Vote for a Mural with STEPS Public Art
May 9,2023 - 6:30 PM - ART GALLERY OF ALGOMA (10 East. St)
Help select public art through a virtual and in-person community open house where community members are invited to join the conversation at the Art Gallery of Algoma, or to take part online through zoom to help select Summer Moon Fest’s next guest muralist!
During the event, attendees will have the opportunity to hear from three different artists and see their designs, one of which will be painted at the Rusty Halo Productions office (40 Queen Street E.) during Summer Moon Fest, 2023. After artist presentations, both virtual and in-person attendees will vote for the mural that they would like to see brought to life in the community.
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CANDIDATES
Jeni Chen
KYLA YIN JAMES
An illustrator and tattoo artist currently based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) whose work is inspired by mythology, the unconscious, subcultures, speculative fiction, and sociopolitical systems. Their work is filled with symbolism that creates surreal and speculative scenes questioning the status quo.
They have murals on display as a part of Vancouver Mural Fest and Wall to Wall Mural Fest and are currently tattooing while working on their debut graphic novel. Kyla’s work has been featured in publications including Creative Boom, ROOM Magazine, Ricepaper Magazine, and Loose Lips. They have also worked with The Writer’s Union of Canada, Inwith Forward, Vancouver Foundation, Good Night Out Vancouver, and the James Black Gallery.
Through their work, Kyla dissects and reassembles how they approach the different thought worlds they grew up in. They describe their practice as thinking and feeling out loud, sorting through the symbols and ideas they’ve encountered.
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Group Exhibition, Metamorphosis Zine Launch Party, Centre d’art daphne, Montréal, QC. Canada.
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Response Piece, Renascence, Eyelevel Artist Run Centre, Halifax, NS. Canada.
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Purposephil Podcast, InWithForward and Vancouver Foundation, Vancouver, BC. Canada.
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Spring 2023, Cover, Contemporary Verse 2, April 2023
TINA NGUYEN
Tina Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in so-called Vancouver, traditionally known as the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Watuth nations. She works in paint, print, sculpture, textile, and poetry, with a focus on community and public spaces.
Nguyen grew up in a strong Vietnamese immigrant community, surrounded by DIY solutions and thriftiness. At a young age, she’d been exposed to various hand labor practices, such as house & boat building, sewing, and fish processing. Handiness came naturally in the household, and if something was sold for twice the price of the materials, it was going to be made by hand.
She found very little representation for her culture outside of the home, and even less support for the arts within her own community. As she became drawn to place-making and the
issue of neighborhood resiliency, she found art could become a tool for pulling people out of their isolation and spending time with others. Often taking on projects with the intention of involving many hands, she sometimes becomes a facilitator with the intention of seeding a space for art-making in the communities she works with. Her process involves mutual respect and trust between the “artist” and “the community”, with the mission to redistribute the power of creating spaces for art and self-representation. Sometimes the project involves design-by-committee, organically cornering unsuspecting collaborators, a process she calls “aesthetic osmosis”.
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2022 Mural artist + Facilitator, Sir Sandford Fleming Elementary, Vancouver BC
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2022 Tropical Cafe, Centre A, Vancouver BC
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2022 STEPS Public Art Roundtable Talk (Western Canada)
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2022 STEPS Public Art Residency, Toronto, ON
About STEPS
STEPS Public Art is a charitable cultural organization that engages artists and communities to transform public spaces into vibrant places through public art, cultural planning and artist capacity building services.