by Anna Bratulic

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Faculty of Fine Arts, a group of students have organized an arts festival to present their work to the public. The festival, which will feature 80 projects from all Fine Arts disciplines, runs from March 5-16 at locations on and off campus.

Michael Farnan (ice sculpture): Michael Farnan’s snow sculptures on the Loyola campus have attracted a lot of attention. Of course, working outdoors may have some drawbacks – his first sculpture, of three people sculpting, was destroyed by a recent windstorm – but Farnan remained unfazed. “I was really happy when I went to see my work that Sunday [before] it was destroyed,” he said, adding that his true enjoyment comes from working with the material. Farnan will also present a series of oil paintings he calls Walking in the Rain After 2000 Years of Christianity.

Abha Singh (art therapy): Art can reveal a lot about a person, says Abha Singh, a second-year Master’s student in Art Therapy. She volunteers at the Montreal Children’s Hospital Psychiatry department. Working with children who have been abused or who have behaviour problems, she notices that, over time, what cannot be verbally expressed often finds a voice through pictures. “It’s a method for them to cope or release anxieties,” she said. Singh and other students studying Art Therapy will showcase a mural about their experiences in the department.

Nadine Faraj (ice-cube decorations): Nadine Faraj traces her penchant to create multi-purpose art to her background in design. “Design art is all about functional art. Things should not only be beautiful, but do good as well,” she said. Take her decorative ice sculptures, called Blessed Seeds, which dangle from the trees lining the passage to the Vanier Library. On the surface, they are pretty ornaments, but as the weather warms up and the ice melts, the ice will melt to reveal tingling bells as an homage to the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall nearby; another will release bean seeds onto the moist ground below which will hopefully sprout in the spring.

David Stulberg (theatre piece): The stress of putting on a live show is beginning to creep up on Film Studies student David Stulberg. His play, The Forefather’s Fiasco, is about three guys trying to determine the best way to break up with someone in the most painless way possible (for themselves, that is!). Stulberg acts as well as directs, and finds it challenging to pull off both at the same time.

“You’re in the process and you objectively evaluate other people’s performances, but it’s a little difficult to evaluate your own,” he confessed. The Forefather’s Fiasco will play at the D.B. Clarke Theatre on March 7 at 8 p.m. and at Reggie’s on March 14, also at 8 p.m.

Here are some of the places you can see and hear students’ work in the Art Matters festival: the VAV Gallery and the hallway of the Visual Arts Building, at René-Levesque Blvd.; the mezzanine, lobby and seventh floor of the Henry F. Hall Building, plus the terrace outside Java U and the walls and windows of Reggie’s Pub; the Guadagni Lounge and The Hive at Loyola; and atrium of the McConnell Building (library complex, SGW).