event

Halalalalula: The Schmeki Noamson Project
Presented at CSV for Geary Art Crawl 2022

Live Performances September 24 and 25
Gallery Dates: September 24 - Oct. 7
Hours: Wednesday 12pm - 5pm
Thursday/Friday 6pm - 9pm

Schmeki Noamson is a Canadian artist working in video, music, and performance art. He calls his work secular prayers for a broken and beautiful world, satirical psalms, and loving celebrations of our cultural dreams about how we got here. Schmeki is the great grandson of four institutional religious men: a Buddhist monk, a Jewish rabbi, a Christian priest, a Muslim imam.

Four of the videos (Oh Oh Canada, USA Make My Day, Calice Tabernak, My Prayer) in this show are rough drafts of songs and performance videos Schmeki created, playing all the characters in the band, and all the instruments. The song Messiah Blues was recorded and produced with Dexter Nash; video production assistance from Annette Mangaard. The entire project is online at schmeki.com and features 25 videos and 9 songs.

Schmeki Noamson is a fictional character created by media artist Gary Popovich.

The Geary Art Crawl live performances feature Schmeki on vocals and guitar, Felix Beauchamp on percussion, Michael Kaler on bass, Daniel Mathisen on lead guitar, Eliza Mcfarlane on guitar and vocals.


Artist Bio

Popovich’s work has screened at numerous international festivals such as Sydney, Nyon, Oberhausen, art galleries such as the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Albright Knox Museum in Buffalo, San Francisco Cinematheque, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Millennium Film Theatre in NY, on CBC Television, retrospectives at cinematheques and artist run centres across Canada. In Toronto where he lives and works he has premiered two films at Images Film and Video festival and six films at the Toronto International Film Festival. He has helped to promote independent and experimental film production through years of work at The Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC) and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT). He is a founding member of Pleasure Dome Exhibition Collective, and has sat on boards and juries in support of independent film production and exhibition.

“My family left Africa about 60,000 years ago. At some point, some major mass of my DNA was clustered in the Balkans, along either side of imperial faultlines and violent engagements. Both of those sides emigrated separately to Canada and found each other in the snowy land of promise. I was raised on the top floor of an r&b hotel in Niagara Falls where I played with tape recorders and projectors.” Gary Popovich