Tiffany Shaw-Collinge

Tiffany Jeanine Shaw-Collinge (1982) is a Canadian artist, curator, and architect. Before heading to Architecture school at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, she curated several installation exhibitions in Edmonton, Alberta. In 2012 she was the sole representative from Alberta on the Canadian national team for the Venice Biennale of Architecture. In 2016 her work Pehonan was chosen as the namesake installation piece for an Indigenous Art Park in Edmonton's Queen Elizabeth Park.

Early life and education

Tiffany Jeanine Shaw-Collinge was born in 1982 in the city of Calgary, Alberta and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. She attended the Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts in Edmonton until 2000, and in 2004 she received a Diploma of Fine Arts from MacEwan University.^[2][3] Since 1998, Shaw-Collinge has worked as a youth mentor with the iHuman Youth Society outreach program.^[4] In 2006 she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University. While attending NSCAD, Shaw-Collinge became interested in the concept of Regionalism, which began to inform her work.^[2][5] She then received her Masters degree in Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in 2012, graduating with distinction.^[6][7]

Career

Early work

In 2007, Shaw-Collinge co-curated the installation exhibition The Apartment Show, which showed 37 different Canadian artists in an abandoned 3-story apartment building. The exhibition focused on the theme of domestic life.^[6][8][9] In 2009 she curated the installation exhibition The Office Show, which featured the work of twelve Canadian artists in an empty storefront, transforming the space into an abstracted office environment.^[10] Both exhibitions are examples of Shaw-Collinge's work in producing shows in "found spaces",^[11] that "exploit Edmonton's transient façade".^[12]

2012 Venice Biennale

Shaw-Collinge was a part of the Canadian team that presented their work at the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture: Migrating Landscapes. There she exhibited a multi-media piece consisting of three models that replicated the frame of the cabin her great-grandfather Jean Paulin built near Fort McMurray in the early 20th-century. One was composed of deer hide sourced by her family near the spot of the residence, one with crocheted fabric, and another with zip ties. Each incorporated techniques gleaned from her Métis heritage.^[13] She was the sole representative from the Province of Alberta to represent Canada at the Biennale.^[14]

Shaw-Collinge said of her work that "I have this romantic view of the trapline. Some of my family members still go there, people who hunt. I was trying to think about my heritage because Migrating Landscapes is about cultural memory." She stated further that the project was created in part to introduce her Métis cultural heritage to her family, during which they undertook a genealogical survey and began applying for Métis status in Canada. Part of the other inspiration for the work was the Three Little Pigs fable, and the strength to which each house was built. Leather was chosen for the strongest iteration, because it is "the oldest technology with the most history."^[5] The untitled work was next exhibited at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in late 2013.^[2]

Park installations and architecture

Following her architecture degree in Los Angeles, Shaw-Collinge began her career as an architect for the firm Manasc Isaac in Edmonton. One of her first projects was on the team working on a new Arts Building for her alma mater MacEwan University.^[15][16] She also continued her work in art and architecture. Her entropic architecture work Salient Accumulation, for example, is a hybrid of "a brackish ecology that informs itself through the accumulation and evaporation of water."^[17] In 2013, she exhibited her work Fox Farm HQ at the Ramble in the Bramble installation held at Whitemud Park in Edmonton's North Saskatchewan River Valley.^[18] The piece consisted of a "plywood construction is a ziggurat-like shape in a clearing that viewers climb onto" according to Vue Weekly.^[19] In 2014 Shaw-Collinge worked as a visual effects person on the television documentary-short series Green Energy Futures.^[20] She also created The Quarters Community Garden installation on 102 Avenue and 96 Street in downtown Edmonton,^[21] as a part of the Dirt City Dream City exhibition.^[22] Her work Northern Shift was shown at the Design Latitudes exhibition at the University of Alberta from May to June 2015.^[23]

In 2016 an Indigenous Art Park in Edmonton's Queen Elizabeth Park was named for Shaw-Collinge's work Pehonan, which appears among the park's installations. According to Shaw-Collinge, the name of the park and work is "Cree for the waiting place or the gathering area." The park will be inaugurated in 2018.^[24] The work Pehonan will be a mixed-media piece including historical materials, which is a common thread throughout her work. According to the Edmonton Journal, "The shape contrasts an amphitheatre with a circle, speaking to both western and indigenous traditions."^[25] Shaw-Collinge's work has also been exhibited at Latitude 53 in Edmonton, the Art Gallery of Alberta, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.^[26] She is also a member of the Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective and is a contributor to architecture magazines including Metropolis.^[27][28]

References

External links

• Official site