2021 Research Series Essayists

Young Lungs Dance Exchange is excited to announce the 2021 Essayists who will be working with this year’s Research Series artists-in-residence!

MEET THE ESSAYISTS

katnancy

katnancy makes ‘art’, facilitates and writes out of Treaty 1/Winnipeg.

Born and raised in Gimuy(Cairns, Australia), they studied Photographic, Video and Expanded Art Practice and Art History at the Queensland College of Art in Meanjin(Brisbane, Australia) and at the School of Art University of Manitoba.

They have initiated and facilitated various local and transnational discussion groups, and participated in intergenerationally collaborative projects here and abroad. Including founding and co-facilitating The Sunroom Artspace, an all female, artist-run project space in the Exchange and working with the Nepal Picture Library in Kathmandu, Nepal as part of the Doing Visual Politics Symposium.

Practices of play, rest and dreaming, are cultivated, shared and lead every stage of the process, in all aspects of their work. Honouring nuance, fluidity and intuition, the dance continues, and is fed by an ongoing commitment to curiosity and collaboration.

They are currently the Manager of Creative Programming at Video Pool Media Arts Centre and serve on the Board of Directors for WNDX Festival of Moving Image.

Toby Gillies

Toby Gillies is a multidisciplinary artist, the third generation in his family of art-thing makers, enjoyers, and educators living in Winnipeg. Toby’s practice is rooted in a playful exploration of materials, and experiments in collaboration. Projects have taken the form of drawing, installation, filmmaking and animation, ceramic, sculpture, cardboard, parties, social practice.

For a decade, he has been facilitating art experiences in the West Broadway community, where he serves as Studio Programs Manager at Art City and is an Artist in Residence at Misericordia Health Centre. His favourite days are spent making art with older people in the morning, making art with younger people in the afternoon, and then working on creative projects of his own in the evening.

Kate Sjoberg

Kate is a settler living and working on Treaty 1. Her writing work includes academic research, journalistic work, opinion pieces, prose and poetry.

“I’m concerned with living in this body, in relationship with others, on Treaty One and Treaty Two territories experientially, politically and historically. My best work tends to come from articulation of felt experience in this body. I’m a WASPy settler with strong Swedish roots.” – Kate Sjoberg

Essayists

One writer and one visual artist or photographer are paid to participate in the Research Series by creatively responding to the work of the in-residence artists. The point of the program is to allow for exchange across discipline and to create opportunities to broaden the exploration of the artists in residence by offering multiple in-depth perspectives. Writers and visual artists are invited to participate at various times throughout the year.

Young Lungs accepts a letter of interest and examples of work on an ongoing basis. Please send to younglungs.wpg@gmail.com or fill in the online form.

Use this form to apply as a writer

Use this form to apply as a visual artist, filmmaker or photographer

Listing of Essays

Over the last couple years we have been commissioning writers and visual artists/photographers to critically respond to and engage with the research of the artists-in-residence through creative essays. Below is the collection of creative essays to date.

a study in truth (or an act through two movements) - by Reza Rezaï Continue Reading
Questions: a response to Tanja Woloshen and Deanna Peters’ Research - By Callie Lugosi “I need more arms.” In Tanja Woloshen’s research, she raises questions such as: What is the body? How could investigating limb consciousness inform ecology and freedom? What do our limbs carry? How do I explore our relationship to the future through the body? These questions are big and esoteric in nature. When asked to clarify what she’s… Continue Reading
seeing and knowing - by hannah_g Produced as part of Research Series September-November 2017 I was looking at some reproductions of Torey Thornton’s paintings the other day. Colourful, witty, the paintings contain forms which correlate to things in the world one may be familiar with – tiger stripes, fruit, a herd, furniture. Getting into their specifics, however, places one in the realm of conjecture.… Continue Reading
Essay - by Beth Schellenberg 2018 November - January Research Series The morning I head to the Young Lungs studio is biting, the cold and sun making my eyes water. I am one of the last to arrive, and after removing a comical number of layers and setting my boots alongside the others, I enter the studio where researchers have already begun… Continue Reading
A Study in Migratory Bodies - by Graham Wiebe Continue Reading
A Written Workshop - by Jaz Papadopoulos Pick something. Something you can do with your body. Something easy. Something easy you can do with your body. Something easy you can do with your body every day. drink a glass of water say hi to yourself in the mirror look out the window and count to ten do you favourite stretch for five breaths read… Continue Reading
Visual Essay - September - November 2017 Research Series Visual Essay by Michelle Panting Davis Plett with Rachelle Bourget Alex Winters with Warren McLelland Kayla Jeanson with Alex Winters and Brianna Ray Ferguson Self Portraits inspired by research Michelle Panting is a writer and lens-based artist living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 2013, she founded FULL, a website dedicated to documenting art, culture, and… Continue Reading
dance, discipline, and the anarchic body; or, how do i get my body to let me take a dance class? - by a. charlie peters 2015-2016 Research Series how do i get my body to let me take a dance class? this sounds like i’m invested in the mind/body split. I’m not, but i slide into it as readily as the next person born after René Descartes started thinking he is because he thinks he is. some believe that Descartes’s famous… Continue Reading
In Flux – A Visual Essay - by Michel Saint Hilaire The Ritual ~ Climb ~ The Performance ~ Velvet War Still ~ In Flux ~ Mercury ~ Robot Empire ~ Heavenly Bodies ~ Ghost Rehearsal/Research Continue Reading
It’s a Big Mess: Non|Sense Making on a Damaged Planet - By Praba Pilar I dedicate this talk to Glamdrew Andrew Henderson. I am honored to have been a part of his process with Eroca Nicols and collaborators Carly Boyce and Mars Gradiva. I am grateful he took my secret to the grave. Life, vida, biome, biotic, creation – always a process, never a state. Whether its biopoiesis, abiogenesis, or that… Continue Reading

Photo Credit – Featured header image: Michelle Panting 2019