Toronto Summer Festivals - A Glimpse of the World at Home

I am a huge proponent of the multiculture. It informs my design and my world outlook. I also teach English and through my teaching have met students from literally every corner of the globe.  In my artistic life, as Mikooshka (my musical alter-ego), I craft music which crosses over from genres like reggae, rock and [...]

The World Comes Home to Africa - FIFA World Cup 2010 - A Musical Perspective

The opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup is taking place right now, and it’s reminiscent of the large-scale ceremonies I remember from the Vancouver and Beijing games. The stadium is ginormous and hundreds of Africans, primarily women, are performing synchronized dancing as performers do songs blended together in medleys.

I just saw the singer of [...]

“Waterlife” Documentary – Free Screening at NFB on June 1st

This movie looks like a “must see.” The director, Kevin McMahon has directed some amazing documentaries, including one of my favorites, “McLuhan’s Wake” – a doc on the Canadian media communications theorist Marshall McLuhan.

Green Screens presents WATERLIFE

Directed by Kevin McMahon, 2009, 109 minutes.

Tuesday June 1 at 7pm

FREE

NFB Cinema – 150 John St (at Richmond St [...]

Contact Photography Festival 2010

The annual Contact Photography Festival is taking place through the month of May. Unlike the other famous Toronto festivals, including HotDocs and TIFF, this one is completely free – so there are no excuses – check some stuff out!

This year’s theme is “Pervasive Influence: Exploring the social and political consequences of the medium of photography, [...]

Torontoist announces Rep Theatre Opening - Toronto Underground Cinema

Wow. It’s been quite a week for arts and entertainment in the city. The HotDocs Documentary Film Festival opening and Contact Photography Festival mark the beginning of the many arts-focused festivals which take centre-stage during summer months. Venerable website Torontoist has a story and photographs of the founders of a new repertory theatre which will [...]

Mediatheque and NFB - Great Toronto Film and Documentary Resource!

Located at John and Richmond St. in downtown Toronto, the National Film Board’s Mediatheque centre is an inspiring place. You can check out all kinds of short films, animations and documentaries. Once I took a group of students there for a field trip. The presenter was amazing – it was one of my favorite all-time [...]

Interview with Toronto Author and Publisher Michael Redhill

Toronto author and publisher Michael Redhill

Michael Redhill is a Toronto-based author and publisher. He has taught at the University of Toronto, where he is also presently the “Writer in Residence.” A few years ago, I was fortunate to have him as my instructor for a Creative Writing (Poetry) course. He has written a number [...]

Graphics and Illustrations of 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

The branding and identity work for the Olympics features some stunning illustration. Kudos to the Vancouver Olympic committee!

Today I fired up Google Chrome and saw the Olympic graphic (or “doodle”) Google created for their homepage. (It’s pictured at the end of this article). The image is subtle and appealing. It doesn’t even use the [...]

Greatest Indie Canadians

Recently I got to playing around with a graphic of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and a picture of artist/writer Douglas Coupland. I was compositing the two and came up with the image at left, which I really quite like. I started thinking about what makes Doug Coupland one of my favourite Canadians, and who [...]

China Promoting Itself to the World with Art and Artist's Districts

Art by a Chinese artist named Liu Bolin. He specializes in camouflage painting. His work challenges us to think about identity and ambiguity in contemporary Chinese society. Click to view larger image.

It’s no secret that China has long been the world’s factory and is increasingly looking to change its position from that of producer to [...]