Professor Lin Xu was born in Inner Mongolia, China. Her family moved to Beijing when she was 12. Following graduation with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Professor Xu worked as an engineer for a couple years, then switched to graphic design and worked in the advertising industry for a longer period of time. She loved art as a little girl, and always intended to gear her life in that direction. After saving some money, she left China when she was 27. In 2000, she completed her undergraduate studies in Visual Arts, and applied to attend graduate school. After four years at Washington State University - three to complete her studies and one year of teaching - she joined the new Fine Arts program at Brandon University.
Custodial History
This artwork was created on site in its current location in the spring of 2008.
Scope and Content
This artwork was commissioned by the President Dr. Louis Visentin in 2005. It was designed as a public art for the BU community to enrich an environment, to communicate about life and culture, and to provide people with a visual source to contemplate.
Titled Gyration, the artwork consists six slender poles ranging from 7 to 8 feet high, each measures approximate 5 inches in diameter. Five are decorated with black and white line drawings inspired from micro-biology images. They are completed at the top with organic shapes and solid colors. The five decorated cylinders represent the essential contemporary technologies such as Text. Data, Voice, Image, Networking, and Human Factor. The one left white represents the unknown.
The artwork was created from porcelain - one of the purest and the strongest clays on earth, it was then cleared glazed and fired to 1240 Celsius. The material and the process echo the purity and the strength of human spirit nourished by the earth and the nature environment.
The circular wheel-throwing marks create a sense of upward movement and energy of grovvth, representing human being' s never ending search for knowledge, perfection, and unknown. It is hoped that the colour, the tree like vertical lineal rhythms, the vessel forms, the images, and the sense of movement will appear to the viewers in a different way and produce free associations and connections, and yet to bring together a symbolic world integrating science and art, form and mind, nature and human.
Notes
The description contained in the scope and content note is taken verbatim from an e-mail from Lin Xu to Tom mitchell 22 May 2008.The original was filed in the correspondence file Brandon University Administrative Records 16.3.Biographical note adapted from Lin Xu's biographical note at http://liszt.brandonu.ca/BUDirectory/BUProfile/Default.aspx?Dep_Key=30&Per_Key=871
3 m textual records; 100 photographs and drawings; 19 books and pamphlets
History / Biographical
John Tyman was born in Kent County, England. After briefly serving with the British Army, Tyman attended the University of Oxford. He came to Canada first in the summer of 1957 to work for a short time, before returning to England in the fall. In 1959, he returned to study at McGill University, and obtained an M.A. in 1961. In 1962, he moved to Brandon to establish a Geography department at Brandon College. Tyman served as a professor and, for a short time, as Dean of Science during his time at Brandon University. In 1970, he obtained a Ph.D. from the Oxford University. In 1976, Tyman left Brandon University and moved to Australia. In Australia he taught at Mount Gravatt College in Brisbane until his retirement in 1994. As of January 2006, John Tyman continues to reside in Australia.
Custodial History
The Tyman fonds remained in the possession of the Geography Department at Brandon University following Dr. Tyman's departure to Australia in 1976. With Dr. Tyman's approval the records were transferred to the McKee Archives in May 2001.
Scope and Content
This fonds contains a copy of "By Section, Township & Range: Studies in Prairie Settlement," by John Langston Tyman. This publication was based on Tyman's doctoral thesis, which is also included in the fonds. His doctoral thesis was completed in 1970 and titled, "The Disposition of Farm Lands in Western Manitoba, 1870 - 1930: Studies in Prairie Settlement."
Fonds also includes extensive research materials compiled by Dr. Tyman on prairie settlement. They include: copies of the Annual Report of the Department of the Interior; documents relating to C.P.R. land sales (c.1870-1900); personal accounts and local histories of municipalities in southern Manitoba such as Shoal Lake, Justice, and local C.P.R. lines; the Canadian Homestead Settlement Co.; The Free Land Homestead Co,; the Canadian Northwest Lands Co.; the N.W.H.B., C.N.R., Lake Manitoba Railway & Canal Co.; land grants given to Veterans; Wellams and Dominion Steamship Co.; maps of southern Manitoba RM's; Sowden and Co. (a land settlement company); correspondance to a Rev. L.O. Armstrong in Emerson (c. 1885); legislation; agricultural progress; history of school lands; correspondance to and from J. Tyman (c.1960); the settlement of Icelandic, Hungarian, and Scandinavian immigrants; a plethora of maps both relating to prairie settlement and to world geography; a manuscript by William Pearce (1925); a transcript titled "Patterns of Settlement"; 5 rolls of microfilm containing maps and copies of some publications acquired by Dr. Tyman; a number of books and c.1900 publications to do with prairie settlement; maps by township and range of the prairies; 100 photos and drawings all c.1880 to 1900; extensive township summaries; and extensive land disposal records as recorded by the Lands Department, including the names of settlers.
Notes
Fonds level description written by Mike White (2001).
Many documents in this collection were copied from originals at the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Calgary, Alberta, Library and Archives Canada, the Archives of Manitoba, land titles and corporate offices.
Storage Location
MG 3 Brandon University Teaching and Administration
1.3 John Langston Tyman
