view . summer 2010
13
Tokio Webster admits she had “no idea what I was
getting into” when she and eight other students started
in UWindsor’s School of Visual Arts’ first Bio-Art class
last September. It is the first such program in Canada and
among a handful in the world to explore what Webster
calls “the crazy new world” of
art that intersects science
and ecology.
The third-year Bachelor
of Fine Arts student majoring
in printmaking created the
likenesses of a two-headed
monster using E coli bacteria
in Petri dishes. Webster carved
her image out of linoleum
prints and stamped it onto an
agar substance, a type of gelatin made from seaweed. The
bacteria fed off of that food source and grew, doubling
every 20 minutes, creating what she called the “magical
element” of her art.
“So I basically paint it, print it and wait for it to grow.”
Innovative and interdisciplinary, the Bio-Art program
is just the latest development in the School of Visual Art’s
long history of programs and initiatives emphasizing
individualized, hands-on instruction. It joins other
cutting-edge offerings like the Visual Arts and the Built
Environment (VABE), a collaboration with University of
Detroit Mercy that combines art and architecture and other
areas, “visual culture” courses that encompass art history
and visual material ranging from photography to medical
imaging and maps, and Green Corridor, with its public
environmental projects.
This fall, the School celebrates its 50th anniversary, a
long and proud history marked
with milestones including the
province’s first bachelor of
fine arts program in 1964 that
graduated its first students
four years later, and Ontario’s
second masters of fine arts
program that began in 1979 at
its current location, a former
Packard auto plant on the
corner of Huron Church and
College. The anniversary marks the year that the first visual
arts classes were taught in the Assumption University
gymnasium in the fall of 1960.
Its graduates through the years have become successful
artists, teachers and designers throughout the world.
In addition, the School has forged unbreakable bonds
throughout the community and left lasting impressions.
Gilles Hébert, executive director of the Art Gallery of
Alberta and former director at the Art Gallery of Windsor
(AGW), praises the School for extending the profile of its
200-plus students and faculty throughout the city, in Detroit
and beyond.
BY PAUL RIGGI
INNOVATIVE AND INTERDISCIPLINARY,
THE BIO-ART PROGRAM IS JUST THE
LATEST DEVELOPMENT IN THE SCHOOL
OF VISUAL ART’S LONG HISTORY
OF PROGRAMS AND INITIATIVES
EMPHASIZING INDIVIDUALIZED,
HANDS-ON INSTRUCTION.
CELEBRATING:
50 years
IN PRODUCTION
