News

remixed in residence

01/04/2022

Remixed is an immersive listening party that can be experienced at-home or in-person. Together, we travel down the spine of change, connected by our custom app, the portal into the performance. Five years in the making, Remixed gathers true stories of transformation from all over the globe in a personal and multi-faceted meditation on how we instigate change in our lives, in our communities, and in the world. In Remixed, we’re listening for the sound of change.

During our Artengine residency, we are developing the immersive environment of Remixed’s in-person version. The design integrates biomimetic and kinetic sculptures that unfurl over the course of the performance. Responsive and playful lighting creates a heightened and collective experience. Ever-changing, the space imitates cycles found in nature and breathes a life of its own. The installation’s movements conceal and reveal listeners, playing with public and private and creating a space of possibility.

Credits

Created by: Trophy

Director and Producer: Sarah Conn

Dramaturg and Collaborator: Laurel Green

Environmental Installation Design: Allison O’Connor

Mobile Development / Lighting Design: Guillaume Saindon

Mobile Development: Kieran Dunch

Backend Development: Julien Desautels

Sound Design: Nancy Tam

Decade Music Curation: AL Connors

Created in collaboration with community members and change-makers across Canada and beyond.

Remixed’s development partners include Artengine, In the Soil Arts Festival, undercurrents festival’s under development program, the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa. Remixed’s community partners include Parkdale Food Centre, Ottawa Seed Library, and Wellspring Calgary Cancer Support Centre.

Welcome to New Team Members!

04/11/2021

Artengine welcomes Najeeba Ahmed and Mercedes Ventura to our team as part of a new internship program.

Najeeba (they/them) is an artist and designer with a bachelor’s degree in biology and visual arts at the University of Ottawa. They are currently doing their Masters research on nakshi kantha in Bangladesh.

Mercedes (she/her/they) is an artist working across photo, textile, web and media projects, Instagram (as medium), performative self-portraits and, of course, memes. Their work functions as autobiographical fiction investigating new spaces of the digital era.

Najeeba and Mercedes will be helping develop the new artengine.ca space, expanding its capacity and developing new content for our growing Ideas section.

This initiative is supported by the DIGITAL SKILLS FOR YOUTH (DS4Y) administered by Independent Media Arts alliance and funded by the Government of Canada.

Alpha Beta… something before 1.0

01/12/2021

We are excited to share an early version of our new Artengine site. This new space will be an ongoing and transforming space as we develop new features and refine our web presence out in public.

The most exciting change is our new Ideas section. Here we are rethinking what it means to lead dialogue about art and culture in our time. It’s a bit public television. It’s a bit YouTube studio. It’s bit art panel. Check out the content we currently have rolled out here with plenty more to come.

We have many plans for the new site, but also want to hear from you! Let us know what you think.

Indigenous Youth Mentorship

15/07/2021

Thunderbird Sisters Collective was recently awarded an exciting grant from the Trillium Foundation to develop its mentorship program for youth. Artengine is excited to be working in mentorship and exchange over the three year arc of their project development. Their program is targeted at youth’s from 12-19 and they recently kicked off with an in depth workshop on creativity and writing with Ottawa’sEnglish poet Laureate, Albert Dumont.

Thunderbird Sisters Collective was founded by Patsea Griffin and you can find more about them at their site. You can also reach out to our Managing Director, Remco Volmer, if you interested in learning more about the program.

Open Transformation

01/11/2021

As with so many things, Artengine has undertaken a significant transformation over the last few years. Poised to open a new space in the Arts Court facility in early 2020, but plans changed. We are fortunate enough in this part of the world to be emerging from some of the challenges the pandemic brought. We are back at the Arts Court, in some ways, but are still changing in many others. We are implementing new approaches to programming and changing our physical and online space to support this new direction.

We may not be open to the street, but we are open to hearing from you!

Cabin/Traces

06/10/2021

Cabinet is a theater piece set at the end of the world, unfolding for an individual inside an old telephone booth. 2359 Productions has been developing the work over a number of years, originally emerging from the Masters program in the Department of Theater at UOttawa, was included in the National Arts Center’s Zones Théâtrales Festival and this year moves into an exciting new phase of the project. Artengine has been consulting with 2359 Productions, supporting both the technical and conceptual aspects of the project, and this year the work will be in deeper development at the Artengine facility as it prepares for touring later in 2022.