Evelyn Roth is a self-taught community artist, specializing in environmentally sensitive events and art gallery exhibits. She lives near Adelaide, Australia and operates the Evelyn Roth Celebration Center - an artist studio and residency in Point Roberts, Washington, USA, near the Canadian city of Vancouver.
Born on December 27, 1936 in Mundare, Alberta, she grew up on a small prairie wheat farm. In the 1950's, she moved to the city of Edmonton and took various classes in art, crafts, modern, Eastern and classical dance, yoga and fencing while working in the children's library. Moving to Vancouver in 1961, she joined a group of artists, dancers and filmmakers called Intermedia. With this group, she was part of the flourishing international art scene at the time (ie; Happenings, Art & Technology, Wearable Art and Videography).
Recycling came to the fore in the early 1970's, and Evelyn's knitting and crocheting skills came to be used to recycle natural fibers as well as televisions tape from T.V. stations into Articles - topical function objects resulting in the publishing of the Evelyn Roth Recycling Book by Talon Books. (1974)
From 1973 through the 1980's, Evelyn explored sculpture and dance in the environment and formed the Evelyn Roth Moving Sculpture Company. A film titled Woven In Time showing the company in various outdoor settings won an ETROG award in 1976 (Canadian Film Awards) and is still widely shown.
In 1977, living in Vancouver, close to the native culture of the Pacific Northwest she was inspired to sew a giant salmon and was then a focus of a Salmon Festival with the Haida people on Queen Charlotte Islands. Working and living with these indigenous people, she developed Salmon Dance, commissioning a half hour electronic music composition with narration and choreographic costumed totemic characters: eagle, raven, bear and frog, along with their interaction with human. Salmon Dance has been performed with local youth groups in Hong Kong, Brazil, Africa, Korea, the United States and Canada, and at present has an interactive component in which children from the audience are provided costumes and are guided in through the dance around the inflatable salmon.
In 1981, Evelyn was invited to the Adelaide Festival Centre for an interactive display, Video Jungle. Adelaide television stations supplied their discarded T.V. programs which were crocheted into a video playland in the foyer of the centre. Being interested in indigenous culture, Evelyn accepted an invitation to Pitjitjanjara communities and held workshops in rabbit knit and painted leather garments, crocheted video tape shade canopies and installed a crocheted nylon playweb. These articles were displayed at the University of Adelaide in 1982 and at an exhibition in Canada titled Evelina Down Under the same year.
As international interest in Evelyn's interactive fabric arts grew, Evelyn was invited to be artist-in-residence at Spokane Expo '74 in the USA, Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia in 1982, Edmonton Canada World University Games in 1983, Vancouver Expo '86, and the Commonwealth Games in victoria in 1994. Giant nylon inflatable structures filled football size stadiums and hundreds of children sat inside giant, multi-colored creatures for storytelling. The need for tactile, hands-on public events at festivals led Evelyn to construct a series of quick-to-put-on bird, animal, insect and vegetable costumes for instant parades titled the Nylon zoo. This very portable storytelling theatre is booked around the world and is Evelyn's main livelihood. United States fisheries departments commissioned Evelyn for their own salmon "tents" and developed a program titled Web of Life with extra costumed elements fire, water, sunshine, forest, etc.
Travelling around the world in Korea, Bali, Japan, Thailand and Pening in 1984, she observed and participated in many traditional dance and community rituals which led her to produce Meeting Place, an hour-long outdoor dance centered around an inflatable Spirit House. She commissioned Roger Deegan to compose a music score incorporating sounds recorded by Evelyn on her journey. Costumed dancers and giant props reenact ritual dances of the Pacific Northwest, Thailand and Africa mixed with high technology represented by Ms. ITT, Mr. IBM and the Big Bad Wolf. Meeting Place was performed in Ottawa, Edmonton and Expo '86 in Vancouver and available for bookings today.
Evelyn has held a number of multimedia, one-woman art gallery installations: Rainbow Link at Adelaide Festival Centre (1984), University of British Columbia, Canada (1986) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sao Paulo, Brazil (1992) - in which 100 metres of painted letters on silk to artists along the Pacific, hangs as a centerpiece with a soundtrack which can be listened to on ritually decorated earphones. Salmon Run, Run, Run, Run at Surrey Art Gallery, Canada (1993) and North Central Washington Museum, USA (1996). This installation centers around the concerns of depletion of salmon stocks, a hanging "salmon run" painted fabric mural is suspended as the centerpiece to which the public can tie salmon pledges. An original soundtrack can be heard through decorated earphones and video monitors show Evelyn's journey with the inflatable salmon (both of these installations are available for display). Evelyn's most recent installation titled Global Travels with the Phoenix Automatic at Nourlanga Community Arts Centre (1998) features an inflatable sewing machine and its dairy.
Since taking residency in Australia under immigrations "distinguished talent" category in 1996, Evelyn has shared her community art skills locally: decorations, parades and banners for Willanga multicultural and youth festivals, the Eco-Maze has been featured at Adelaide Youth Festival (Take Over), the Nylon zoo a feature at Darling Harbour in Sydney and at WOMAD in Adelaide and many other children's festivals in Australia.
In 1998, a new work titled Coral Reef Climbing Web was the feature at Palm Grove at Darling Harbour, Sydney. Hundreds of children crowded through a crocheted playweb suspended over an inflatable "coral reef."
Groups focusing on ecological issues and endangered species have commissioned Evelyn to construct more inflatables: the Tiger Cub by Western Canada Wilderness Committee in Vancouver invites children around the world to "save the Bengal tigers;" the Mud Shark works with Manrove Action Project on the Cayman Islands, the Humpback Whale and Baby tours Hawaii and Pacific Islands with Hawaii Storybook Theatre, while in Australia the Bilby, Great White Shark, Crocodile and Dugong promote local group action. |
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