Events

Aqua Nova, 2022

Location: Isabel Bader Center for the Performing Arts, Kingston, Ontario

Aqua Nova was a multimedia event with themes addressing water and community. It animates the windows of Kingston’s Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts with a large-scale projection.

Aqua Nova builds upon a body of Don Maynard's previous works that investigate unique site-specific projections and installation technologies, and uses swimming, water, and community as a conceptual focus.

The Isabel Bader Centre was transformed into giant projection screen to create a free community public art experience that includes video, live music, and dance. A video of swimmers and water-based imagery was projected onto a unique, site-specific screen covering the windows of the Isabel Bader Centre, visible from both inside and outside of the building. The projection was accompanied by live music performed by Sadaf Amini in the lobby over the two-night event. 

For the audience, Aqua Nova set the stage for experiencing the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in a transformational way. It created a conceptual platform and physical venue where Kingston artists from different disciplines – dance, music, film, and visual art – came together to create an inspiring community event while exploring the language of water, how we move in it, and its physical and spiritual connection to our community. 

Aquārium

2021

Performance; projected video, aquarium, live music

Don Maynard (artist), Nick Lennox (tenor saxophone)

Video by Don Maynard, Trevor Henderson, and Aīda Sulcs

Videographer: Jay Middaugh

Aquārium is an inter-arts performance by visual artist Don Maynard and musician Nicholas Lennox, wherein a series of videos exploring themes of water, movement, and physicality are projected into a small aquarium, complemented by music played by Lennox on saxophone and electronics.

Lennox’s performance is predominantly improvised yet highly responsive to the visuals projected into the aquarium. His musical performances are often informed by synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon which enables Lennox to be deeply in tune with the relationship between the visual and audio.

Aquārium continues Maynard’s exploration of projected video on non-traditional media, and constitutes the first in a series of collaborations between Maynard and Lennox.

Skeye Projects

Skeye Projects is a continuing experiment in altering visual experiences and perceptions.

A unique visual and musical encounter: a huge floating screen held aloft by helium-filled weather balloons floats overhead. The audience lies underneath looking up into the night sky while a live band improvises in time with the images projected above. The screen is dynamic, gently billowing in the wind; the images shift along with the movement of the screen. Viewers have the opportunity to stand, sit, lie down, and move through the crowd, changing their perspective and experience of the event.

Find out more at: skeyeprojects.com

CBC , The Exhibitionists, 2019

Skeye Projects: Floating Archives

2019

Doug Fluhrer Park, Kingston ON

On June 21, 2019, Skeye Project’s Floating Archives took to the air and flew our largest projection-screen ever along the shoreline of Lake Ontario at Doug Fluhrer Park in Kingston. Five local artists created new video for the work and five local jazz musicians created a live score to accompany the projections.

Artists: Trevor Henderson, Don Maynard, Chantal Rousseau, Aida Sulcs

Musicians: Hugh Box, Claire Bouvier, Michelle Girourd, Andy Pesz, John Torres

Video Documentation: Don Maynard

Lighting Design and PA: Tom Schneider

Skeye Project’s Floating Archives was supported by the City of Kingston and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Skeye Projects: Skeleton Park Arts Festival

2018

Friendship Park, Kingston ON

This community event brought over 250 people to a park in Kingston’s north end, as a satellite project for Kingston’s annual Skeleton Park Arts Festival. The works of six Kingston based artists were projected onto the screen, which floated 30 feet in the air, while a live band created an evocative musical soundscape.

Artists: Trevor Henderson, Don Maynard, Gabriella Sims, Aida Sulcs

Musicians: Hugh Box, Claire Bouvier, Scott Carey, Don Maynard, Andy Pesz, John Torres

Production Manager: Bill Penner

Production Assistant: Jesse MacMillian

Lighting Design: Tom Schneider

Skeye Projects: 30 Island Lake

2018

30 Island Lake, South Frontenac ON

This event took place at 30 Island Lake, a small lake on the Canadian shield just north of Kingston. Musicians played on a raft in the middle of the lake, while four canoes tethered the screen floating above. The sound of the performance carried through the landscape in the early twilight as people sat on their docks or in boats, while videos of the Canadian landscape played on the screen in the night sky. 

Artists: Don Maynard, Chantal Rousseau

Musicians: Claire Bouvier, Andy Pesz, John Torres, Michelle Girouard

Production managers: Jesse MacMillian, Dugan Maynard, Tom Schneider

Canoeists: Leann Cunningham, Zoe Cunningham, Marney McDermott, Lindsay Neilsen, Scott Neilsen, Mike Sheedy, Owen Sheedy, Su Sheedy