“Julie is a true craft historian with a dedicated connection to ��ܽ����Ƶ,” said Dr. Ann-Barbara Graff, Vice-President (Academic and Research), ��ܽ����Ƶ University. “She has a deep commitment to the radical transformation of craft history reflecting the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion. She’s also a valued member of the Nova Scotia arts scene. Her work with local artist-run centres such as Eyelevel and with non-profit organizations such as Books Beyond Bars set a great example for students on how to bring the arts to all corners of our community.”

After graduating from ��ܽ����Ƶ, Dr. Hollenbach earned an MA, Art History, from Queen’s University, before finishing her PhD in Art History from Queen’s in 2017. She has produced a number of peer-reviewed essays and curatorial projects to date, and has published research on contemporary and historical craft and art, material culture studies, museum studies, and gender studies.

“I really enjoy centering queer, feminist, and decolonial methodologies in my research and teaching,” explained Dr. Hollenbach. “My current research investigates the genealogy of Western middle-class leisure and consumption within the Canadian settler-colonial context. This work considers historical shifts in labour and production, class, and gendered social and material relations. My research demonstrates the impact colonialism has had on craft as  a racializing process ��ܽ����Ƶ in Canada.”

Dr. Hollenbach is excited to expand on these themes with ��ܽ����Ƶ students, and is looking forward to connecting with students from all over the world via ��ܽ����Ƶ’s developing slate of online programs.

“The circumstances we all find ourselves in right now are challenging, but they also present a wonderful opportunity to teach, learn and grow as artists,” she said. “Artists produce some of their best work in challenging times. I’m really looking forward to seeing what our students create during this time, and I’m excited to connect online with students from a number of different countries and backgrounds.”

Outside of the classroom, Dr. Hollenbach retains her connection to the provincial arts community by working with a number of programs and organizations. Along with curating projects at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and MSVU Art Gallery, Dr. Hollenbach has recently worked as  a mentor with the Media Art Scholarship Program(Centre for Art Tapes), as well as serving  as a guest curator during studio visits to the New Graduate Mentorship Program at Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS).

Dr. Julie Hollenbach commences her new role as Assistant Professor of Craft History and Material Culture in the Division of Art History and Contemporary Culture at ��ܽ����Ƶ on July 1, 2020.

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From 1971 to 2001 Harold was a Professor of Art Education at ��ܽ����Ƶ, and between 1995 and 1999 he served as Associate Dean (Academic). His long-standing commitment to ��ܽ����Ƶ was cemented by his co-authoring of The First Hundred Years: A History of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1992.

“Over his 30 years at ��ܽ����Ƶ, Harold’s professional guidance to faculty, staff and students, both undergraduate and graduate, was exemplary,” said Bruce Barber, retired ��ܽ����Ƶ professor who worked alongside Harold. “He encouraged colleagues and students to volunteer in the community. His door was always open to faculty, staff and students from across ��ܽ����Ƶ. I personally benefitted greatly from Harold’s example and mentorship over the years and his insistence on advancing ��ܽ����Ƶ into the community, including the African Nova Scotia and Indigenous communities. His concern for equity, responsive and responsible governance is embedded in many of our institutional documents.”

Harold mentored countless individuals during his time at ��ܽ����Ƶ, and his presence at the university continues to be felt today.

“He presented material in a way that felt more like he was sharing rather than lecturing,” said Karen Stentaford, Assistant Professor of Photography, Mount Allison University, a former student of Harold’s who graduated in 2002. “I remember him treating everyone the same and he embraced and respected all of our ways of working.”

��ܽ����Ƶ students knew that even after they graduated, Harold’s mentorship would continue, no matter the distance between them.

“I kept in touch with Harold over the years and am eternally grateful for his mentorship. I will miss the wisdom shared during our side coffee and breakfasts at conferences. There is a giant hole in the collective Canadian art education heart,” said Renee Jackson, Assistant Professor of Art Education at Temple University Tyler School of Art and Architecture, and a student of Harold’s at ��ܽ����Ƶ, graduating in 2002.

His opinion and expertise were in high demand, as he authored numerous articles and chapters on various aspects of art education for Canadian and international professional journals and anthologies. He served as Editor of the Journal of Social Theory and Art Education (1990-1992) and was the Director of Publications for the Canadian Society for Education through Art (CSEA).

Harold began his career as an art educator at Richmond (BC) High School, before going on to instruct at ��ܽ����Ƶ and later, the University of Alberta. He had more than 50 years of experience teaching art at the public school and post-secondary levels. In 2011, he was named the Canadian Society for Education through Art’s Post-Secondary Art Educator of the Year, and in 2012 received the University of Alberta Faculty of Education Sessional Teaching Award.

Harold retired to Lunenburg in 2015, where he continued to teach and inspire artists. A celebration of his life will be held in Lunenburg at a later date. To share memories of Harold with his family and friends, visit  .

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“It’s been an exciting night. The anticipation of showing these new lithographs to the public was colossal, and it was amazing to see so many people connect and come together to celebrate this project,” said Dr. Aoife Mac Namara, president, ��ܽ����Ƶ University. “We want to build upon the lasting legacy of the original ��ܽ����Ƶ Lithography Workshop, and judging by the reaction of our guests tonight, I think we are well on our way to doing that.”

The ��ܽ����Ƶ University Lithography Workshop was established in 1969, earning international recognition and redefining the artistic potential of print in the 20th century. It had a significant and lasting impact on the world of art and design, and included several famed artists from Canada and around the world. Tonight’s event marks the official revival of the workshop, and the work on display was representative of the new, diverse direction the project will take moving forward.

��ܽ����Ƶ students and recent alumni were able to take part in the lithography workshop through studio visits with the artists while they were on campus. In addition, students were hired as assistants in the studio and were commissioned to write essays on the works, which will be published online at .

“It has always been a priority for the Anna Leonowens and ��ܽ����Ƶ that students have direct contact, and an opportunity to work along-side professional artists, gaining hands-on experience and witnessing different approaches to art making. I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to revive this workshop and continue this legacy. From the inception of this journey it was important to us that the participating artists were from diverse backgrounds, to have a more inclusive workshop than before. We’re honoured to bring these artists’ impressions to this project,” said Melanie Colosimo, Director/Curator, ��ܽ����Ƶ’s Anna Leonowens Gallery Systems. “Challenging each artist beyond their comfort zone sparked their creativity. Paring conceptual artists with a master printer, who is an expert in making prints, was a brilliant partnership.”

Artists Shuvinai Ashoona, Jordan Bennett, Shary Boyle, Brendan Fernandes, Amy Malbeuf, Ed Pien, Derek Sullivan, and Ericka Walker are the eight whose work was on display tonight. The limited-edition prints were available for purchase throughout the evening, with proceeds from sales being invested in collaborative printing and the ��ܽ����Ƶ press, helping to revive publishing at the Halifax-based art and design school.

In addition to the unveiling of the prints, tonight’s attendees were also treated to an artist roundtable discussion, and a question-and-answer session with the artists themselves. This provided guests with an opportunity to learn more about ��ܽ����Ƶ Lithography Workshop – Contemporary Editions and its significance on the world of art.

All eight lithographs will be on view at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 1723 Hollis Street, Halifax, from November 9 to April 26, 2020. The new prints will be available for purchase at .

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Charmaine Nelson is a Professor of Art History. Receiving her PhD in Art History from the University of Manchester (UK) in 2001, she has taught at McGill since 2003. Her research and teaching interests include postcolonial and black feminist scholarship, Transatlantic Slavery Studies, and Black Diaspora Studies. Her scholarship examines Canadian, American, European, and Caribbean art and visual culture. Her research and teaching explores various types of “high” and “low” art and popular art forms including TV, film, photography, prints, sculpture, painting, and dress. She also works across various genres including portraiture, still-life, nudes, and landscape art. She has made ground-breaking contributions to the fields of the Visual Culture of Slavery, Race and Representation, Black Canadian Studies, and African Canadian Art History.

Nelson has published seven books. They include the co-edited volume Racism Eh?: A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada (Concord, Ontario: Captus Press, 2004), the edited volumes Ebony Roots, Northern Soil: Perspectives on Blackness in Canada (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010), Legacies Denied: Unearthing the Visual Culture of Canadian Slavery (Montreal: Printed for author by McGill Copy Service, 2013) and Towards an African Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance (Concord, Ontario: Captus Press, 2018) and three single-authored books entitled The Color of Stone: Sculpting the Black Female Subject in Nineteenth-Century America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007) and Representing the Black Female Subject in Western Art (New York: Routledge, 2010), and Slavery, Geography, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica (Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing/Routledge – Taylor and Francis, 2016).

Her latest single-authored book, Slavery, Geography and Empire delivers one of the first Slavery Studies books to juxtapose temperate and tropical slavery and the first such comparative work in Art History. Exploring a vast range of primary sources including travel narratives, plantation ledgers, merchant cash books, and planters’ journals, the book juxtaposes the British island settlements of Montreal and Jamaica to question how the representation of land became central to the possession of territory, the control of resources, and the othering of African and indigenous populations.

Her seventh book, Towards an African-Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance (Concord, Ontario: Captus Press, 2018) is the first to consolidate the field of African Canadian Art History. With topics spanning a time frame from 1786 until the present, it brings together chapters on black Canadian artists with others on the representation of black subjects in Canadian Art.

Nelson’s current program of research, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant, stays with Canada and Jamaica to explore fugitive slave advertisement as visual culture that can disclose details about the process ��ܽ����Ƶ of creolization in temperate (slave minority) and tropical (slave majority) sites of empire.

Nelson has held several prestigious fellowships and appointments including a Caird Senior Research Fellowship, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK (2007), a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair, University of California – Santa Barbara (2010), and a Visiting Professorship in the Department of Africology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (2011). She is also a Faculty Fellow at McGill’s Institute for Public Life of the Arts and Ideas (2015-17) and an Associate Member of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art (2015) at Concordia University (Montreal). She is the recipient of a Woman of Distinction Award from the Montreal’s Women’s YWCA in 2012 (Arts and Culture Category), a Teaching Award from The Arts Undergraduate Society of McGill University (2016), and McGill’s Faculty Award for Equity and Community Building (2016).

Research website:

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Andrea Fatona is an independent curator and an associate professor at the OCAD University. She is concerned with issues of equity within the sphere of the arts and the pedagogical possibilities of art works produced by ‘other’ Canadians in articulating broader perspectives of Canadian identities. Her broader interest is in the ways in which art, ‘culture’ and ‘education’ can be employed by to illuminate complex issues that pertain to social justice, citizenship, belonging, and nationhood. She is the recipient of awards from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and was the 2017/18 OCAD U-Massey Fellow. Fatona has published scholarly articles, catalogue essays, and book chapters in a range of publications.

Presented as part of the ��ܽ����Ƶ Public Lecture Series 2019-2020, hosted by Art History and Contemporary Culture.

Reception in the Art Bar +Projects (1873 Granville Street) to follow.

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��ܽ����Ƶ University Portfolio Day is a prospective student’s best opportunity to visit our campuses, tour the unique and generous facilities, learn more about our programs, and meet our faculty and students and learn from them what they do here and what you might want to do here too.

If you have work of your own, bring it along and select the option for Portfolio Review when you register. You will have a one-on-one appointment with faculty who will review your work and give you feedback and suggestions of ways you can improve and develop your work further leading to the preparation of successful portfolio.

Our next Portfolio Day is Saturday, February 16, 2019. If you wish to attend, Once you have completed the registration, we will send you an email detailing the day’s activities and additional information.�� Don’t forget to indicate whether or not you would like to bring a Portfolio or some work to be reviewed. Last day to register will be Friday, February 15.

offers visitors to ��ܽ����Ƶ a discounted rate of stay!

If you have any questions, please email admissions@nscad.ca

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��ܽ����Ƶ has a unique research culture that we wish to bring to the fore. Research Day will showcase current and on-going projects by ��ܽ����Ƶ faculty and collaborators. The event aims to inspire faculty members to undertake research initiatives, as well as excite interest among students to engage with faculty projects as research assistants and as future independent streams of research within their practice. ��ܽ����Ƶ’s faculty are innovators and collaborators partnering with colleagues at other institutions (nationally and internationally). This event will highlight that research does not happen in a vacuum, that cross-disciplinary voices have powerful standing in the outcomes of research initiatives.

The presentations are multi-disciplinary as there will be researchers from partner institutions presenting works that integrate elements of design, craft, and art within their research practices. Moreover, the event will culminate in an always entertaining PowerPoint Karaoke at 7 pm at ��ܽ����Ƶ’s Art Bar + Projects. ��ܽ����Ƶ’s Research Day is a platform for knowledge dissemination made possible through the generous support of the Research Support Fund (RSF), a tri-agency initiative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

For more information on ��ܽ����Ƶ’s Research Day, contact Marlene Ramos at mramos@nscad.ca.

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At the same time��you can walk down the block to check out work from ��ܽ����Ƶ’s painting and drawing faculty, including a solo exhibition by new Assistant Professor in painting & drawing, Erica Mendritzki.
See you there!

Please RSVP at

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We are proud that Dr Sandra Alfoldy is the leading Craft Historian in Canada, and also faculty member of ��ܽ����Ƶ University. In this talk Sandra discusses the ‘connection’ artisans share, what makes an artisan and how this image has been portrayed over the years. She also poses the question – who decides what image an artisan should take? Who decides the worth of an artisan? Is the term ‘artisan’ devalued by the desire for sales?

Dr. Sandra Alfoldy received her Ph.D. in craft history from Concordia University in 2001, and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Rochester in 2002. Her current research focuses on the relationship between craft and architecture in post-war Canada, and the historical tensions between Canadian studio craft and industrial design. She is the author of Crafting Identity: The Development of Professional Fine Craft in Canada��(McGill Queen’s University Press, 2005), editor of Neocraft: Modernity and the Crafts��(��ܽ����Ƶ Press, 2007) and co-editor of Craft, Space and Interior Design: 1855-2005��(Ashgate Press, 2008).

Dr. Alfoldy co-curated the 2007 traveling exhibition On the Table: 100 Years of Functional Ceramics in Canada, and is the chief curator of the Canadian Fine Craft exhibition at the 2009, and the Canadian Fine Craft exhibition at the 2010 Olympic winter games. In 2007 she organized the international Neocraft: Modernity and the Crafts conference at ��ܽ����Ƶ University. She credits her professional textile artist parents, Andy and Elaine Alfoldy, for instilling in her this obsession with the crafts.

Dr. Alfoldy is also Professor of Craft History at ��ܽ����Ƶ University, and Associate Curator of Fine Craft at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. She is the author of The Allied Arts: Architecture and Craft in Postwar Canada��(2012) and��Crafting Identity: The Development of Professional Fine Craft in Canada��(2005), editor of��Neocraft: Modernity and the Crafts��(2007) and co-editor of Craft, Space and Interior Design, 1855-2005(2008). She was the Chief Curator of the national Canadian exhibition at the Cheongju International Craft Biennale (2009) and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics

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CULT 3601 Art Action and Environment Fall 2018

Prof. Karin Cope

Meets: Mondays 1300h-1600h Classroom: G219, Fountain Campus, Halifax.�� Contact: kcope@nscad.ca or karin.cope@gmail.com

Course Description: Centered on the notion of arts-based “fieldwork,” this research/creation course is designed as a critical engagement with contemporary environmentally-focused social practice, land-based, and activist art on the one hand, and the rapidly expanding fields of ecological criticism, feminist materialism and environmental justice, on the other. What is the history of the notion of “ecology”? What about the “Anthropocene,” the “more-than-human” sphere, or “geologic time”? When we speak of the arts and culture as “sustainable” undertakings are we right? (Sustainable for whom? When? Where?) How might we measure our carbon footprint(s), or think through our relations to water? What is “plant-thinking”? Why should thinking about race, class, gender and poverty be at the center of contemporary reflections on the environment?

In addition to regular readings, short practice-based research and writing assignments, and conversations with contemporary artists and curators, students will develop strategies for visualizing, activating and transforming key critical environmental ideas and themes; all students will have the opportunity to develop and carry out final individual or collaborative projects in the media or mode of their choice. Open to any interested students from all majors and practices.

Format: Seminar/discussion, workshop/studio

Karin Cope also teaches:

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