Two images in the Paved Paradise exhibit at the corner of Brock and Ontario streets in downtown Kingston. Photo credit – City of Kingston.
The City of Kingston has announced two new temporary public art exhibits which have been installed in downtown Kingston: Paved Paradise and Public Art at the Grand Theatre.
The City of Kingston’s Public Art Program supports the creation of contemporary public art by emerging and established artists through commissions and artist collaborations, according to a release from the City. The program produces art for public spaces throughout the city, contributes to developing a vibrant public realm in Kingston, and enhances a sense of community across the city, in the downtown, suburban, rural, and natural areas.
Through the program, the City is committed to?working with artists, residents and the public and private sectors in the ongoing development and implementation of public art projects to establish Kingston as a hub of creative placemaking that recognizes and builds on the City’s diverse history, engages its community and inspires its future leaders, according to the release.
The City shared the following details on the two new exhibits:
Paved Paradise
The first is the 2021 iteration of Paved Paradise, a temporary outdoor public art platform at the corner of Brock and Ontario Street features a new exhibit titled “Inside” by Kingston-based artist, Floriana Ehninger-Cuervo. A jury selected Ehninger-Cuervo’s proposal out of 25 applications. The exhibit reflects on the theme of resiliency in relation to community and connection and is part of Love Kingston Marketplace 2021 that is reimagining parts of the downtown to help respond to the impacts that residents, businesses, culture, tourism and the local economy face due to COVID-19.
“This platform celebrates and profiles local, professional visual artists, and this year, presents a series of colourful, playful and dynamic illustrations,” said Danika Lochhead, Manager, Arts and Sector Development. “This proposal spoke strongly to the theme of this year’s call for submissions, and the exhibit will enhance the area and spark reflection on how we are feeling as we navigate this time.”
Floriana Ehninger-Cuervo is a Kingston-based illustrator and lettering artist. She runs Colourful Crow Studio where she creates cards, prints, and interactive paper crafts.
Public Art at the Grand Theatre
The second exhibit, “The Woman in White”, is an augmented-reality photo exhibit by Roshanak Jaberi, an Iranian-born Canadian artist based in Toronto. “The Woman in White” tells the story of Juana Irma Cisneros Ticas’ forced disappearance during the Salvadoran civil war and provides a look into a daughter’s journey through love and loss, and her quest for justice.
“The Woman in White” is a companion piece to Jaberi Dance Theatre’s “No Woman’s Land”, a multi-disciplinary dance production addressing the plight and resistance of women in refugee camps. “No Woman’s Land” is scheduled to appear as part of the next Grand OnStage in-person season.
“Throughout the pandemic, staff have strived to deliver impactful performing arts experiences by extending the Grand OnStage program through a variety of virtual presentations,” said Jayson Duggan, Performing Arts Manager. “The opportunity to present ‘A Woman in White’ allows Grand OnStage to move beyond the theatre auditorium and offer a captivating public art exhibit while introducing the work of interdisciplinary artist, Roshanak Jaberi to our community ahead of a future performance being planned.”
“The Woman in White” exhibit is located at the front of the Grand Theatre at 218 Princess St.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
