Seen and Heard in Edmonton

Meet TJ Jans and Salena Kitteringham, the team behind the Curious Arts blog, which peeks behind the scenes at the University of Alberta to reveal the making of theatre, music, art and design.

I first met TJ through I Dig Your Girlfriend, an award-winning blog co-created with partner Janelle Aker about LGBTQ life, politics and culture. It made a big splash in Edmonton’s social media landscape when it started in 2011. (And I’m still very proud to have been named a Crush of the Week.)

TJ’s work there caught the attention of Salena, the communications lead in the University of Alberta’s fine arts department. She knew she had the talent on board to create an engaging, non-stodgy look at all the cool stuff happening. They went for it with the easier-to-ask-forgiveness-than-permission attitude that good things need sometimes to get started.

You can follow them on Twitter: Salena is @SalenaKitt, and TJ is @thecoldviking. If you’re a fine arts alumnus or student and you have a story to share, email them at salena@ualberta.ca and tj.jans@ualberta.ca. Here’s our conversation:

You can also get the podcast on SoundCloud, in iTunes, or on Stitcher.

Here are the blogs and social media accounts that Salena and TJ recommended:

• Donna McKinnon’s 32 Pages and Donna’s River Valley. You can also find her on Twitter at @illustratedword and on Curious Arts.
• Amanda Schutz of Curio Studio, @amandaschutzie
• I Don’t Get It, the podcast about contemporary dance from Fawnda Mithrush and Paul Blinov
• The YouAlberta student life blog and @ualbertastudents
• The University of Alberta’s climbing wall on Instagram: @ualbertaclimbing
• Jordan Carson and @ualbertaresidence
• Work of Arts, the Faculty of Arts alumni blog
• The Art Rubicon visual arts magazine and @artrubicon
• Adam Rozenhart‘s projects, particularly Pride Tape
• Andrea Beça‘s projects
• Gregg Beever‘s projects

We also talked about the episode of The One podcast featuring TJ and Janelle, which I highly recommend.

This week’s Seen and Heard in Edmonton is brought to you by CKUA, which has another great season of the TransCanada Music West podcast. Host Grant Stovel explains in this episode how he and producer Elliott Garnier choose the live performances they feature.

You can subscribe in iTunes, or listen to it at ckua.com.

Musical credits: Beethoven’s Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2 No. 1, played by Daniel Veesey, from freemusicarchive.com.