BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edition - Feb. 2016

WHERE NEXT?
creative writing takes on different visual mediums
by B. Simm
ACAD is going to be opening its doors to a
series of speakers from across North American
who will be talking about writing as a
visual medium. Weavers, graphic designers, copy
writers, typesetters and authors are just some of the
artists presenting different views on how we understand
what writing can be in the 21st century.
Derek Beaulieu, Calgary’s Poet Laureate for 2014-
16, explains, “What does writing and reading start
to become like when it incorporates things like
commercials, websites and graphic novels? What
does writing start to look like in a visual context?
Some of the speakers presenting at this unusual
but highly innovative gathering are PhD candidates
and researchers involved with one of a kind
projects. For instance, Jason Edward Lewis, one of
the keynote speakers, from Concordia University
is working a several million dollar federal grant in
which Mohawk youth from around Montreal area
decode and recode computers games so they can
then tell First Nations’ myths.
Another presentation, by Nick Sousanis, who
completing a post-doctorate at the U of C, has
written a dissertation, what Beaulieu refers to as a
“beautiful book”, called Unflattening. It’s the first
time anyone has done a PhD thesis on comics “in
the form of a comic.” Harvard published the 300
page comic which has sold across the globe.
Most people understand what a graphic novel
is, but when writing becomes a visual narrative
embedded in artwork and it’s more abstract than
images which tell explicit stories, interpreting that
narrative may be difficult. Beaulieu says that’s one of
the symposium’s objectives.
“What we’re trying to do is weave between
how were those forms created and how do we
understand it? What tools do we bring to the
table to form a new kind of writing?”
WHERE NEXT?: Creative Writing, Narrative, Film
and Contemporary Art takes place at ACAD on
Feb. 12 and 13.
14 | FEBRUARY 2016 • BEATROUTE CITY