Fiona Bowie facts for kids
Fiona Bowie is a Vancouver-based Canadian artist. She creates special art called "installations". These artworks often use film, video, photography, and sculptures. She likes to make "immersive environments," which are like worlds you can step into and explore.
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Fiona Bowie: Artist and Teacher
Fiona Bowie studied art at two universities. She graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1990. Later, she earned another degree from the School of Contemporary Art at Simon Fraser University in 1998.
From 1998 to 2000, Bowie helped organize art shows at the Western Front Society. She also edited their exhibition catalogue in 2001. From 2012 to 2020, she started a special place called Orbitas in Sámara, Costa Rica. This was a residency where artists and curators from around the world could visit and work on their projects.
Bowie was also a Professor Emeritus at Emily Carr University. She taught many different art programs to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Amazing Public Artworks
Fiona Bowie has created several large art pieces for public spaces. These artworks often make you think about important topics.
Surface: Underwater Life of False Creek
In 2010, Bowie created an ongoing art project called Surface. It's like a live documentary of the underwater world in False Creek. False Creek is a small inlet in the middle of Vancouver. It used to be full of sea life. After a lot of industry in the early 1900s, it's now slowly getting better. You can see seabirds like cormorants and herons there. Fish like herring are also returning.
The Surface project uses a camera placed under an Aquabus. This is a small ferry that travels around False Creek. The camera sends live video using a Wireless mesh network. This video is shown on a big LED screen. The screen is on the side of Ocean Concrete, which is an old industrial building on False Creek. You can also watch the live video online at www.surfacer.ca. This means people can watch it on their phones as the Aquabus goes by.
Bowie wants Surface to show the real state of the underwater plants and animals. It's not meant to be like an aquarium or a glass-bottom boat ride. She chose False Creek to show how human actions affect marine life. It's like a small example of bigger problems, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre.
Fiona Bowie said, "Surface will evolve over time, reflecting the health of marine life as evidence of our collective activity: the future of the work and what is manifest, is wholly dependent on us." This means the artwork changes as the environment changes.
Flow: A Changing Image Story
In 2009, Fiona Bowie's artwork "Flow" opened at the Civic Centre in Vancouver. This was Vancouver's first permanent public art installation using video and photography.
Bowie created Flow with Sidney Fels, a computer scientist from the University of British Columbia. The City of Vancouver asked them to make this artwork. "Flow" is a constantly changing scene. It uses special computer software to access a huge library of images. Bowie took these photos over four years.
The artwork includes hundreds of portraits of people and landscapes. It's programmed so that people photographed at different times appear together. Some people even show up again and again, as if they are part of a bigger story.
The landscapes used as backgrounds for these changing scenes were places that were changing themselves. These included building sites, empty lands, and areas affected by hurricanes. Bowie also used old photos from the Vancouver Archive. These photos showed areas of the traditional lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. These lands are in East Vancouver, where the artwork is installed.
When you get close to the image, special Smart glass makes parts of the picture disappear. The glass changes from cloudy to clear. This breaks up the image and makes it harder to see clearly. Suddenly, your surroundings become part of the art! This makes you stop being just an observer and experience the art in the moment.
Another cool part of "Flow" is how images change. The transitions from one image to another can take up to two minutes. This means people or backgrounds slowly fade away. They become like ghost-like images before disappearing completely.
"Flow" also has an interactive web part. Visitors can add their own words to images taken from the live artwork.
These words are phrases written by Bowie and some bands. Once visitors add words, the images and dialogue are saved in the website's archive.
Gallery Artworks
Fiona Bowie also creates art for galleries. These works are often very thoughtful and unique.
In 2007, her work Sliphost (created in 2006) was shown at the Western Front Society in Vancouver. It also appeared at Open Space in Victoria. This artwork featured actor Alan Cumming playing two main roles. A curator named Candice Hopkins said that Sliphost "plays with conventions of media, narrative, and scale." It makes you think about consciousness, beauty, and other big ideas.
Bowie has several artworks that she adds to over time. One example is "Phenotypes" (from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004). This work is an ongoing installation. Each year, she adds new stories to the visual record. This shows how a home or neighborhood changes over time. Every time it's shown, Bowie chooses which "chapters" or years of activity to present. For example, exhibitions in 2004 and 2007 showed completely different stories, even though they were set in the same Cul-de-sac.
In 2001, Bowie created "Faltering Repetition." This was a multi-channel photo-video artwork. It used a special 360-degree projector to create the background. The work showed a chance conversation between two strangers at a traffic light. It used separate sounds for the setting and the characters' dialogue. Fiona Bowie has used this style in other works too, like 'deliverance' (1998), 'Phenotypes' (ongoing), 'Nature Morte' (2005), and 'Sliphost' (2006).
Music Projects
In 2008, Bowie started a band called SLickerslacker with Jim Peers. They had their first show at Light Bar, an event that featured art and music. Before that, Bowie was the bass player, songwriter, and singer for a Vancouver band called Chopper from 2000 to 2007. She also performed a special music piece called "Absence" in 2006.
Art Exhibitions
Fiona Bowie's art has been shown in many places. Here are some of the galleries and art centers where her work has been exhibited:
- Or Gallery Vancouver, BC. (2017)
- Western Gallery, Bellingham, Washington (2017)
- Libby Leshgold Gallery (2012)
- Pacific Cinematheque (2009)
- Open Space Gallery Victoria (2007)
- Yukon Arts Centre Museum (2007)
- Western Front (2007)
- Belkin Satellite (2006)
- Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver (2006)
- New Media Symposium (2004)
- New Forms Festival (2004)
- Consolidated Works, Seattle, Washington (2002)
- Presentation House Gallery (2001)
- The Vancouver Art Gallery (2001)
- A Prior Video-Salon. VandeVelde, Brussels, Belgium (2000)
- Or Gallery (1998)
- grunt gallery (1996)
- Galerie Mladych u Recickych, Prague, Czech Republic (1995)
