I AM NSCAD (and maybe you are, too?)

Thanks in no small part to my super-skilled and talented brother, Garrett Barker, I managed to create a new set of hanging 4x6 light boxes for this year's NSCAD Alumni Exhibition. It's a show and sale, and I can confirm from the sneak peek I had today that there is some super-fine stuff from real living artists that'll get snatched up fast. If you're in Halifax, stop by the newly-renovated Anna Leonowens Gallery to check it out. Show closes October 9th.

Fun fact: a 6x4 photo frame can perfectly display 24 frames of 35mm motion picture film.

'Beacon Project' for Nocturne Art at Night

I am pleased to announce that I am creating a new work as a 'Beacon Project' for this year's Nocturne Art at Night scheduled to take place on Saturday, October 17th, from 6pm - midnight in Halifax. My new work, How to Say, will mark my first time creating an audio piece. More on this as the festival gets closer. Many thanks to Nocturne for inviting me to participate!

New work, "The World Around," screening as part of Carbon Arc 5th Anniversary

The Carbon Arc Cinema has existed largely as a labour of love here in Halifax for the past five years. What better way for the cinema to commemorate its anniversary than with another instalment of Animation with Love? 

For this screening, I was asked if I could create a cinema version of my installation, The Hundred-Eyed Satellite. The result is The World Around, a meditation on the process of making and exhibiting that installation. I am pleased to be premiering it at The Carbon Arc's anniversary screening on July 16th. The screening starts at 8pm, but be sure to come a few hours early--there'll be some serious noms just outside at the Halifax Food Truck Rally earlier that evening!

Many thanks to curators Siloen Daley and Dylan Edwards for including me in this program!

Wander With Care at Struts Gallery June 16-27

I'm about to go pick up a projector from AFCOOP and head up the road to Sackville, NB for the day to install my work as part of Struts Gallery's summer exhibition series, The Living is Easy. You can check it out in the back gallery for the next couple of weeks.

And hey, why not make an afternoon of it and see the shows up at the Owens Art Gallery, too? Stop in at The Black Duck or Mel's for some food and top the day off with a drink at Thunder and Lightning where you can chat with your friends about what you saw. 

Nothing better than an art road trip in the summer time!

TONIGHT: HIFF premieres Wander With Care

I'm about to head downtown to start installing my film loop piece, Wander With Care, which will be up for one night only at the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival. I'm told doors open at 6:30pm, and the piece will run continuously through the evening in the main corridor of the Neptune Studio lobby.

Also at the Neptune Studio Theatre tonight: HIFF will also be screening a special program of shorts, REprogram, selected by Claudette Godfrey (SXSW), Lydia Beilby (Edinburgh International Film Festival), Curtis Woloschuk, and Dan Karolewicz (Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Montreal), at 7pm in the Neptune Studio Theatre. At 9pm, HIFF will be screening Jem Cohen's Museum Hours. Screenings include Q&A sessions afterward. 

All this and a bar! And popcorn! Hope to see you tonight. 

This Week's Akimbo Hit List

When someone asks you to list five things you're obsessed with, what would you say? A fun exercise, but harder than I thought it would be!

My Hit List for Akimbo

Artists Talk Publicly on the Halifax Commons

If you're in Halifax, you may have heard that tomorrow is 100 in 1 day, a day of mass citizen engagement around the city. As part of this event, the Khyber is hosting an intervention consisting of a series of artist talks at the fountain on the Halifax Commons from 3-7pm, called Artists Talk Publicly. I'm going to talk about my work (and you should, too)!

New Work at HIFF

I'm pleased to announce that I will be exhibiting a new film installation at the upcoming Halifax Independent Filmmakers' Festival (HIFF), running from June 10th-13th at the Scotiabank Studio Theatre. The festival hasn't posted a full schedule yet. More details to come. Until then, you can check out the trailer for the festival on the Official HIFF 2015 website.

The installation will have images that include this frame:

Artist Talk Time!

On Tuesday, May 19th, 6pm, I'll be giving a talk on my recent work and possibly why the heck I insist on making my stuff the way I do. I'm in good company, too: I'll be joined by fellow animation artists Tim Tracey (director and animator of the amazing stop-motion film, Kreb) and Peter Stephenson (who knows everything about 3D). Looking forward to hearing what's inside their heads, too! 

I'll also be giving a workshop on the collision of hand-craft and animation at AFCOOP on Thursday, May 28th. If you love working on large machines with your hands or doing scrimshaw (or if you just love learning history in a super hands-on way), then you should check this out.

This is all part of the Atlantic Filmmakers' Cooperative's Spring Workshop Series. 

Where I'm at.

Thanks to the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, and the Linda Joy Media Arts Society (through the Helen Hill Animated Joy Award), I have been spending the past six months working on The Evolution of Max. Most of this film involves rotoscoping, which is one of my favourite animation techniques. The subject of my film, Max, wanted to give a short presentation on this film's progress to his classmates for Autism Awareness Day on April 2nd, so I made a little teaser. I was pretty happy with how the teaser turned out, so I decided to share it with everyone. You can view it for yourself here: