From Cirque du Soleil’s stop into the Leon’s Centre over the summer to the annual Froid’Art Festival, to a lowkey night meeting friends to listen to jazz at Musiikki, this year was full of high-quality art. The Journal’s staff and contributors take a look back at their favourite events from Queen’s and Kingston.
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“Getting to see the Froid’Art installations around Kingston was definitely a highlight to my year at Queen’s. While I had never seen the exhibit before, after interviewing David Dossett for a Journal Arts article, I knew I had to get out and see the sculptures for myself.
What’s fun about the exhibit is that the sculptures—paintings encased in 300 pounds of ice—are scattered across Kingston, so you never know where you might stumble upon one. They offer a map of all their locations, but I preferred the randomness of finding one on the street, or outside one of Kingston’s local businesses.
These paintings not only brought some color to Kingston’s dreary winter days, but also seemed to bring the city together, interweaving all different parts of Kingston into one big art exhibit.”
—Chloe Sarrazin, copy editor
“In early March, I visited Musiikki Café for the first time. It’s a cute bar on Brock St. with a lot of character, tucked between its rustic, exposed brick walls. Musiikki specializes in whiskies, but what attracted me was its promise of live jazz every Monday night.
The jazz group—made up of Helena Hannibal, Eric Liu, John Torres, Spencer Evans, Alexander Tikhnenko, Brian Howell, and Ron Hackett—plays on a pocket-sized stage tucked away on the second floor.
At first, I felt like a fly on the wall—it’s a smaller bar and everyone inside seemed to know each other—but as soon as the six-piece band started doing their thing, I was spellbound. You could stroll past this bar on the street a million times without realizing what musical magic awaits inside. I went in with no expectations and left with a renewed love of jazz.
It made me wish I’d stuck with the alto sax after high school.”
—Nathan Gallagher, staff writer
“My favourite arts event I attended this year was the Dan Studio Series’ winter term production, Lost & Found. This show was a collection of four one-act pieces, all written by students. I genuinely loved each one, and I found them all to be well-written, well-acted, and well-staged.
I was completely engrossed in every moment of the show. Overall, immersing myself in student-made creative work was an enriching and valuable experience that will colour my time at Queen’s in a positive light.”
—Julia Harmsworth, staff writer
“My favourite arts event this year was Queen’s Players. Players was fun and funny, and it gave me and my housemate an excuse to scream loudly and off-key to our favourite old songs.
It was exactly the rowdy kind of fun we needed to help forget about our school stress. By the end of the show, my face hurt from laughing the whole time.
Players’ goal seems to be to make sure that everybody has a fun night—audience and cast members included—and that’s something anyone at Queen’s can appreciate.”
—Tessa Warburton, photo editor
“This year, I read Desmond Cole’s The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. Back in the 2000s, Cole was a Queen’s student before he dropped out and went on as a journalist and advocate for Black Canadians who have faced ongoing racism in Canada. His book documents a year of his advocacy, where he fundamentally challenges the mythology of Canada as the pinnacle of multiculturalism.
It’s inspiring to see a former Queen’s student speak out about pertinent issues in Canadian social justice.”
—Samira Levesque, contributor
“In the first few weeks of March, I had the pleasure of attending a Royal Tusk concert at The Mansion in Kingston. They were incredible, and their set showed their multi-genred music and enthusiastic performing style. The band connected well with the audience, which was filled with students and local punk fans alike.
It was a truly enjoyable evening. As an audience member who was unfamiliar with the band’s style, I found myself fueled with adrenaline as the set played out. Watching Royal Tusk perform on stage and interact with affection and humour with their fans, it was clear they found a second home in this Kingston pitstop.”
—Simone Manning, staff writer
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