Public Program

Animator-Led Tour of "Possible Futures" at the Leamington Arts Centre

Saturday, November 8, 2014 | 2 pm – 3 pm

Join our Triennial Animator for a tour of the art projects at the Leamington Arts Centre, 72 Talbot Street West, Leamington, Ontario. FREE admission!

About the Artists and Artworks:

Arturo Herrera was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Since 1999, Herrera has lived in the United States and Canada and is currently living in Windsor, Ontario. He is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, performance, socially-engaged projects and photography. In the parkette outside the Leamington Arts Centre, passersby will find a beautifully, hand-carved street sign of Leamington, which is part of Herrera's three-part art work composed of three street signs for LaSalle, Leamington and Windsor. Simply titled Corn Fields, the signs are placed at three exhibition sites - The Art Gallery of Windsor, Leamington Arts Centre and the Vollmer Culture and Recreation Complex (LaSalle). The project acknowledges the ongoing importance of corn fields in our local economies, traditionally and in our present day. Herrera explores the power of public signage to transform public awareness in this work: From afar, the artwork resembles a standard street sign, upon looking closely, the intricacies of the handmade sign reveals itself to the audience. Using the image of corn as a symbol of the region, Herrera reinstates the importance of cornfields not only for the identity and culture of the region, but also to our changing ecology.

Jennifer Willet is an Associate Professor in the School for Arts and Creative Innovation, University of Windsor since 2008. Her work resides at the intersection of art and science, and explores notions of representation, the body, ecologies, and interspecies interrelations in the emerging field of bioart. 

Windsor Yeast (2008-2014) is an ongoing bioart project where Willet collects yeast samples from the community in the regions of Windsor-Essex and Detroit. The project makes visible to audiences the microorganisms we share our communities with every day. The yeast samples are grown in her lab at the University of Windsor in petri dishes backed with photographs and historical images of this area. The project was inspired by the smell of yeast from the Hiram Walker and Sons Distillery that infuses the air regularly in Willet's Walkerville neighbourhood in Windsor. For Willet, the smell of yeast signals the imagining of how we may be permeated with the molecules of a robust industrial biotechnological by-product. At the same time, she recalls with nostalgia the fermenting of wine and beer with her father in the basement of her family home. Windsor Yeast applies both a critical and a nostalgic lens to the post-industrial terrain of Windsor-Essex and Detroit, literally growing colonies of yeast over images of her adopted community. This project has grown to include satellite workshops in other cities including Hamilton Yeast (2010), Montreal Yeast (2014), and Amsterdam Yeast (2013). Willet invites audiences to participate in her forthcoming Leamington Yeast (2014) workshop on November 8, 12 - 4 pm.