Master of Education Student Robin Faye’s Artwork Featured in Public Show

Robin Faye, a visual artist and Master of Education student with a focus on Environmental and Sustainability Education, has created an art piece (see below) currently on display at the “Breaking Ground” exhibition at the Baggage Building Arts Centre in Thunder Bay.

The artwork is an interactive piece about pedagogical learning spaces. Robin created it as part of an arts-integrated research project conducted by Dr. Pauline Sameshima, her thesis supervisor. The artwork invites viewers to gently move inside it and sit on a meditation cushion to contemplate.

Robin explains that Dr. Sameshima worked with yoga teachers in her research, inviting the participants to write about their training process and respond to art she had created. Robin then read what the participants had written, and responded with the creation of her own piece, which deliberately remains untitled.

“My artwork is my impression of the yoga teachers’ experiences,” she explains. “Viewers will have their own interpretations of it, but some themes include contemplation, personal growth, and internal experiences. It references a snake skin, as one of the participants described her experience of growing as a yoga teacher to be like shedding her skin, like a snake.”

Robin adds that arts-integrated research is a dialogic process between artist and participant, with a goal of authentic expression. It’s a fluid process that can change according to context – much like one’s impressions of art.

Robin’s artwork was selected as the cover art for the show, which is a spring exhibition of multidisciplinary works by 20 artists. It is on view until June 29th at the Baggage Building Arts Centre in Thunder Bay.

Her work is also exhibited online at Lakehead University's Arts Integrated Studies Virtual Gallery, which is curated by a jury coordinated by Dr. Sameshima.