Floyd Kuptana-Urban Hunter Celebrating the life of an Indigenous Artist WORDS BY EMILY TRACE | SAN FRANCISCO | VISUAL ARTS STUDIO SESSIONS MAR 31, 2023 | ISSUE 4 Floyd Kuptana by Bailey MacIver ​ ​ 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 Kuptana with his artwork Artwork by Floyd Kuptana The story, the inner life, and the inspiration behind an artist and their work is never simple nor linear. Our most revered artists are made of a complex mosaic of memories, shattered and reassembled into tangible creations of their greatest experiences. Artists carry with them the unique gift of sharing the most vulnerable and hidden depths of the human experience—one such artist was Floyd Kuptana. In May of 2021, Kuptana, an Indigenous artist, died in Toronto. His life was spent riding the waves of success and despair. Despite a strong personality, and intense magnetism, he often projected the feeling that he was undeserving of his mountain of artistic achievements, and had a roaming sense of belonging. Kuptana’s social worker remembers, “He was never given an opportunity to be loved or show affection to himself.” In a tribute to the artist, friend and colleague Richard D. Mohr remarks, “Kuptana would often go begging outside five-star hotels in Toronto, even when he didn’t need the money. Eron Boyd, Gallery Arcturus’ manager, says that Kuptana called it ‘urban hunting.” Floyd Kuptana was born in Cape Parry, Northwest Territories in 1964. Moving to Toronto in the 90s, his Inuit carvings and inspired paintings have been received at local, national, and international galleries. A permanent collection of his works is displayed at Gallery Arcturus in downtown Toronto. Mohr remarks, “Though many people were repulsed by him and his work, others loved him, but he found that difficult to register.” Kuptana’s work depicts vibrancy in Northern life. His paintings—spotted with animals, skies, nature, and colour—are unapologetically playful. His sculptures were, as Mohr describes, “an unsettling mix of whimsy and horror”. Reflecting on his style, Mohr writes, “Many of the two-dimensional works move into the realm of the uncanny and the grotesque, a realm made all the more disconcerting with brash colors and allusions to pop culture and art history… Kuptana’s own graphic work seamlessly fused traditional Inuit themes of shamanistic transform with graphic techniques of the cubists. Both his life and work bear strong family resemblances to Outsider art and artists.” A stark difference from the daily inner war that Floyd fought on the frontlines, his collective works—detailed and full of life—are a call back to his Inuk upbringing. Mohr goes on to write, “Van Gogh was his favorite artist, as much for that artist’s life as his works.” Delving into visual sound poetry, Kuptana explores variations of Van Gogh’s Starry Night in his own untamed, bright, punctuated style. However, with admiration comes life in parallel – both Van Gogh and Kuptana created breathtaking works while inwardly tormented. The following is a testament by Ines Tercan, as she reflects on Floyd, as an artist and a friend, and her understanding of the complexities and layers of the man that she knew. “I met Floyd for the first time in St. Lawrence Market. I recognized him as I had seen his art before in the AGO. I was surprised to see he was going up to people and asking them for $20. I figured he was a successful and celebrated artist as I had heard he was the only living Inuit artist to have his work showing in the AGO. I felt compelled to talk to him. I gave him $20 and then asked him if he would like to join me for a coffee. He agreed and seemed to be quite happy to talk with someone. We had a nice conversation and I suggested that we go for lunch the next day. He gave me his address and I picked him up for lunch. He suggested that we go to Kensington Market, so I took him there. Even though I bought him food, he didn’t eat anything, so I took it for him to go. As we were leaving, he asked me to buy him some wine from the LCBO. I didn’t like the idea of that, but he insisted in a way that had a frightening sense of urgency to it, so I agreed, and he brought 3 bottles of wine to the cash register. I reluctantly paid and then dropped him off at home. After that I was conflicted regarding my interactions with him. I really appreciated him as an artist, but his drinking was difficult for me to deal with. He would frequently call me after he had been drinking and I had a hard time understanding what he was saying because he was slurring his words. Sometimes I would be in a patient mood and would talk with him, other times when I was stressed, I felt I could not pick up his call. One time I decided I wanted to see his art in action, so I brought a portrait that I had of myself and asked him to do whatever he would like with it, to create some collage art. He was very happy to do it and when he was making art, I felt he was at his best, putting lots of thought and energy into his work. I introduced him to someone I knew who was running another art gallery and they began to work together right away. I thought that things were going to go well for him, though it didn’t work out that way in the end. Artwork by Floyd Kuptana One time I came over and brought him some food and he told me later that he had given it to one of his friends. To this day I have never seen him eat. One of my friends kept asking me to bring her to meet him and I kept putting it off, but one day we arranged to visit him. Shortly before we could do that, I received word from my friend in the art gallery who was working with him that he had passed away the previous day. His passing left me with a lot of questions about him. Why would someone so talented, who was already a respected artist go down the path that he did? Why was he begging on the street when close by, his paintings were selling for over $1000? I realized that he had a hard life and many things happened to him. I am originally from Russia and didn’t know about the residential schools and the experience of First Nations children in Canada until it came up in the news. When the 215 children were found in a residential school in Kamloops it was a big shock for me. It went against my impression of Canada as a country. Floyd went to a residential school when he was younger, and he had also confided in me that he had suffered abuse in the correctional system as well. Kuptana with a portrait he painted of Inessa Tercan Within this context I understood the contradictions that made up his personality. He was a brilliant artist, with a bright innocent looking face who never tried to capitalize on his gifts as an artist and created the art for the sake of it alone. On the other hand, he was wrestling with some deep trauma that had been inflicted on him, which had shaped his self-destructive behavior and prevented him from reaching his full potential as an artist. It was really sad to see that he wasn’t able to overcome his struggles, but he left behind some of the most genuine and original works of art I’ve seen, in all my years in the art world. I think that his work should stand as a testament of his resistance to the forces that tried to erase his spirit and as a record of the existence of that spirit in the world during his lifetime.” Artwork by Floyd Kuptana Childhood is not always a safe place to return to. In his formative years, he endured every form of abuse. The continuing searches of former residential school sites have unearthed the graves of children whose childhoods were ripped from them as part of an ongoing genocidal regime. Kuptana was born into a society and government that advocated for systems curated to kill the child within him. Against injustice, he lived. He carved his culture into indestructible stone. He covered canvases with colour and light. Kuptana made art that reflected the hope of childhood that he spent his life searching for within himself. While any amount of suffering and trauma does not make someone an artist, it can, however, fuel the need to create. But when it all becomes too much to bear, and art as an outlet isn’t sufficiently numbing, how does one quell the fire within? As it is, and as it has been, addiction overwhelms the artistic community. While we can turn to art to transform our hurt into something beautiful, the reality remains that artists are often clouded by pain that is too enveloping to conceptualize into form. Floyd Kuptana’s work lives on. When visitors and spectators walk through his respective galleries, they won’t see his decades-long battle with himself. They’ll see what was made from the hands of someone who faced the worst side of humanity and came out on the other side. Fraught, and perhaps looking for relief in all the wrong places, he created something beautiful in spite of it all. The urban hunter lives on— in his canvas, carved into stone, forever telling the story of a ferocious and relentless spirit. ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

YOUTH LAGOON RETURNS After a seven-year hiatus, Trevor Powers touches grass with the revival of his neo-psychedelic project WORDS BY BRONTE CRONSBERRY | BOISE | ALT.ITUDE ALT.ITUDE JUN 25, 2023 | ISSUE 12 Youth Lagoon The Sling photo by Tyler T Williams “There was so much numbness and the more that the numbness goes away, the more I see beauty in everything” Trevor Powers After a seven-year hiatus, Boise-based Trevor Powers has returned to Youth Lagoon with the release of Heaven Is a Junkyard . Powers moved on from the creative outlet in 2015, writing at the time that “there is nothing left to say through Youth Lagoon”. His return to the project is an insightful meditation on personal struggle and a shift in mental perspective during his hiatus. Deeply fascinated with the psychological, psychedelic, and spiritual recesses of the creative mind, Heaven is the realisation by Powers that Youth Lagoon still has much more to say. Powers has been making music under his own name since the 2015 release of Savage Hills Ballroom — the last album released as Youth Lagoon — but in 2021 his artistic output was interrupted by a health crisis. A reaction to an over-the-counter medication caused him to temporarily lose his ability to speak, leading to a lengthy battle to reclaim his health and the ability to perform. The scorching influence of that experience lingers throughout Heaven , most notably in the track “Trapeze Artist”, and seems to underpin the shifts that led Powers to return to Youth Lagoon. Heavily inspired by cinematic influences, the music videos that accompany Heaven provide a kaleidoscopic refraction of this album’s vision, and the latest evolution of Youth Lagoon’s aesthetic. Peppered with dramatic shots of middle-American wastelands, picturesque fields of the rural outback, and tired-looking streets, the visual landscape of the music videos both compare and contrast the album’s eclectically assembled soundscape. Desolate and parched landscapes appear throughout these videos, often traversed by Powers’s frail figure in pursuit of phantoms and memories that seem more real than the landscape. Altogether, it’s harder now to determine where Powers ends and Youth Lagoon begins, but the project nevertheless remains committed to the experimental sound and outlaw-ethos that engendered the pre-hiatus work. ​ ​ 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 Youth Lagoon - photo by Tyler T Williams Trevor Powers TRUTH sM | In your commentary about getting over the block to writing “Prizefighter” you said there was this voice that said “Don’t make it great, make it true.” How does that reflect what you value most now in terms of creative output, and how have the last eight years pushed you in that direction? TP ─ I see truth in music as something that is inscrutable, right? You write something down, you’re not even sure why it makes sense, but it just does. I’ve been able to find these spaces in my mind where I can access those moments, because they really are moments. I might have one thing that is true and that might be the only thing for the whole month, even with me working every day. So I have to really put in the time to get all the bad ideas out of my system so that I can find the one remnant of truth, write that down, capture it, and then move on until I can find the next thing. In truth is greatness, and so you can’t really have one without the other. But if you’re trying to just make something great, you would just be doing it for the wrong reasons; there’s a kind emptiness or this void that goes along with that. Whereas, if you just pursue truth, then you check the box of greatness without really trying. LANDSCAPES sM | One of the things that’s striking both in the lyrics of a few songs on Heaven — and much more in the music videos that have been released — is the sprawling landscape that they’re describing. You’ve always sort of written about “far away things,” but here your gaze is returning to your immediate surroundings. What’s changed for you regarding the relationship between the internal phantom world, and the external landscape you’re exploring in this album? TP ─ The word ‘phantom’ is so important because you sense something is there, but when you reach out your hand, you can’t feel anything physically ─ you feel something spiritually. That’s where my life keeps taking me, to these places where there’s ─ you can call it god, you can call it nature, the great unknown, the veil. But it’s all really this unified thing and no one knows what the fuck it is. Some people don’t even recognize its existence, while other people devote their whole life to chasing whatever that thing is. I’m one of those people. I sense this endless love or this wholeness, this peace, this harmony, the more that I can spend time in quiet places. So I’ve been making it a huge point in my life lately, at least once a day, sometimes twice a day, to just sit in a room. I keep talking about meditation, but just closing my eyes and being still, being away from distraction, being away from everything that we only think the world is, this physical place. But the more that I keep going inside, into this endless void, it just keeps giving me so much in return. A huge thing is this feeling of wholeness, and I don’t know if I’ll ever know what that is, but the more time I devote to that unknown territory, the more it gives my life in return. REVIVING YL sM | You’re going back on tour, at least under the banner of Youth Lagoon, for the first time in a long time. In the time that’s elapsed since, you’ve changed in subtle and major ways, and your fans have changed along with you. As you’re preparing to perform songs from across your entire catalog, what’s been going through your mind in terms of how lyrics that you wrote over a decade ago have changed? TP ─ You know, it’s crazy how much I still stand by every single thing I’ve written in my past even though I might not be the same person when I sing it, but because a previous version of myself wrote it, it still holds true. I still sense this spark and this life in it. I was kind of nervous to go back to some of this older material and think, how do I wanna rework this? Or do I want to rework it? Do I want to present it exactly as is? But yeah, it was pretty wild because as soon as we got into playing this stuff, it could come out today and it still feels true. ​ “THE SLING” sM | The music videos look incredible─“The Sling” in particular has a Terrence Malick-type Americana quality to it. As you were writing the songs on this album, what visual landscape were you envisioning and how did these visions translate to the shared universe of these videos? TP ─ I always saw it in my head as I was writing because I think constantly in terms of visual imagery, and I would say I’m way more inspired by filmmakers than musicians. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to a lot of music, but with music, there’s kind of a cap on how much you can listen to something before, as a musician, you start pulling from it, you start stealing from it, and I don’t ever want that. So I can watch movies all day long and steal from them constantly because it’s a different medium. You can play with them in new ways where it’s actually not theft─you’re creating its own identity. I’ll watch so many things, and it’ll give me either emotional ammunition or just mental pictures to play with, and then I take that into my music and it instantly gives me so much to work with. I would say it’s that, combined with the scenery that I’m surrounded by on a daily basis throughout my neighbourhood. I used to only pull from things that were far away because that, to me, seemed more interesting. The more present that I became as a person, the more I realised the most exciting thing is next door or right down the street. I was like, what kind of interesting thing could I find from home? You could have a life’s worth of inspiration just on your fucking street if you only paid attention. And I was never paying attention. ​ “PRIZEFIGHTER” sM | “Prizefighter” has an incredibly cinematic look to it. Were there any films or directors that inspired this aesthetic? TP ─ Definitely Andrei Tarkovsky. Yeah, he’s one of my favourites. He’s one of my biggest influences ever. The film Stalker , that’s my number one favourite movie of all time. Tyler [T Williams] and I fucking loved Tarkovsky, and we reference Stalker with almost every single thing that we make. We just nerd out about that movie, all of his work really, but that movie specifically. ​ “IDAHO ALIEN” sM | So a couple of kids showed up with guns on the first day of shooting the video for “Idaho Alien” ─ what the hell happened there? TP ─ Yeah, it was all these kids with guns, and they had automatic weapons, they had shotguns, they had all this shit. And it was right where we were filming, outside of this area called Kuna, Idaho, near Swan Falls. And a lot of people go out there to shoot. The majority of people here have guns, so we weren’t surprised about that. But what we were surprised about is when they started being so reckless that some of them were even shooting at each other’s feet. Some of their buddies would go out into the field, like 15 or 20 feet, and they would try to shoot as close as they could to each other’s feet. And this was happening right in the same area that me and Ty were trying to film. And then when they open fired at a car off in the distance, that’s when we were like, we have to get the fuck out of here, clearly anything could have happened. There’s also been all kinds of rumours and stories about certain people not coming back because it’s endless, endless fields that go on in every direction. So we left and we didn’t even come back the next day. We waited them out. ​ TYLER, THE DIRECTOR sM | Your friendship with Tyler T. Williams, director of your music videos, is notable. It’s always worth celebrating whenever two guys in their thirties form a genuine friendship because it’s so rare, and it looks like that’s what you’ve done with Tyler. How did this creative partnership begin, and what do you appreciate the most about your friendship? TP ─ First and foremost, I appreciate him as a person─the ear that he’s constantly lending me to listen to what it might be that I’m going through, or the advice he has. I can’t speak enough about who he is as a human being. And as a creator, as a filmmaker, I’ve told him a million times, he’s my favourite filmmaker. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world sees just what a gift he has and the way he’s able to communicate. We riff ideas back and forth all day long, but at the end of the day, this is me handing the baton over to him and his universe. I’ve done what I need to do and I let him explore what he needs to explore. We bond over our similar inspirations─the movies we love, the music we love, the books we love. There’s so much trust built up because I am so in love with his work and with his mind that if it was anyone else, I wouldn’t be able to do the baton handoff because I just wouldn’t trust them. But yeah, he’s my best friend. Youth Lagoon - The Sling - photo by Tyler T Williams TOUCH GRASS sM | So much of the songs and videos of this album is a search for firm ground, “touching grass” if you will. It seems that’s what a lot of people are looking for right now, even if they don’t know it. And if you look at the success of shows like Yellowstone , there’s a growing appreciation for that landscape of Idaho and Wyoming, for an idealised life away from the coasts that seems more grounded. It’s idealised because the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere, and sometimes that grass is really a junkyard. In that sense, how do you “touch grass” when the grass is parched? TP ── If you’re in a place in life where your surroundings might not be what we consider as traditionally beautiful, it’s easy to get caught up in that head space of, “I’m trapped here”. Or it could even be a metaphysical space where it’s like everything just feels like a fucking wasteland and there’s no beauty. All that means to me is that you are not looking hard enough. And I can say that confidently because that was me for years. And it was also an excuse. It was so much easier to look down at my shoes. Even the way that I participated in life─on the outside it looked like there’d been participation, releasing music, doing this stuff, but at the same time, there was so much numbness. The more that the numbness goes away now, the more I see beauty in everything. Everything. No matter where I am. There’s just this guiding light that’s taking me into these places where I connect with people in a new way. It’s easier for me to recognize someone’s pain now because I’ve begun to re-recognize it in myself. And there’s a lot of this mirroring going on. I see so much of myself in the dead grass─it’s a source of endless inspiration for me now. ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Julian Montague’s Top 10 Books on Design Welcome to our inter-issue series inviting artists to curate top-ten lists WORDS BY BRONTE CRONSBERRY | BUFFALO | VISUAL ARTS STUDIO SESSIONS FEB 23, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Julian Montague ​ ​ 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 With a strong conceptual basis, the work of graphic designer and artist Julian Montague draws heavily on the history of late 20th century design, offering a dialogue between the past and present of graphic design work. Based in Buffalo, New York, Montague has exhibited in galleries including Art in General, Black and White Gallery, and Anna Kaplan Contemporary in addition to working on book and album covers. Montague’s ability to engage with the sometimes forgotten history of design while speaking to the contemporary moment earned his Instagram account high praise from The New York Times in 2020. His conceptual and photographic book, The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America , which offers a taxonomy of abandoned carts, will be released in a revised edition this fall. Introduced to the history of art and design through his father, Montague pursued continual self-study of the arts rather than through academia. He joins smART Magazine ’s inaugural installation of DECA to discuss the design books that have inspired him the most. His insight into the ways that current design is shaped by the past makes his book recommendations of interest to both the seasoned connoisseur and those just beginning to explore. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

The Society of Illustrators vs. Artificial Intelligence When AI creates art, who should get the credit? WORDS BY BRANDON HICKS | ARTS & LETTERS FEB 28, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Illustration By Brandon Hicks ​ ​ 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 For decades, the concept of artwork created by a computer has been little more than sci-fi speculation. Now, a simple online image search could yield millions of images entirely generated by artificial learning. So, what happened? Artificial intelligence has been able to identify objects and create text descriptions for images for some time now, but recently developed programs have been taking this concept to a whole new level by reversing this process to create original images from a text description. It does this by scouring the Internet for images that fit a written prompt, then recontextualizes their properties into a new image that the human eye can comprehend. The current trend of AI image generation began in early 2021, when OpenAI launched its deep-learning model DALL-E. Its name being a portmanteau of surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and the Pixar character WALL-E, the DALL-E image generation software provided striking results. It wasn’t perfect, with most images producing an uncanny... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Delali Cofie Towards a new visual perspective on the global African diaspora WORDS BY AMBER SOLBERG | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS STUDIO SESSIONS FEB 23, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Delali Cofie ​ ​ 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 Delali Cofie is a storyteller. As a Ghananian-Nigerian photographer currently studying and living in Toronto, Cofie’s work connects the essence to the image via panoramic visual storytelling. Working primarily with analogue photography, Cofie’s method of artmaking is, in of itself, a link back to West African Studio photography stylization from the 1950-1980s. His perspective centers real people, backgrounded by civil architecture, natural lighting, nature, and quotidian life. In growing his practice, Cofie is also learning to use his voice in how to direct the storytelling narrative of his photography more strongly. A Place of Ours (2022), Cofie’s most intimate collection, showcases his emerging vision of African identities. Featured in Toronto’s CONTACT Photography Festival in 2022, A Place of Ours is a multi-layered exploration of what home means to the artist and to those far away from it. The new decade holds much promise for Cofie’s work, as he continues to search with his lens for the focal point of humanity in an increasingly technological world, creating space for the local and the international, the native and the diasporic. sM | Many of your images feature a single person... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

smART x Stratford Pt.3: Casey and Diana A theatrical exercise in compassion that represents the very best of Stratford 2023 REVIEW BY STEPHEN LOW | STRATFORD | FOURTH WALL FOURTH WALL JUL 04, 2023 | ISSUE 12 Sean Arbuckle (left) as Thomas and Krystin Pellerin as Diana in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann TICKETS: www.stratfordfestival.ca ​ ​ 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 ​ Laura Condlln as Pauline in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann Contemporary theatre has directly engaged the human suffering caused by a pandemic in the past. In the 80s and 90s, many plays and musicals were written and staged that dramatised the HIV/AIDs epidemic, including well-known works like Rent (also at the Stratford Festival this year), Angels in America , and The Normal Heart . Casey and Diana , also a play that deals with AIDs, follows in the footsteps of these important texts but in the shadow of the most recent global health crisis─the COVID 19 pandemic. Casey and Diana tells the story of the clients and the caregivers at Casey House, Canada’s first HIV/AIDs Hospice, as they wait seven days for the visit from Princess Diana. Everyone at Casey House is understandably excited for the opportunity to meet the Princess of Wales, but the patients are especially thrilled because Diana has shown people with AIDS compassion and tenderness. This simple kindness shown by “the People’s Princess” came by way of her fearless advocacy exhibited in something as simple as being in the same room with patients. Often touching those suffering, an act that was considered dangerous because of the ignorance concerning the virus at the time. A play that deals with disease, loss, and mortality can be difficult and depressing for an audience to endure, but the masterfully crafted script by Nick Green — brought to the stage with the sensitive, tender, loving direction of Andrew Kushnir — presents this material with humour and compassion. Despite how the play features characters who must confront the fact that they are close to death (treatment to fight the virus to keep a person alive was not yet available), it is life and the time they have to live that is centerstage in the production. As Kushnir notes in the program, “AIDS is not the antagonist of this play.” Rather, the urgency of the play comes from the desire of the clients, particularly Thomas — who is the play’s greatest fan of Princess Diana — to live long enough to be able to speak with Diana. The swift passage of time itself is made theatrically present by Debashis Sinha’s sound design — of note is a whooshing effect that is effectively placed at select moments of the play — reminding us all of how quickly our time on this earth can last. The play also captures the sense of hope and humour of the characters as they prepare for the Princess’s visit. Sean Arbuckle’s virtuosic performance of Thomas is saturated with sarcastic wit that has, since Oscar Wilde, been common in gay culture. Marjorie, a volunteer who is a heterosexual member of the Gay Village community and who lost a dear friend from AIDS, learns over the course of the play to respond to Thomas’s biting quips with a biting and clever response. Davinder Malhi (left) as Malhi and Linda Kash as Marjorie in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann A play about Princess Diana risks shifting the focus from those who are suffering from a deadly virus to a very privileged, rich, white woman. But once again, this play avoids that pitfall. Diana herself, though present physically throughout the play, is a soft glowing background to the action of the play. The focus is not just on the clients of Casey House, but also their caregivers, who were essential, brave, and compassionate frontline workers who both saved many lives and helped those who were dying die with dignity. In this production, Linda Cash plays the cheerful volunteer, Marjorie, with depth, complexity, and humour. Vera, played by Sophia Walker, has been hardened by her time nursing those who have HIV/AIDS but gradually reveals her humanity and deep love for her patients. These two performances, in contrast to Diana and Thomas and Andre (who is also suffering from AIDS), could otherwise have been one dimensional functionaries, but Green’s script, Kushnir’s direction, and the capacity of these strong performers give them the attention that they are due, first and foremost as human beings and secondly as the caregivers. From left Laura Condlln, Sean Arbuckle and Krystin Pellerin in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann The seven days of the play pass on Joshua Quinlan’s realistic reproduction of Casey house in the early 90s on the thrust stage of the Studio Theatre, with single hospital beds, side tables and lamps on the hardwood floors under the sloped ceilings of the Victorian home attics and common stained glass window pieces. All the elements of the play come together seamlessly allowing the audience to fall in love with these hopeful souls in tragic circumstances. The mise en scene allows for the incredible ensemble to shine in their complex, honest, and very human performances of the clients and caregivers at Casey House. Even Krystin Pellerin, who has the difficult task of playing Diana, plays her with such grace and poise that she allows the real heroes of the stories, the clients and caregivers, to be centerstage. (This is a miraculous feat considering that Quinn’s reproduces some of Diana’s most iconic fashion moments which, in a lesser production, could draw attention from what deserves focus.) The result of this masterful production is an emotional experience that subtly but powerfully reveals to us the power of compassion, hope, laughter, and care. ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Kristy Gordon Toronto vs. New York: From a Painter’s Perspective WORDS BY MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS STUDIO SESSIONS NOV 11, 2022 | ISSUE 8 Kristy Gordon by Jeremy Lewis ​ ​ 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 ​ ​ Toronto is often thought of as the New York of Canada, the comparison has some merit as Toronto is also a sprawling city known as a hub of arts and culture. Still, is this a matter of wishful thinking on Ontario’s part? Both Toronto and New York have a diverse and well kept arts-community, thanks in large part to the cafe culture found in these cities. Independent cafes serve as affordable and accessible spaces outside the home for artists to work, often giving newer artists exposure and connections to other artists. To find out just how much these two cities share in their relationships to arts and culture, artist Kristy Gordon—a graduate from Toronto’s OCAD and a New York City resident—joins us to discuss the roles of cafes in facilitating a city’s arts scene. sM | How have the cafes and arts spaces in New York and Toronto impacted your creative life? KG — Setting greatly affects the work that artists do, that’s probably one of the reasons that artist residencies are so important to artists. When I lived in Toronto my work was influenced by the other artists I knew and the paintings I saw in galleries like the Art Gallery of Ontario as well as the contemporary galleries in Yorkville and the Junction. When I first came to Toronto I took some classes at the Academy of Realist Art, so I created traditional looking portrait paintings. Later, I started going to the Ontario College of Art and Design, where I was encouraged to experiment with my paintings and my work became much more painterly and expressive. In New York City I’m influenced by the artistic dialogues and conversations I have with artists, as well as by the work I see in museums and in commercial galleries in the Chelsea and Soho Gallery districts. In NYC my work went through an experimental phase, influenced by contemporary art in the Chelsea galleries and now it's settled into an imaginative but representational approach influenced by the Renaissance artists and Dutch masters I see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as observation from nature at the American Museum of Natural History. In both cities, the cafes are a meeting spot for me and other artists. When I meet with artist friends at a cafe or restaurant we’d usually talk about the work we’re creating, the galleries we’re working with or the blocks we’re facing. It’s similar in NYC, but way more frequent. I go out for coffee every day. It’s like my big social event and an excuse to leave the house. There are also a lot of drink-and-draw events in art spaces around NYC, and it’s fun to get together with over 100 people all drawing from a live model! This is a place where I can meet new artists too. sM | How would you compare the two cities pertaining to arts and cafe culture? KG — For me the main difference is that I utilize the cafes and art events more in NYC. It’s more common that I would take my laptop to a cafe and do some work there. That sense of community, just being around people, while also being able to isolate and ignore everyone makes me very comfortable. I feel like in NYC there’s just more happening. In Toronto, I was able to create events among my group of artist friends, like hiring a life model together to paint from—because I know a lot of artists in Toronto—but we were organizing these things ourselves. Toronto does have a rich artistic community with a lot of artists, galleries and collectors supporting artists, so it was a great place to meet other artists and build connections. To this day some of my closest friends live in Toronto and the work they’re doing inspires me. sM | What are your favourite cafes and restaurants in either city? In Toronto my favorite meeting spots were Live, the Big Carrot, Fresh and Jet Fuel. I would meet with my artist friends either at Live (which sadly has closed now) or at my favorite coffee shop Jet Fuel Coffee. I’d often start my mornings at Jet Fuel and would sometimes sit there for hours, working on my comic journal. In NYC it’s whatever coffee shop is the best in my neighborhood. So, I frequented Variety Coffee in Bushwick because that was my neighbourhood. Also, Sugarburg in Williamsburg and Think Coffee all around the city. Everything was happening in coffee shops! My favorite Drink-and-Draw was the Starr Street one that was happening on Wednesdays in Bushwick. My favorite restaurant in NYC, where I’ve had countless evenings with artist friends, is Caravan of Dreams in Manhattan. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Fan Art as Visual Art Is art defined purely by its one-of-a-kind quality? WORDS BY KRITI PM | LLANYMYNECH | VISUAL ARTS MAR 03, 2023 | ISSUE 10 Illustration by Xiaotian Wang ​ ​ 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 ​ ​ Our definition of art continues to change as new movements emerge. Fan art — art inspired by pre-existing characters, places, and people, created by fans — is a genre that arose as early as the 1960s with Star Trek , but continues to be popularized today through social media. What’s interesting is that fan art isn’t limited to fictional characters. Celebrities, musicians, content creators, actors, and even other artists are often muses for fan artists. Each piece of fan art creates a new combination of things that otherwise wouldn’t have intersected, like musicians stylized as anime characters, or cartoons drawn in realism. Fan art’s collaborative nature makes this genre an unusual — but striking — way to meld communities. Despite its do-it-yourself ethos, fan art doesn’t exist without criticism. Fan artists are often criticized for plagiarism, especially when the inspiration for their art are characters created by other artists. Does the use of pre-existing personas make fan art disingenuous? Is art defined purely by its one-of-a-kind quality? ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Dark Music Days Music Festival Opportunities for Embodied, Cross-Disciplinary Performance WORDS BY JEANETTE JOY HARRIS | HARPA, Reykjavík, Iceland JAN 24-29, 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 Siggi String Quartet - Photo by Ester Magnúsdóttir Trio Isak - Photo by Ester Magnúsdóttir Dark Days Music Festival (DDMF) is an annual Reykjavik event that shines a light on innovative and progressive music. With an over 40-year history, DDMF transforms the unrelenting January weather - where gray skies, sleet, and snow meets a 6 hour window of sunlight - into a diverse musical respite that both pleases and challenges audiences. Curating a music festival, or any festival that highlights “new” performance is tricky, but DDMF’s program included a diverse set of established, large musical groups like Iceland Symphony Orchestra and lesser known solo performers like Rosie Middleton. In doing so, the festival is not only supporting existing musical ensembles but educating and cultivating audiences by nurturing new talent. DDMF is a wonderful example of why experimental music needs to be heard live - with bodies playing, performing, and listening. Recorded sounds that the ear alone might find inscrutable can vibrate a person’s bones in unimaginable ways when the listener is brought into close contact with the performer. The intoxicating, shared buzzing of a lone voice can communicate an aural reality that is flattened once recorded. If not experienced live, the breathing, hesitation, and pause of Rosie Middleton’s concert, for example, could not be adequately understood. In her performance, the sounds of the palate, lips, and tongue, and the fleshiness of the voice itself evoked the sensual pleasure of the “sounding body.” Further, live performance not only accommodates the unique complexity of a performer’s body but allows for the creation of an acoustic architecture that envelops performers and audiences together. “White Flags” by Daníel Bjarnason musicalizes the faded American flags left on the moon after the Apollo mission and, in doing so, hinges the vastness of space upon objects that are slowly deteriorating. Trio Isak seemingly created its own temporary galaxy. As they performed the eerily suspended strings of “White Flags,” the audience gravitated closer to stay in the trio’s orbit and the HARPA concert hall seemed connected by delicate slivers of notes. Rosie Middleton - Photo by Ester Magnúsdóttir But to the degree that musical performance is enhanced when it fully embraces the body, it can be compromised when it attempts cross-disciplinary practice without respecting the technique of other creative practices. For example, Rosie Middleton’s performance of “Code Poem - Any Chance of War?” by Mira Calix was a moving work that included live voice and recorded Morse code. It also included Middleton’s performance of SOS flag signals. Though the flags added a compelling visual element to the work, flag semaphore relies upon codified movements to communicate message. Unfortunately, Middleton’s emphasis on executing the vocal component of the work surpassed the precision of the choreography, so much that the movement at times distracted from the emotional articulation of distress she so powerfully vocalized. Further in “White Flags,” Trio Isak supplemented their stage by displaying five, white, hand drawn flags, visually connecting their performance with the lunar landscape. These five flags were later used to textually denote movement changes in Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s “Présence.” Had Trio Isak simply presented the flags as unique, stand-alone visual components, perhaps using six flags instead of five to mirror the number used in the Lunar Assemblies, they could have added a content-rich sculptural element to the work. In both instances, it seems that legibility of the musical performance was prioritized over the cohesion of the performance as a cross-disciplinary work. MÖRSUGUR - Photo by Ester Magnúsdóttir Melissa Noble, Managing Director of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center and Coordinator of Interdisciplinary Studies at University of Houston comments that, “while exploration and authentic inquiry can be captivating, when performing artists consider implementing cross disciplinary additions, there is often a lack of proficiency, as the Dunning-Kruger effect describes ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.” That is to say, the profound dedication of technical mastery to one discipline and the lack of training and experience in other areas can not only be detrimental to the types of performances that try to integrate multiple areas, but the performers themselves are oftentimes not aware of their lack of proficiency. ​ This, in no way, should discourage musicians from integrating visual, sculptural, and somatic elements in their performances. Quite the contrary. Integrated experiences, like the performances of Trio Isak and Rosie Middleton, are engaging and their cross-disciplinary nature provide multiple audience access points. However, what should be kept in mind is that theater, dance, and visual art are disciplines that require their own concerted dedication. If musicians want to include these components, they must fully commit themselves to understanding the technique and processes involved. For musicians, the successful integration of other disciplines might seem insurmountable, but when it is executed well, a challenging musical work can be pried open in unusual and exciting ways. ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp Welcome to the “smallest museum in the world” at The Forestay Museum of Art WORDS BY MILES FORRESTER | CULLY | VISUAL ARTS SPACES FEB 26, 2023 | ISSUE 11 The KMD ​ ​ 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 At the base of a stairway cut from a stone wall in the village of Cully, Switzerland, is a glass enclosure resembling a large mid-century pill, balanced on a thin steel plinth. Inside, at the time of writing, is a diptych of symmetrical ears in acrylic under glass. In the right ear (our left) is a butterfly at rest beside the canal's entrance, with wings like inverted auricles. Third Ear by Sarah Margnetti is 16 x 24 cm, but because of its miniature setting in the Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp (KMD) at The Forestay Museum of Art, it imposes itself on any passerby who stoops to view it. KMD was founded by Swiss artists Caroline Bachmann and Stefan Banz in 2009, to commemorate a conference of Duchamp research. The Forestay river bears special significance, as its waterfall is the setting of the Dadaist Duchamp’s last work, Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau, 2° le gaz d'éclairage . Created secretly over 20 years during his supposed retirement, and only mounted after his death, the installation (housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art) is composed of a large wooden door set within a brick facade. Through two peepholes, the viewer can see an assemblage of found, painted, photographed, and mechanical... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Gray Area Foundation: Barry Threw "Art history is also a history of technology development." WORDS BY DANI WILLIAMS | VISUAL ARTS SPACES NOV 11, 2022 | ISSUE 8 Barry Threw by Jeremy Lewis ​ ​ 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 ​ ​ The past issues of smART Magazine have highlighted the unique character of the cities that the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit has reached. With this, we celebrate how each city is different, allowing the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit to consistently reinvent itself across various cities. In that spirit, we are delighted to welcome Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and speak with the Executive Director, Barry Threw. Gray Area invokes social change through the promotion and development of creative programs in San Francisco and offers multidisciplinary artists—with a focus on technology—a platform they would otherwise not get at traditional arts organizations. With this, Gray Area is able to contribute to the growing discussion around inclusivity and allow many underrepresented creatives a chance to showcase their work. We spoke with Threw about Gray Area’s efforts to include marginalized communities into their programs, how the San Francisco artistic community has responded to COVID-19, and how Gray Area incorporates technology and innovation into the artistry it is representing. sM | With the cultural movements of the last year in mind, how does Gray Area engage BIPOC communities into its programming? BT — Gray Area is a 21st-century countercultural hub catalyzing creative action for social transformation. We attract technically-literate, experimental, and risk taking creative practitioners whose work doesn’t find easy support within traditional arts organizations. We support these diverse practitioners—including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and immigrants—by holding space for their unique practices, backgrounds, visions, and experiences so that they may deeply collaborate and create new form and meaning through the arts. Because this diversity of thought and perspective is a core requirement for the type of collaboration we foster, we continually try to increase engagement with varied publics through community partnerships, subsidize participation in our events and education programs, and ensure representation within all of our programming. Gray Area seeks to increase diversity and representation within the gentrified dialogs of technology by curating marginalized and underrepresented artists, and highlighting social justice, ethics, ecology, and de-colonialism thematically in our programming. We have also made efforts to support social justice organizing both in our physical space, and online through our technology infrastructure. sM | What is your assessment of how San Francisco’s artistic community has responded to the pandemic restrictions? BT — The pandemic triggered a tsunami of experimental, entrepreneurial, creative platforms seeking to maintain community, connection, and intimacy during the lockdown. This has happened not despite the egregious lack of public relief funding for the arts, but because of it. Economic opportunities for artists, performers, curators, and promoters were completely destroyed during this time, and the community was forced to innovate in order to survive. We saw a vast array of online projects virtually reimagining audio/visual performances, experiential theater, conferences and forums, drag shows, and exhibitions. These projects sought to recreate the social senses of serendipity and belonging only hinted at by commercial video chat platforms. Gray Area was able to pivot to online programming very quickly, and we also developed our own platforms to be able to reach a wider global audience, and make our programming even more accessible with events like our 2020 Gray Area Festival . Due to the shutdown we suffered a massive revenue loss compared with 2019, and we have received no arts-specific Covid-19 relief funding from either national, state, or city grants. Despite this, our online programming allowed us to generate $250,000 paid directly to local artists and educators, while also retaining our entire full time staff. We have survived to this point through the generosity of our community coming together in solidarity. With the explosion of the NFT market in the last several weeks we have seen the same dynamics at play. A creator community that has had most of its opportunities cancelled over the last year while receiving very little support from public sources has finally found a new means of supporting itself with online art sales. But, instead of competing for sales, the artist community has been amplifying each other’s work for this new market. The resilience and creativity that the San Francisco artistic community has shown during this devastating time has been nothing short of inspiring. sM | Gray Area has a strong focus on technology. Do you think artists who work with technology are taken less seriously? How does Gray Area challenge this? BT — It is worth noting that all artists work with technology, and that art history is also a history of technology development. Of course, what people usually mean today when they say “technology” is computers, and the sensory devices that we use to interface with computers. I don’t believe artists working with technology are necessarily taken “less seriously”, but I do think their work often resists categorization, and demands a lot of time, attention, and prior context from the viewer. Sometimes technologically engaged artwork can come in the form of software, a website, an experience, or a game—located in one spot, or distributed globally. It can happen in an instant or unfold over years. The rate at which new affordances are being developed is also accelerating, so there is constantly new work that doesn’t yet have fully developed frameworks to discuss it. Some art made using technology looks or sounds like familiar traditional artwork, and the technology isn’t immediately apparent at all. This wide variety of media and formats may also make the work uniquely hard to exhibit, sell, conserve, or collect. These difficulties make the support structures available for artists engaging with technology very different from those developed for more traditional artists. Technology engaged artists require specialized spaces, equipment, and collaborators to help realize their work, as well as novel funding models. Gray Area seeks to provide the proper environment to support the creation of these works, orient them toward value-driven outcomes that engage with real world issues, and contextualize them so that they may be understood as relevant to new audiences. We believe technology is the most impactful force in contemporary society, and that artists who engage with it thoughtfully are the most relevant. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Boulevard Arts: Elizabeth L. Reede "There's a little bit of something for everyone.” WORDS BY MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK | LIGHTHOUSE IMMERSIVE SPACES NOV 29, 2022 | ISSUE 7 Elizabeth L. Reede ​ ​ 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 ​ ​ The pandemic has highlighted the need for accessibility within arts by presenting us with a rather large barrier to overcome. These barriers existed pre-pandemic, just not for all of us. For a myriad of reasons, many people were never able to get exposure to the arts. We’ve learned many of these accommodations were always feasible, as solutions were found once necessity demanded invention. As we come out of Covid, we have to ask the question: what other roadblocks to accessibility remain? One group that has been working to close this gap is Boulevard Arts, a New York-based immersive art and culture technology company that develops experiences via virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. Co-founder Elizabeth L. Reede joins us to speak on their newly-launched collaboration with Lighthouse Immersive to develop an app that equalizes arts accessibility for the public. sM | What is the Lighthouse Immersive App and how will it enhance the exhibit experience? ELR — It's meant to be a comprehensive deep dive into immersive art and culture experiences. If we think in terms of a brick-and-mortar venue that people visit, this app is meant to kick in after they leave the experience, giving them something more. It will be replete with content we’ve developed in conjunction with the Lighthouse Immersive team, including all kinds of additional information and exciting technological ways of engaging with the artist or subject. It will also offer interesting information and content about the city in which the venue has opened. So if somebody sees this in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they think to themself, “Why Charlotte? What's there, and how does Charlotte relate culturally to what is happening with my ticket once I go to the venue?” They can check the app. There will be an e-commerce aspect to it too, plus opportunities to learn a bit more about the artist and to gain greater context. As this app expands, and more exhibitions come to various Lighthouse Immersive venues, further content will be added. You’ll tap on Lighthouse Immersive two years from now, and see an array of really interesting engagements: textual, audio, and interactive content shared through leading edge technology. The user can not only buy a ticket and read about the exhibit, but also use technology to engage further with arts and culture. sM | What is your vision in regards to how this app can contribute to Lighthouse Immersive as an arts-and-culture hub across North America? ELR — What’s interesting is that Lighthouse Immersive has just hit the tip of the iceberg. I think one of the reasons why they are very interested in working with Boulevard Arts is the component we want to bring to it. If Lighthouse represents the tip of the cultural experience mountain, we offer everything else starting at the base. Our goal as a company has always been to democratize access to art and culture through leading edge technology. We are a team of professional curators, technology folks, museum and art people, who’ve created public installations, run educational programs, built apps, all sorts of things. Our goal was to come together and ensure there were as few boundaries as possible for people to experience this content and this amazing world without feeling intimidated by it, or bored — or any of the things one can conjure up when we think about “Oh God, a museum?” People don't often know how to enter and own it; they feel like it’s not for them. We’ve brought together lead educators, artists, and curators to make sure we offer multiple entry points to any user who comes in. And we do this through technology, which effectively means anybody with a smart device can have access. What we hope to do with the app is to add this component of a more traditional museum and cultural access, and pack it into Lighthouse Immersive. If we as a combined entity are able to go back to these collections that we know so well and bring that forward, it only enhances the whole experience. And it extends it! We want people to realize that the app will consistently provide fresh content around the larger construct. It could be street art, it could be contemporary art, it could be Egyptian art. But the whole idea is: this is where you come for cool interesting stuff, where there's a little something for everyone. sM | What unique challenges did your team face in approaching this collaboration, and what has it taught you about the changing landscape in the arts as a result of the pandemic? ELR — That's a great question, because the last 18-24 months have really been a learning experience for us. To set that up: Boulevard Arts delivers apps and experiences in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality–three separate platforms. Two of those (virtual and mixed) require headsets, and in a pandemic world, headsets are not going to be used. We made a commitment about two and a half years ago to primarily focus on building in augmented reality because it was such a fluid and flexible medium, and much more accessible to people on their smartphones. What we started to see very early on, almost pre-pandemic, was that there had already been a reticence around putting on headsets; whether it was the cost, or the challenge of using it at home, school, or any public space. We can manage all the technological issues, but the sophistication of the public simply was not there. COVID and the pandemic has been an accelerant for the need for immersive and available technologies that deliver remotely. The obvious examples are schools, but think about how in New York, everything shut down because the situation was so dire here. And yet, people were craving experiences and things to do, so we really focused in on delivering augmented reality experiences. We also reached out to entities to say “Hey, we're doing everything free for you, don’t worry about it, you know? Let’s just get through the pandemic, and keep these relationships going with school groups, let's keep them functioning.” This was obviously met with great relief and gratitude. At the same time I started looking around to see who else was in this space in a really meaningful way. And when I say in the space, I mean who else is delivering this kind of on-site, brick-and-mortar, all-encompassing experience? Then I started to do a deep dive on the kind of technology being used by Lighthouse Immersive. Our first conversation with them went like this: “You guys are doing amazing things. Here’s what we at Boulevard Arts think we can help you do: build out the authenticity and scope of the cultural content that’s being delivered, to help you foster an even more incredible opportunity for visitors, something where people walk away feeling like they’ve had a real connection.” It took off from there. So, I think that's what we feel so committed to: this notion of developing a sustained and personal experience for people through the arts. Because, as you know, that’s our goal here. Everybody deserves to have a little bit of art in their lives. Our view is that everyone deserves access to it. So that’s how we’re doing it. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

What Can Stravinsky Do For You? Juilliard bassoonist, Morgan Davison, on how she found the magic of Stravinsky. WORDS BY MORGAN DAVISON | NEW YORK | MUSIC THE smART Ensemble NOV 15, 2022 | ISSUE 8 Morgan's Tattoo of Stravinski ​ ​ 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 Morgan Davison ​ sM | What does Stravinsky’s have in store for a new generation of performers and concertgoers? MD — I was six years old when I first stumbled upon Mr. Stravinsky. I was staying with my aunt, who always put something on the T.V. to help lull me and my twin brother to sleep. I’m not sure if it was by fate or by accident that my only memory of this stay is when my aunt tucked us into bed and then put the movie Fantasia 2000 on the screen. Fantasia sets animated stories to life, accompanied by classical greats such as Beethoven’s 5th and Respighi’s Pines of Rome . Stravinsky’s Suite from his ballet The Firebird is the last short story in the movie. I was so enraptured by how this music felt different, almost three-dimensional; as if the fluttering of the flute and strings in the “Firebird Variation” of the Suite brought the cartoonized leaves, being stirred on the screen, directly into my lap. Yes, I connected with the visual story being told, but it was the music that made me feel something. After this encounter, I decided I wanted to be a classical musician. It wasn’t until I started auditioning for schools, however, that I realized just how far back my love for Stravinsky’s music went. As a bassoonist, it’s utterly impossible to get through a single audition without encountering something by Stravinsky. Along with the technical difficulty of these excerpts, to achieve the correct emotion behind the music is the greatest struggle. Musical emotion isn’t found in practicing scales, it depends on the aural story that the composer has set. So I started to do research into who Igor Stravinsky was, why his music had always sounded different to me, and how I can accurately use this research to influence how I play his music. This evolved into doing so much research that I wanted to share it with the world, and how it related to me as a bassoonist, hence my #stravinskysaturday series. One of the overall themes that I’ve discovered about Stravinsky, that I believe relates to anyone who listens to or plays his music, is the fact that he was an unabashed leader who did not let controversy, quarrels, or disfavor, influence the genius that he must have known existed in his works. He always wrote what he felt, regardless of whether or not it would be accepted, and possessed the ability to make those feelings come to life with a uniquely musical touch. This begins the answer to why I have always loved his music. His music is for the sake of feeling, not for the sake of how one will react to that feeling. That concept, along with his style as a pioneering composer, is what catapulted him not only ahead of the composers of his time, but what secured him as one of the greatest composers in history. It’s also why, in my opinion, Stravinsky’s music continues to be important to audiences today. Every person will react in a different way upon listening. Some will be abhorred, some enraptured, some not amused. The important thing is that you felt something at all. Morgan Davison is a Bassoonist and graduate student at The Juilliard School. IG: morganpracticesbassoon ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Lara St. John’s She, Her, Hers The Celebrated Violinist on Fighting Classical Music’s Toxic Background. WORDS BY ARLAN VRIENS | NEW YORK | MUSIC THE smART Ensemble MAR 16, 2023 | ISSUE 10 Lara St. John by Stacy Kendrick ​ ​ 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 Composers of "She, Her, Hers" Lara St. John by JR Sheetz.jpg Canadian-born violinist Lara St. John is a passionate champion of music that challenges the norm. With her 1779 Guadagnini violin in hand, she has appeared at concert halls worldwide, been invested into the Order of Canada, and recently launched her album of solo violin music by women composers, She, Her, Hers. For all her success, St. John is also all too familiar with classical music’s darker sides. Her 2019 exposé about the abuse she suffered at the Curtis Institute of Music sent shockwaves through the classical music world and continues to embolden victims to tell their stories and challenge institutional powers. St. John joined smART Magazine from New York for a frank discussion tackling some of classical music’s most intractable problems: rampant protection of predators, misogynistic and white-centred repertoire programming, and how to find healing in a marred musical world. sM | How did She, Her, Hers go from something in the back of your mind, to recording 17 pieces by 12 composers? LS ─ It was very serendipitous. Small things just kept happening that, little by little, added up to this album. During COVID lockdowns, a closed border separated me from the pianist I usually work with, so I was playing music for solo violin. I always play solo works by Bach, Bartók, or Ysaÿe, but I started thinking, “Why have I heard about the Eckhardt-Gramatté Caprices all my life, but never played them?” Then things started to fall into place. Adah Kaplan happened to write to me around this time; she said she was 14 and had written a piece for violin that was too hard for her to play, so she wondered if I could record it. Melissa Dunphy had given me the piece Kommós when we first met. I’ve known Valerie Coleman for probably 15 years, and she had a beautiful solo flute piece that I arranged for solo violin. Jesse Montgomery had just finished a second Rhapsody. Suddenly, without trying much, I had an album to record. Thanks to COVID, my sound engineer Laura De Rover and I found a beautiful empty room in Manhattan to record in. We had so much time; it was a very luxurious recording session. sM | What were your other stylistic and demographic considerations when compiling this list of composers? LS ─ The composers on the album are from fairly diverse backgrounds, but it was a little bit by happenstance because I happened to already know several of the composers. I’ve known Valerie Coleman for years, and I went to a yoga retreat with Jesse Montgomery, and I just liked the music of some of the others. In a way, I’m glad that the album’s diversity wasn’t really intentional because it means that the women are getting out there and getting known, and within that group, it’s not just a bunch of white girls. sM | How can the industry further contribute to disrupting what you’ve called the “composition brotherhood” and championing female composers in a deliberate way? LS ─ There have been some baby steps, but for a very long time, almost 100% of concert repertoire has been by male composers. It’s only just now beginning to change, but I think there’s a lot of tokenism going on right now for female composers. A program will have a very small five-minute piece by a woman, and then they’ll do a Prokofiev concerto and a Beethoven symphony. That’s better than nothing, but it’s a problem. I also don’t think it’s ever really been encouraged for women to be composers. Even famous ones, like Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Joan Tower, or Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, all face a stupid fallacy rooted in misogyny, that “women can’t write classical music.” It’s also a problem in performance; orchestra personnel are still subject to gendered stereotypes about who should play what instrument, and there are still so few women leading large orchestras or even sections within those orchestras. So much of all of this comes down to artistic administrators and music directors. When you have people who think that only Beethoven or Brams is worthwhile to program or listen to, then nobody else is going to get a chance. Period. That’s our problem. Lara St. John sM | You’ve extensively documented your experience of abuse at the Curtis Institute extensively. These accounts document and vindicate your experience but also as an open letter to the industry that this does happen. How do you think this industry inherently struggles with protecting vulnerable populations from predatory behaviour? LS ─ You have to be young when you start instruments like the violin, piano, or cello; I was two and a half. Children are told to obey their teacher no matter what, and that dynamic attracts people who enjoy being abusive. Institutions like to make gods out of men. I was 14 when my abuse happened at Curtis; my teacher was 78. After a lot of mental and physical abuse, it eventually escalated to rape. When I got myself out, the administration laughed at me because he had been at Curtis for many years. But this keeps happening elsewhere. I call it “predator teacher whack-a-mole.”: somebody will get caught and then just start teaching at another school. Why aren’t there background checks? Instead, institutions glorify these men and allow them to feel that they have a right to be abusive. The only answer is to stop putting men’s art above women’s lives. One girl I spoke to said she had been made to feel like a perk of the man’s job, like a parking space or a pension. After my article about Curtis in 2019, hundreds more have written to say “it happened to me too” at different schools. Many of them don’t play anymore; some don’t even listen to music. This god-making has to stop. ​ sM | We frequently turn to music as a source of healing from trauma of all varieties—but for musicians whose trauma arises from their musical education, this solace is relatively contaminated. What is your advice to musicians with similar experiences to yours on how to find healing in music again? LS ─ My saving grace has been loving music as a whole, not just the very insular classical world. The music I learned in those few traumatic years is not something I want to play or hear, but I started so young that music was ingrained in me, and I can still see its value. I’m not going to sit down and listen to the Brahms Violin Concerto , but I certainly will sit down and listen to Rhiannon Giddens. It’s healing for me is to hear how people express themselves so miraculously by doing things differently than what I grew up with. ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture