I often bring up is Eau De Bonjourno by Bernice. It’s a new record that I’ve been listening to a lot. I also got into this Detroit-based artist, Theo Parrish, who does really interesting things with sound. I’ve definitely been inspired by listening to him. I feel like I’m low on new music right now, but that’s okay. It always comes in waves. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Miriam Cahn Swiss artist makes her North American debut at Toronto’s Power Plant WORDS BY JUSTINE TENZER | SAN FRANCISCO | VISUAL ARTS SPACES APR 10, 2023 | ISSUE 4 From ME AS HAPPENING, Photograph Courtesy of Power Plant ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE From ME AS HAPPENING, Photograph Courtesy of Power Plant From ME AS HAPPENING, Photograph Courtesy of Power Plant At the entrance to the Power Plant’s second level is a large video screen playing what could be described as a high-quality GIF of familiar paintings changing, through a series of overcoats, into the works just seen downstairs. The title of Miriam Cahn’s first major North American solo show of paintings and films at Toronto’s Power Plant, Me As Happening, captures this realization that everything seen before is a moment in an unfolding process. It may be the chance to see them like this as every decision, brush stroke, or wash of colour—even subjecthood—is impermanent. It won’t be easy going back. Miriam Cahn’s work is demanding: her monumental landscapes are overwhelming and her smaller works have a hot intensity that makes them difficult to encounter. The first room, a collection of life-sized nude figures and portraits of aging subjects, titled altich [English title: old-I ], is completely unsentimental and captivating. The 2019 trio of nude figures—one titled was ich sehe ist nicht was ich fühle [what i see is not what i feel] and the other two titled so fühle ich mich [this is how I feel] —with washed pastels backgrounds and the details of the face reduced to the zero-point of identification, a single line or coloured smudge by Cahn manages to tell you everything. The next space is the room of large landscapes, hier wohne ich [this where I live] , which are awesome depictions of Swiss mountains and cityscapes in austere greys and chemical fluorescents. The massive GEZEICHNET [DRAWN] (2014) was worth the journey in itself (since admission at Power Plant is free) with its stony sky and foreground. It grabs the eye with wispy mountain edges that lead to a charcoal-coloured wound in its centre. The east wing has the two rooms— lieben müssen [having to love] and flüchten müsseen [having to escape] —that are most explicitly political, depicting the intersections of violence, sex, race, and the precarity experienced by those seeking refuge in a hypocritically xenophobic Europe. Harsh reds and active lines surround their subjects. It is here where the upstairs video of her process is most instrumental. Faces are painted over and redrawn, most explicitly in vergnügenzeigen [showing pleasure] (2018), which renders expressions of ecstasy, or agony, as incomprehensible or untrustworthy. Cahn’s work never congratulates itself for its subject matter and can be as cartoonish as it is tragic. Cahn leaves the audience’s feelings to the audience, as what we see may not be what we feel. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Gordon Shadrach An exploration of the semiotics of clothing, gaze, and black expression. WORDS BY MACENZIE REBELO & MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK | TORONTO | SPACES SPACES MAR 03, 2023 | ISSUE 10 From "Trade" by Gordon Shadrach ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE From "Trade" by Gordon Shadrach From "Trade" by Gordon Shadrach In the recent exhibit by Gordon Shadrach—entitled Trade , presented by United Contemporary Gallery—the Toronto-based painter explores the semiotics of clothing and Black masculinity. Shadrach compares the historic attire of African diasporic peoples to present-day basketball jerseys, highlighting the parallels between Black soldiers and the modern athlete. Shadrach also collaborated with artists Karin Jones and Damian Jöel in the November 2021 exhibit History is Rarely Black or White . Like Trade, History combines visual art and fashion to examine colonial history and Black heritage. Both exhibits illuminate the oppression of Black culture, expression, and prosperity. sM | In Trade, there is a sense of dignity within the attire—where does that come from? GS — I think it’s not just the attire. I think it’s also the gaze of the sitter. I think I’ve had the opportunity of doing lots of art fairs, where I’ve engaged with lots of art collectors and buyers, and I’'ve interacted with people of all shades. They would say it’s the “gaze of the city,” and they would find it really challenging or really confrontational. When you start looking at the whole history of systemic racism... if a Black man made eye contact with the wrong person, they could be lynched. On the street, there is an underlying sense of fear. I think that’s where a lot of people come from with regards to the Black man’s gaze. So to be having these Black men, in my paintings, looking at you with a very plastic expression... that sense of normalcy, of being gazed upon by a Black man, is dignifying because, for a lot of people, they usually subvert their eyes. I don’t always want to engage with people on the street, so I look away. I’ve talked to other young Black men and they say their hoodie is actually their way of just blocking out all the visual noise. So I think it’s an adjustment and an appreciation of that directness, which isn’t necessarily threatening, but some people find it so, based on their perception. sM | What’s the usual reaction to the “placid normal gaze” in your portraits? GS — What’s been amazing is seeing people come to my exhibits, whether it’s at an art fair or now in a gallery, and seeing them smile. So there’s this comfort that I think comes from, as you said, this sense of dignity. Maybe it’s from the sense of it’s nice to finally see something like this, seeing Black men being presented in a way that celebrates their Blackness, their masculinity, and the ideas around masculinity. In a way that I hope honours them. I see a lot of smiling. I ask people a lot of questions when I have the opportunity and people really get pulled into the idea of the narratives of my work. I speak to some people who have collected some of my work in the past. They talk about looking at the painting and every day coming up with another story or a new narrative or wondering what’s happening in the painting. That is one of the greatest compliments I’ve gotten. When you live with art you want it to be something people can engage with; so, when I create art like this it has a lot of personal meaning to me. ​ sM | What is your understanding of how viewers perceive Black men in paintings? GS — I’ve actually addressed it in a show I did, Visceral , and it was a direct response to the fact that people were looking at paintings of benign expressions without emotion. This idea of defiance, I’ve seen it over and over again used to describe portraits of Black people who happen to look comfortable. Looking comfortable without questioning why they’re there is an act of defiance, right? So I got really upset about it and started thinking about how we are trained as children in the diaspora to hold our fear, and our anger, under the surface because of the risk that it puts us in. So with Visceral , I wanted to depict various emotional states, because I thought if people are going to say that my sitters looked angry or this or that, I might as well do a show on that. I also did a series of hoodie paintings. They were the first paintings that I did with hoodies, where it was about the face being covered and the emotion suggested by the body language and the colour of the hoodie. So the titles were just “Red”, “Black”, and “White” because I wanted neutrality in the title and everything, and the emotional response to be something that people were reading into it. So the long answer is that I am well aware of the fact that you can’t have a neutral face Black person in a painting because people will often describe them as defiant or angry. You start to realize how much racism there is within this system of interaction. insta: @gordon_shadrach ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Andy Shauf’s Norm The singer-songwriter finds a new creative process to match a compelling narrative WORDS BY CALEB FREEMAN | TORONTO | PERFORMING ARTS ALT.ITUDE FEB 27, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Andy Shauf by Angela Lewis - Photography Courtesy Of The Artist During the early months of 2020, while the world was sheltering in place, singer-songwriter Andy Shauf took to the garage of his Toronto home to start a new record. The Regina-born musician has garnered international acclaim since the release of 2016’s The Party and 2020’s The Neon Skyline , including a nomination for the Polaris Music Prize. His solo discography and work with the band Foxwarren have cemented his reputation as a meticulous songwriter and gifted storyteller. It’s hard to imagine anyone with these credentials being critical of their output, but Shauf, a self-described perfectionist who writes, performs, and produces all his albums, was looking to do something new. The result is Norm , Shauf’s latest record via Anti-. While the album is unmistakably Shauf’s, it is largely uncharted territory. The instrumentation trades in guitars for pianos and synths, resulting in a dreamy, jazz-inflected soundscape. Like The Party and The Neon Skyline , Norm is a concept album, but the narrative is more obscure and sinister than its predecessors. There are three narrators — a god-like figure that presides omnisciently over the album, a lovestruck tow truck driver, and Norm — as well as a fourth character who is a source of infatuation for the other characters. Whereas Shauf’s previous albums saw characters navigating complex relationships in close-proximity settings — at a house party and a bar — the characters in Norm view each other from a distance. The narrative unfolds like a story by Flannery O’Connor or Joyce Carol Oates, with a violent and obscure conclusion listeners must parse for themselves. Norm Album Cover ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ Andy Shauf by Angela Lewis sM | This is your third concept album, but it seems that storytelling has always been a big part of your music. How has your approach to crafting narratives changed over the years? AS ── When I started writing narrative songs, it was vast, unexplored territory for me. I would choose a scenario and try to write something about it. In some ways, you find the things that work for you and the things that don't, so it sort of gets easier, but the more subject matter you've covered, the less you can do. You don't want to retread. Early on, I had songs like “Hometown Hero” and “God Bless The Peaceful Man,” where I would take a character and throw them into an intense situation. It was fun to do, and I felt maybe like an old country and western songwriter writing about the Wild West or something. But at a certain point, I realized I couldn't keep up with this sort of shock-value songwriting. So I took the stories to a place I was more familiar with. In The Party , that was a period in my life where I was going to a lot of parties, so I took characters and wrote them into my familiar life. Then with The Skyline , I did the same thing─only it wasn't a party, it was a bar. When I started writing the songs for Norm , they were unrelated. I wanted to make Norm like a normal record, a collection of songs. What ended up happening was that I looked at the batch of songs I had, and found a way I could turn all the details towards relating to each other. I decided that to further my writing, I had to take this to a place I wasn't familiar with and that was disconnected from my actual life. sM | This record has a lot of trademarks I think listeners will recognize from your previous albums, but in several ways it feels like uncharted territory. For one, the narrative is darker and more ambiguous. How did the subject matter develop for you? AS ── At a certain point, I wrote the song, “Telephone.” I had been complaining a lot about talking on the phone with this person I was kind of seeing at the time. I didn't like talking on the phone, and I was whining about it. So, I wrote this song where the first verse sounded like it's this person longing to talk on the telephone, and the second verse is from the perspective of someone who's calling on the phone but also watching through a window─watching the person pick up the phone, and their reaction. When I wrote that song, I already had the title for the album; I was going to make a normal album called Norm . When I wrote the song, I thought that could be Norm — this person who’s watching — so I started to take the songs in that direction. I had already finished most of the songs for the record, so when I found Norm, I decided I would change the lyrics to the songs — one by one, detail by detail — so that they worked with each other. It was a very loose batch of songs lyrically, and I started tightening up the narrative so that everything worked together. I hadn't really done that before because I guess I had decided that when you write a song, the lyrics are unchangeable or something. It was a painstaking process of changing line by line, recording it, and listening to it for a night to see if it could anchor itself in the new way. If you want to know what I intended with the record, there are three different points of view. On the physical record, it's indicated with these symbols. There was a point where I had this story and these different perspectives I was writing, and I was trying to figure out how I could make the perspectives uniform. Then I watched Mulholland Drive . There's a lot of symbolism and stuff I didn't understand. At a certain point, there was this shot of a key on a table, and it zoomed in and stayed on that shot. I was like, this is the slowest pan ever. It was like three minutes, then five minutes. I'm thinking, “This must have been chaos in the theatre. Like, this is wild.” Then my browser closed, and I realized the movie had just frozen─and I was watching and interpreting this frozen scene like a dummy, thinking it was so genius. It made me realize it's probably better if I don't tie the story together nicely because the way people interpret things is how they find their meaning. I thought I should leave some narrative space for people to interpret. sM | With Norm , you wanted to write a normal record, yet the end result is this kind of ambiguous narrative inspired by Mulholland Drive . What was that evolution like? AS ── I think that in trying to do a normal record, I ended up finding a process that's going to work well for me in the future. When I was writing The Skyline , I was trying to write the story song by song. One of the first songs I wrote for that album was the first song, “The Neon Skyline,” which introduces the story, and then I wrote the album linearly, front to back, trying to figure out what was going to happen. Whenever I would hit a wall, I'd have to scrap a song and write a new one in a new direction. The process that I found with Norm was just more revision. It's how I've always done it with the music side of things where I have a general idea musically, and then I refine it and refine it until I'm happy with it. This process on Norm was the same when I started with very general lyrics. Like the song “Norm,” it actually started out being about this guy buying a sandwich. It was like, “Oh boy, Norm in the sandwich line” or something, and I knew when I wrote those lyrics that they weren't going to stay that way. At a certain point, I changed the chorus. I've always had this misconception in my head that authors of books will just start writing and then finish writing. What I realized is that probably most authors are writing books in small chunks, changing details, fixing things that don't work together, and ending up with this big clump of words they continue to refine. Eventually, they end up with a novel or a short story or whatever they're trying to write. That’s essentially what I did with Norm . I'm excited to have found that process. Andy Shauf by Angela Lewis ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

TEXTILES: Laura Rokas How can galleries make more space for less conventional media? WORDS BY AMELIA JOHANNSEN | MONTRÉAL | VISUAL ARTS MATERIALS FEB 24, 2023 | ISSUE 11 “Self portrait”, 2022 by Laura Rokas ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Continue reading in Issue 11 Combining patience, persistence, and patches, Montréal-born artist Laura Rokas’s multi-media artworks exemplify a new body of contemporary slow art. Creating each piece stitch-by-stitch, patch by meticulously embroidered patch, the production process of her detailed works often takes years. As an artist who enjoys compiling and communicating through minute detail, Rokas was naturally drawn to mediums that cultivate experimentation in textures, especially ceramics and textiles. Her remix of symbols and themes drawn from iconic 1990s marketing, literature, and science fiction quaintly usurps the expectations of the traditional mediums she has embraced. Through her quilts, handwoven tapestries, sculptures, and paintings, Laura participates in exhibitions and public art displays in Canada and the United States. Speaking with smART Magazine , Rokas calls on curators of international museums and galleries to expand their perspectives to engage diverse and non-commercial artists working in atypical mediums... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Angel Olsen’s Big Time “Why am I so unafraid right now?” WORDS BY MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK & REBECCA LASHMAR | ASHEVILLE | MUSIC ALT.ITUDE MAR 16, 2023 | ISSUE 10 Angel Olsen by Angela Ricciardi ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Angel Olsen by Angela Ricciardi Album Cover for "Big Time" Big Time , the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Angel Olsen, was released in June 2022 to much anticipation and even more acclaim. Released by Jagjaguwar (Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten), the fiercely independent album is underscored by a creative concept that marks a new phase in the artist’s self-ballasted evolution. Big Time is at once ethereal and terrestrial. The ethereality that popularized Olsen’s unique sound is here ensconced in a lyrical realism set in the soil of the artist’s recent upheavals. At the age of 34, Olsen came out to her parents, the joy and courage of which was pruned by the devastating loss of her father three days later. Two weeks later, she got the call that her mother was in ER, followed by hospice care and a second funeral in an excruciatingly short period. This is the difficult terrain from which Big Time grew, an album whose title song explores the double entendre of “I love you big time” and how grief can expand into the size of a small planet that our lives must orbit over and over. Recorded in Topanga Canyon, California, the album’s soundscape is similarly spacious, spreading upwards and outwards in symphonic swells and digging down towards the rocky gizzard of memories. So compelling was the aura and atmosphere of this sonic reality that Olsen, an equally gifted actor and storyteller, created a companion film ( Big Time Film ) for the June release. In it, she relives the events and realizations that animated a few chosen songs, with scenes that seem to be connected by a time machine and cast in the dim memorial glow of a fading photograph. From her dazzling dreamscape that is Big Time to her appearance in the Karen Dalton documentary, In My Own Time, Olsen joins smART Magazine to talk about future aspirations in film and current creations in music. She also dives down into the aesthetics and influences that tie the visual universe of Big Time together. With a lot of growth and change in recent years, Angel uplifts the importance of embracing the difficult lessons that only grief can teach and the connections that she is forever grateful for. sM | Your acting is terrific in the film companion for Big Time, is this something you’d be up for pursuing even more? AO ─ I’ve had a few acting opportunities that I’ve turned down or that I shied away from. In music, I get to do it all. I get to act, perform, and then edit. I have more of an interest in directing and writing than acting. If I were to sign up to be an actor in someone else’s film, I don’t get a say in how something’s edited. So for me, the only way that it would work out was if I really trusted the vision of whoever I was working with. It doesn’t interest me to be an actor; I don’t have the patience for it. When I filmed Big Time , I had to be ready for every scene. It was the same amount of work for me as it was for the crew. The whole thing taught me how much I don’t want to be an actor. There’s a couple things that came up recently that I might have to do because they’re really interesting projects. That said, I’m a musician, and I’m a writer, and I like to edit. I like to be in control. It’s challenging for me to be in a position where someone else is in charge of how my identity appears in the world. I would love to write more films and not act in them. sM | From the photo shoot to the album cover to the film, the aesthetic is very consistent throughout the conception of this album. Was this an aesthetic that came before you realized the songs on Big Time ? AO ─ I was going through a sort of sexual identity crisis during the time that my parents passed away. I consider myself queer. I went through this whole period of time where I hadn’t explored this part of myself, and I was wanting to celebrate it in some way. This material is an open wound, like my parents passing away was an open wound. I had all these dreams about time travel, and I had really vivid dreams, and I wanted to create something that seemed like it was right out of a painting. And that’s what we wanted to do in the film. I want it to feel like just out of a dream. There is this kind of like a synchronicity that happens when you’re creative, and you’re making something. A lot of times when I’m making films or making music or playing live with people, I think to myself, “Wow, what are we all doing?” We’re all just pretending that we know what this is. But the truth is, all that matters is that we’re here, and we’re connecting to each other. I love that. I love making art with new people and searching for a different way of seeing things with them. sM | Last year you appeared in the Karen Dalton documentary In My Own Time as the voice reading her journal entries. How has Dalton’s work influenced you as an artist? AO ─ I avoided her for a really long time. I had friends who were obsessed with her and they were like, “You’re the same.” And I hated that for a long time because I was like, no, I’m not as affected; it’s really different. She’s bluesy. It just hit one day; you avoid something like the plague because people are pushing it on you like a good book or a good song. But it finally just hit one day, and I was like, you know what, fuck it. If we sound alike a little bit, that’s fine. I like her. She suffered big time. She struggled with addiction and homelessness and living a really tough life. She struggled, but she knew how to keep finding beauty and looking for it and these dark places. And I love that. I have a soft spot for people who can’t avoid the fact that the veil was lifted in their life, and they do something with it. Who I think really sounds like her is Jessica Pratt, who I also really love, and she's also really different. Angel Olsen by Angela Ricciardi sM | One of the interesting things about this album is how it plays with time and how grief warps time. As someone whose grief has been so concentrated over a short period of time with the loss of your parents, how did that distort your experience of time during that period? AO ─ I’ve changed a lot. I felt like I was going through puberty again when it came to my sexual identity and how I felt. And there’s a lot of stuff I’d like to change about the way that I live my life because of it. Starting with coming to terms with being a musician and capitalism, and how do I learn to share more with people? How do I learn to invite people in more, and how do I stay in? How can I balance the rapid-fire news that we take in every day without it eating my soul away? How do you step out for other people who can’t step out for themselves? It was a lot of learning and relearning and unpacking political shit in my life. Trying to be more aware of my place in this world and how it affects people. As a musician, I feel more of a duty to just be aware of my privilege and find a way to connect with people. To be more honest and not afraid of being real with people. I didn't feel like, oh, I'm struggling extra. I think I was just like, everybody's losing. And the pandemic makes it worse, but I didn't feel self-pity about it. I think the biggest lesson of loss and grief is that it forces you to face your own mortality. There’s a huge blessing that comes after the grieving part. You get to look at life like it matters again. Everything matters a little bit more and not in a bad way. I was on TV with bands a few weeks ago, and I remember cracking jokes with the host and I was thinking, “Why am I so unafraid right now?” And I think part of it is, we’re all going to die. Might as well have fun. Might as well be real. Don’t be afraid of the status or the situation. Talk to people, find out about them, learn about them. Angel Olsen by Angela Ricciardi sM | In her write-up for this album, novelist Catherin Lacey wrote, “Darkness inherently suggests depth, but it takes a much wiser writer to find meaning and complexity in the luminous place that Big Time occupies.” I think this captures the album’s cover art, the way the sunlight is hitting your face on one side and there’s darkness on the other side. You are facing the sun with a thousand-yard stare. Throughout the last two years, and who you are now, what are you most grateful for? AO ─ I think the need to connect is one of the things that people talk about when they talk about losing people in their life. It made me want to connect with people more and in a real way and notice the relationships that I’m nourishing. And attempt to nourish the ones that I wasn’t. And if they weren’t giving back and it wasn’t working, to let them go. I feel very grateful for those gifts, and it’s lonely when you realize your friendships aren’t serving you. That’s a lonely feeling, especially after losing parents. But I’m so grateful for my friendships, and there is nothing in this life that’s better than a good connection with a friend that has seen you grow, seen you be terrible and still loves you. There is nothing better than that. Not a partner, not anything. ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture