Art builds community

A visual artist, radio contributor, concert coordinator and curator, Pohanna Pyne Feinberg understates her rich resumé when she remarks that she has yet to define herself as an artist.

“I wasn’t interested in being at school,” says Pyne Feinberg, explaining her participation in community radio and projects like local music festivals. “Life is learning, but there was a moment when I realized that returning to school would be interesting for all the resources, networks and new ideas that it offered.”

Three years ago, she started studying for the master’s degree in art history she will be receiving from Concordia later this month.

Pyne Feinberg found her calling in art history because the program allowed her to find harmony between her research, her interests and her community engagement.

“I committed myself to community-engaged work while at Concordia,” says Pyne Feinberg. “I realized, ‘If I’m going to be working on this research and collecting all this data, I might as well share it publicly.’

“Art history is really about communities, and the people who have driven art,” she says. “It’s not a simple formula to explain how communities come together and how art is created.

“That’s what led to the idea behind Inspire Art. I really think it’s been useful and it became my major focus for a few years.”

In 2008, Pyne Feinberg created Inspire Art, an online magazine that documents and supports art communities in Montreal. By sharing all of the data and community art collected over the course of her master’s, she hopes to encourage others to do the same.

As for where she is going next, the New York native says time will tell. “My friends say I’m a homing bird: I always come back.”