Art On Stage September 2018

Above: Art On Stage, Protect, at Sandbanks Music Festival 2018 with headliners, WINTERSLEEP. Photo by Suendrini
15 September 2018

protect
Image: Sketch of original stage art concept for Sandbanks Music Festival 2018, Sandbanks Provincial Park, Prince Edward County, Ontario
Up cycled Medium: Discontinued commerical textile, some discarded apparel textile, remnant marine rope
Dimensions: total of panels approximately 22 feet by 7 feet
15 september 2018
Good Public Reference: Ecojustice

The grouping of words above is the foundation for my latest art on stage, PROTECT, created especially for Sandbanks Music Festival 2018. PROTECT is left open to interpretation, so that you, the reader, can connect with the piece in your own way.
Method and Details
Faces: This is my first attempt at creating human faces in a stage-art installation. Graphic and modern elements are characterized in the elongated, bare-featured profiles that emphasize their two-dimensional flatness.
Some of the faces in PROTECT are that of dealmakers, speaking over endangered mammals with a tanker spill in the background. The toxic mix depicted is one of bitumen sand and diluent. Under the word “Progress,” where the quotes signify irony, I attempt to capture in colourful textile the prism rainbow-like effect oil has on water.
The faces to the right are that of protestors, defending the natural environment as chinook salmon swim by.
Southern Resident Killer Whales: On the right is an ethereal hot air balloon with the word Protect stitched in. Cradled below by repurposed marine ropes is a scene of grief and mourning. This section of the installation is my reinterpretation of a recent, moving watercolour painting, SEE ME, by Washington State artist, Lori Christopher. The piece sent my imagination in search of my own idea of the loss and letting go felt by J35, nicknamed Tahlequah, who is the 20-year-old orca mother and member of the long-studied J Pod of Southern Resident Killer Whales.
Below: detail images (left to right) left side of of stage depicts a wave and a killer whale, a child’s hot air balloon, detail of bow on hot air balloon, right side of stage depicts J35’s show of grief surrounded by her pod
Art On Stage June 2018
Above: Art On Stage, In The Cord Of Love at Skeleton Park Arts Festival 2018. Photo by Suendrini
23-24 June 2018

In The Cord of Love
Image: Sketch of original stage art concept for the Skeleton Park Arts Festival 2018 stage, Kingston, Ontario
Up cycled Medium: Discontinued commerical textile, remnant marine rope, single-use bottle caps, recyclable water bottles, LED lighting
Dimensions: Dominant element - human skull 6 feet x 8 feet and forty thread elements at 2 feet each spanning breadth of the stage
22-24 June 2018
Good Public Reference: Ecojustice
Method and Details
Returning to Skeleton Park Arts Festival 2018 for the second year in a row, a large human skull will feature prominently in this year's up coming stage-art installation, titled In The Cord of Love. The skull has the ability to pique interest and fascinate even as it repels. It will serve to welcome visitors entering McBurney Park, a.k.a. Skeleton Park, during the festival as a universal expression of both mortality and humanity. This exclusively created anatomical focal point is a symbolic nod to a sense of connection and celebration of place as expressed by this close-knit community. Another especially important theme for its local residents is the protection of natural habitat and animals, as seen in this article. As such, In The Cord of Love will feature this front-facing form, measuring 6 feet by 8 feet, covered by some of nature’s exquisite animals and natural habitats, created of my up cycled art.
Retaining their own identity, these cloth characters of past installations are combined for the first time to create a new, self-sufficient composition through the visual language of collage. Sockeye salmon, ocean reef fish, sea turtles, bees and their natural place of dwelling intertwine in chaotic exuberance, against the domineering influence of the skull. These creatures and their ilk are under pressure and threat of disappearing out of existence, as a consequence of unchecked human actions upon the natural world.
In a few strategic locations, I hand sew the weightier pieces, securing them down, while safety pins affix the rest into place. The nonpermanence of the pins, reflect the fragile environmental laws that leave natural habitats and biodiversity, upon which life depends, vulnerable despite their existence.
With its strong sense of implied movement, the dancing thread swirls across the back curtain wall and signifies the undeniable connection that is shared by living things. It does what thread does best - that is, it keeps the fabric of life as we know it together. My intention with this up cycled textile piece is to try and reinterpret the topic of community and the human effect upon the environment in a way that makes sense - and to tell this visual story through the power and joy of collage art, in all its undeniable energy, rhythm and unpredictable nature.
Below detail images (left to right): textile skull adorned with individual species and natural environments that are under threat, recyclable plastic water bottles used as eyes on skull, Dave Bidini of legendary band, Rheostatics, rock the stage
Art On Stage April 2018

Above: Art On Stage, Meadow Life at County Pop 2018 with headliners, ELLIOTT BROOD. Photo by Suendrini

Above: Photo by Bob Ullrich of musical talents, JEREMIE ALBION and the ROSEHALL BAND with art on stage, Meadow Life at County Pop 2018
28 May 2018

Meadow Life
Ontarian meadows
Image: concept sketch of stage art for County Pop music festival stage at the historical Crystal Palace in Picton, Prince Edward County, Ontario
Up cycled Medium: discontinued commercial textile, remnant marine rope, single-use plastic bags (as batting filler)
Dimensions: 25 feet x 6 feet
28 April 2018
Good Public Reference:
MEADOW LIFE is the title of the installation I created for our 2018 County Pop stage, at the historical Crystal Palace in Picton, Ontario. This year’s creation is my largest up cycled textile installation and had individually handcrafted wildlife in their natural habitat. It was created with the intention to express a local touch point of beauty reinterpreted in unlikely and unforeseen places.
This cross-sectional, semi-abstract stage art arrangement is a snapshot of a meadow from above and below the ground. Materials are carefully chosen by colour and pattern to represent the hand-cut and detailed elements, such as grassland creatures, wildflowers, native grasses, fibrous roots systems, organic matter and various layers of earth. The piece will symbolically represent the vital significance and diversity of a landscape that may be a seemingly simple one, at first glance.
Method and Details
Stitched throughout the textile meadow will be blooming Black-eyed Susan, Cardinal flowers and Wild Bergamot hovering above the permeable ground, which nest grassland birds and other creatures. This penetrating plant-mass community, becomes the extensive root systems in my method, as unravelled, frayed and knotted County-sourced marine rope remnants are stitched on to the larger work, in order to echo this complexity in nature, into textile.
Seventy-three hand-cut, geometrical and padded forms in earth- tone textiles will provide the visual weightiness and heavy textural contrast to the lower half of this 25 foot wide piece. The 3D multi segments are meant to cast shadows and absorb the ambient lighting - in a way that layers of soil, organic material and aggregate do the same. I added muddy blue hues to reflect a shallow ground water flow and a recharging aquifer, located deeper still.
Art On Stage September 2017

Above: photo of headliner, GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS with up cycled textile art- Good Reef! Helping The Dusk and Dawn Chorus by Suendrini
16 September 2017

Good Reef! Helping The Dusk and Dawn Chorus
Image: concept sketch of stage art for Sandbanks Music Festival 2017, Sandbanks Provincial Park, Prince Edward County, Ontario
Up cycled Medium: discontinued commercial textile,remnant marine rope, single-use plastic bags (as batting filler)
16 September 2017
Good Public Reference: Earth-matters
Scientists near coral reefs habitats off Western Australia recorded new audio of fish choruses, around dusk and dawn, like birds on land! These natural soundscapes were useful not just for fish, but also for other reef dwellers like coral and were part of a larger quest to understand reef ecosystems, by listening to their inhabitants. Altering ocean chemistry (ocean acidification) and warming water temperatures, brought on by climate change, are leading to coral bleaching; putting stress on coral reefs and its ecosystem.
Method and Details
Seemingly from underwater in the ocean, this sweeping 4-piece up-cycled textile original stage-art installation - GOOD REEF! HELPING THE DUSK AND DAWN CHORUS - is created entirely from sewing rescued textiles discarded by the design industry, as well as marine rope remnants.
Below: left and centre detail photos of sea turtle, coral reef, reef fish and SMF logo courtesy of Ramesh Pooran. Photo on right by Suendrini Goonesekera
Art On Stage June 2017

Above: Photo courtesy of Skeleton Park Arts Festival of headliner, SARAH HARMER and her band with up cycled textile art
Below Art On Stage, Long View Wonder, Skeleton Park Art Festival 2017 stage
23-25 June 2017
Long View Wonder
Visualizing the importance of Science & Nature
Image: reconfigured concept sketch of stage art to suit the SPAF 2017 stage, Skeleton Park Arts Fest 2017, Kingston, Ontario
Up cycled Medium: discontinued commercial textile
Dimensions: 20 feet x 8 feet
23-25 June 2017
Good Public Reference:
LONG VIEW WONDER was inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and bees with their honeycomb hives. These two natural and scientific marvels in their familiar structural forms popped in harmony, while contrasting colour, texture and symbolic patterns played with the twinkling County Pop banner.The JWST’s eighteen, golden mirror segments and the thriving beehive, rendered in up cycled textiles attempted to lead one's imagination to a deeper engagement with both nature and science. The concept reflects upon the scope and depth of the informed scientific consensus based upon truths that will echo for generations.
Art On Stage May 2017
Above: Photo of headliners, BILL and JOEL PLASKETT and up cycled textile art, Long View Wonder, by Suendrini
Long View Wonder
Visualizing the importance of Science & Nature
Image: Sketch - configured concept to suit the County Pop music stage
Up cycled textile stage art for County Pop 2017, at the historical Crystal Palace in Picton, Prince Edward County, Ontario
06 May 2017
Good Public Reference:
Above: Art on stage at the Crystal Palace in Picton, Ontario for County POP 2017 Music Festival
06 May 2017
Art On Stage September 2016
Above: Photo of headliner, SLOAN and up cycled textile art, Blue, by Suendrini at Sandbanks Music Festival 2016
17 September 2016

Blue
Water Awareness
Image: concept sketch of stage art for the Sandbanks Music Festival stage, Sandbanks Music Festival 2016 in Sandbanks Provincial Park, Prince Edward County, Ontario
Dimensions: 5 feet x 8 feet
17 September 2016
Good Public Reference:
Method and Details
Sandbanks Music Festival 2016’s art on stage was inspired by Japanese artist of the Edo period, Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic pieces on Water. Suendrini created a five-piece customized art installation, titled, BLUE that brought awareness to the powerful subject matter.
The projections in the The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Environmental Outlook to 2050 suggest that freshwater availability will be strained unless new policies, awareness building and actions are taken to improve the current outlook.
Below detail: Photo of up cycled textile waves on stage
Art On Stage April 2016
Ode To Prince/
Green For All

Above: Photo courtesy of Michael Lindon of headliner, RON SEXSMITH and band with up cycled textile art on stage, Ode To Prince/Green For All
Below: County Pop Music Festival 2016 video
30 April 2016
Art on Stage September 2015

Secret Beach, Prince Edward County
Photo of musical talents with headliner, SARAH HARMER and up cycled textile art by Mihal Zada
Art on stage: Secret Beach, Prince Edward County at Sandbanks New Waves Festival in Sandbanks Provincial Park
Sarah Harmer played her newest song - "Just Get Here" from the "Al Purdy Was Here" documentary soundtrack
19 September 2015