The 2023 edition of the Dying.series, held from January 14 to February 2, featured a diverse array of events. Dying.exhibit at Artscape Youngplace showcased the works of 16 artists, while Dying.dialogues brought together 31 speakers. Additionally, Dying.films presented 8 short films in a hybrid format at OCADU and online, further expanding the series’ reach and impact.
We are also very happy to share that this year's Dying.exhibit received the DesignTO Juror's Choice Award, selected by Boris Yu.
We are also very happy to share that this year's Dying.exhibit received the DesignTO Juror's Choice Award, selected by Boris Yu.
Featuring Artists and Designers
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Amberlie Perkin is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who explores the connections we share with our non-human kin and the natural world. Perkin's artwork highlights ways to understand and respond to death while examining how curious and embodied engagement with the natural environment can inform the complex and often abstract emotions of grief. Perkin's art practice enacts the materiality of mourning and metamorphosis, while exploring the regenerative potential of death to animate new growth in the natural world and our lives. Her installations call upon viewers to make connections to nature, inviting them to feel, remember and acknowledge their ghosts.
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Andrea Campbell is a photo-based artist who has obtained a Master's of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University with a Major in Photography and a Minor in Digital Media, and a Diploma in Applied Photography from Sheridan College. Her practice is about the representation of the human body as it relates to, and is shaped by contemporary society, namely our relationship to progress and technology. Her work provides a contemplative space that explores and makes visible, the gap between the embodied and the disembodied manifestations of the human experience within our changing cultural landscape.
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Anne Isabelle Leonard is an interdisciplinary artist, community builder and workshop leader. Firm believer of art and nature as an alternative source of education, Leonard dedicates her practice to bridging the gap between the human and more-than-human world. She holds a BFA from Concordia University (2015) Her art and curating work has been exhibited on 3 continents. In addition to her art practice, Leonard builds artistic communities enabling free expression and connection through creativity. She co-founded and has been running the free dance community Danser Dans l'Noir since 2017 and is the co-founder of the Outdoor Artist Collective which aims to redefine artistry by bridging art, community and nature.
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Connie Chappel is a multidisciplinary artist based in Treaty 1 Territory, Winnipeg, Manitoba. She uses photography, sculptural assemblage and installation to explore correlations between the natural world, human life, inanimate objects, and the cycles of growth and decay, life and death. Her experiences and research into death and dying informed her 2019 solo show called Embodiment at aceartinc. Since receiving her BFA with 1st class honours from the University of Manitoba School of Art in Winnipeg, Chappel has received grants from the Manitoba Arts Council and the Winnipeg Arts Council. Her work has been featured in juried exhibitions in Canada, Mexico and Europe. Most recently, she participated in a virtual a residency that included a three-person exhibition, Through Distant Air, at AllArtNowLab, Stockholm, Sweden. Currently, she is partnering with two scientists for a project exploring implications of climate change in relation to the human body and the landscape, notably trees.
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Daniel Laskarin is an artist and a professor at the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Victoria. His practice is one of restless contemplation. It is object based, materially and philosophically rooted. It is an investigation of our experience of objects as other bodies and of the ways in which art may give sensory experience to consciousness, creating a bridge between substance and ineffability. Understanding that the "expanded field" is utterly blown apart, his work makes things that stay together, that find their own order in a condition of disorder, and that at the same time remain unsettled. This work uses diverse media, drawn from industrial materials and processes, sometimes incorporating photography and video, optics, robotics systems, installation and sound. He has been involved with set design, public image projections, and large scale public commissions in the Pacific Northwest and has exhibited across Canada and internationally.
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I am a Greek/Canadian multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, painting, video and installation. My work is influenced by my cultural and personal background along with concepts of identity, nature, and uprootedness. Drawing from different disciplines, such as geography, architecture, psychology and technology, I map micro and macro spaces similar to a cartographer. I create meta-maps of topography, movement, and connections creating a sense of location and place. I studied philosophy and art at the University of Toronto and York University, and I hold a diploma in 3D Computer Animation.
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The Health Design Studio works to bring an inclusive and interdisciplinary design approach to healthcare design challenges. Drawing upon long-standing collaborative partnerships with healthcare partners, the Health Design Studio supports researchers to develop designs to support health transitions, supportive and inclusive design techniques, and exemplary design with an emphasis on knowledge dissemination and mobilization. Much of our work focuses on design for safety critical and high sensitivity topics, including communication at end of life, harm reduction tools, building capacity and resilience for co-design in health, and inclusive COVID-19 information.
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Grégory & Anaïs are an artist couple that go by the name “Scenocosme”. They live in the Rhône-Alpes region in France. Their unique creations take shape through various expressions: interactive art installations, plastic art, digital art, sound art, collective performances etc. By distilling digital technology, they bring out essences of dreams and poetry. As visual artists, they divert various technologies to create contemporary works of art. They develop the notion of interactivity, by which the work exists and evolves thanks to the physical and social relations of the spectators. They realize astonishing hybridizations between technologies and living or natural elements (plants, humans, water, wood, stones). Most of their interactive works perceive various invisible relationships between bodies and the environment. They make sensitive the tiny energy variations of living beings by offering interactive staging where spectators share extraordinary sensory experiences. Their works are presented in numerous museums, contemporary art centers and digital art festivals around the world. Their artistic installations have notably been exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (Germany), the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Canada), the Daejeon Museum of Art (Korea), the National Center for Contemporary Arts ( Moscow), at the Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh (USA), at the Bòlit Center d'Art Contemporani (Girona); in numerous biennials and international festivals: Art Center Nabi / INDAF (Seoul), Biennial International Experimenta (Australia), Futuresonic (UK), BIACS3 Biennial International of Contemporary Art (Seville), NAMOC National Art Museum of China / TransLife Triennial of Media Art (Beijing), WRO (Poland), FILE (São-Paulo).
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Jocelyn Brown is RN, BA, BScN, MN, completed her undergraduate and master’s studies at the University of Toronto. She has worked as a pain and palliative care clinical nurse specialist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre for the past 14 years. This involves collaborating with inter-professional colleagues to provide the palliative approach to care for patients and their caregivers at any point in their illness trajectory, addressing the physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, and practical aspects of suffering, with the goal of increasing their quality of living and dying. Her role involves mentoring nurses and other health care professionals on integrating the palliative approach to care and she is involved in education, research, and quality improvement initiatives.
Additional work with Young Adult Cancer Canada, Dr Jays Children’s grief centre and Camp Ooch, supporting bereaved children, has been very meaningful to her. Jocelyn is the author of Love & Loss, a book containing personal reflections on her role as nurse, in collaboration with artist Ramune Luminaire. The writing and images in the book invite readers to consider their own vulnerability and how that engagement can create the possibility of change and healing. The book has become an entry point for nurses and other healthcare professionals to talk about dying, death, loss, grief, hope and coping, a trigger for reflection on their own stories and how these stories shape us personally and professionally. Ramune Luminaire is a visual artist, educator, and writer whose work creates a place for emotions and experiences that are seldom expressed or discussed. She attended both Central St Martins School of Art and Design and Camberwell College of Art in London, England and has an honours degree in visual arts, specialising in sculpture and ceramics. Her current chosen media are drawing, sculpture, installation, and writing. She has shown her art in galleries and museums in Southern Ontario, Toronto, Montreal, various parts of England and Norway. |
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Melanie Garcia is a Filipino / Canadian artist and costumer for film. Her mixed-media works are concerned with unconscious spaces, the distortions of the human body, and the spaces the body occupies. Her works have been exhibited in Canada, Netherlands, Iceland, and Norway. When not pushing around little pieces of paper, Melanie offers art workshops to youth in and around Tiohtia ke/Montreal.
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Based for many decades in Toronto, Sandra Gregson relocated to Ottawa in 2021 where she was born. Her art practice includes painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and video. Recent work is informed by walking, reading, investigating ongoing change and processes of the natural world, and interactions between natural and built environments. Research includes the knowing of the natural world evident, for example, in plant cycles, seasonal changes, ecosystems, mycelium connections. Time and process are often considered. Sandra holds an MFA from York University and a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has participated in art residencies in Canada and Europe; her artwork has been exhibited throughout Canada and her videos have been screened nationally
and internationally. Her work is included in private and public collections, including The Art Bank, City of Ottawa, and York University. She is represented by Sivarulrasa Gallery. |
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Shay Salehi (she/her) is a New York based artist utilizing interdisciplinary sculpture and installation to explore themes of repetition and self-destruction.
In 2020, Shay received a BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCADU) in Sculpture and Installation. Previous to OCADU, Shay studied glasswork at Sheridan College (2011-2014), and continues to make sculptural glass work. She is currently completing her MFA of Fine Art at Parsons New School in Manhattan, New York. Adam Giroux (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist living in Toronto. Adam’s works aim to address the challenges of social hierarchies and our complicity in oppression. Adam is a self-taught painter and tinkerer, learning their practical skills of creation through necessity and curiosity. |
Featuring Filmmakers
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Shannon Donovan is a multidisciplinary artist whose current work examines aspects of history, mortality and time. Her process is highly intuitive and informed by daily life, changing landscape and the solitude of nature. Unique architecture, landscapes and surreal imagery are represented through photography, moving image and installation. She holds a diploma in photography from Holland College and a BFA from NSCAD University. Recent exhibitions include Dalhousie Art Gallery, Lumière Arts Festival, InFocus Photo Exhibition, Black Cat Showroom, Nocturne Art at Night, Inverness County Centre for the Arts, CBU Art Gallery and Corridor Gallery. Shannon has lived and exhibited in cities across Canada and her work may be found in private collections internationally. She currently resides in Nova Scotia
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Cailleah Scott-Grimes is an award-winning Toronto-based director and illustrator. She holds an MFA in Film Production from York University and a BA in Visual Studies and East Asian Studies from the University of Toronto. From death positivity to struggles with gender identity, Cailleah's work brings an intimate lens to transgressive topics that are difficult to talk about. Working in both documentary and fiction, her films have played at over 40 international festivals including Hot Docs and Inside Out.
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Jackie Traverse is a graduate from the School of Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba. She is an Anishinabe from Lake St. Martin, First Nations. Jackie works in all mediums from sculpture, mixed media, and video She has created several short films including a stop-motion animation on missing and murdered women in Canada as she is deeply moved by the injustices faced by First Nations people. Through her art she expresses her ideas and opinions while striving to inspire dialogue on addressing her people’s social issues. Jackie's painting is truly where her heart lies. She feels the strongest spiritual connection with all that she creates. Her happiest moments are when she is painting.
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Danielle Sturk is a bilingual multi-disciplinary artist with a BA in Film/Theatre, creating documentary, experimental, dramatic series and live television performance specials. Her films have toured the festival circuit and have been broadcast by most major Canadian networks. Sturk was awarded Best Experimental Film and Best Director Non-Fiction at the Yorkton Film Festival for her latest film El Toro, which also earned Top 5 Audience Pick at HOT DOCS, Top 10 Audience Choice at the Gimli Film Festival and at the Vox Popular Media Arts Festival. Sturk began her career as a dance artist and choreographer, performing nationally and internationally from 1986-1997.
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Leslie Supnet is a moving image artist who utilizes animation, found media, and experimental practices on film and video. Her work has shown internationally at film festivals, galleries and microcinemas including TIFF (Short Cuts Canada), International Film Festival Rotterdam, Melbourne International Animation Festival, Experimenta India, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, WNDX, Edge of Frame/Animate Projects, and many others. She has been commissioned by Reel Asian, Pleasure Dome / Art Spin, the8 fest, Cineworks, and Film Pop! (Pop Montreal). Leslie has an MFA from York University and teaches analog and digital animation at various artist-run centres, not-for-profit organisations and for the Faculty of Art and Continuing Studies at OCAD University.
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I am a Greek/Canadian multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, painting, video and installation. My work is influenced by my cultural and personal background along with concepts of identity, nature, and uprootedness. Drawing from different disciplines, such as geography, architecture, psychology and technology, I map micro and macro spaces similar to a cartographer. I create meta-maps of topography, movement, and connections creating a sense of location and place. I studied philosophy and art at the University of Toronto and York University, and I hold a diploma in 3D Computer Animation.
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Since completing his studies in film production at Concordia University, Roberto Santaguida’s films and videos have been shown at more than 400 international festivals. Roberto is the recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award, the Chalmers Arts Fellowship and a fellowship from Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany.
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Alejandra Macouzet (b. march 1994) is a Mexican painter and illustrator based in Toronto. She studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Universidad de Guanajuato (Guanajuato, Mexico). During this time she had the opportunity to attend Saint Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and Southern Oregon University in Oregon as an international student. The artists' work is romantic and whimsical, creating a juxtaposition between childish lines, naive strokes, and bright colors with themes such as nostalgia and despair. Exploring different materials from printmaking to painting and collage but Alejandra keeps her main focus on digital illustration. She has had the opportunity to participate in different art shows in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Alejandra's work has received acclaim in both Mexico and Canada, winning the Angus F. Macgillivray art bursary from Saint Francis Xavier University in 2017 and placing first in the XXII State Poster Contest for the National Bookfair of Leon in Guanajuato, Mexico. Now, the artist finds herself focusing on her career as an illustrator, collaborating with small brands while hosting a podcast discussing everything to do with illustration. Alejandra's central interest is in children's books with her first picture book, "This Roar is not Mine" being published soon.
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Film Series Curator
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Tristan TammaroRecently graduating from Ryerson University with a specialization in film and media, Tristan has always had a deep love and admiration for the visual medium. Joining the Dying. Festival and bringing experience from working at Hallmark, National Geographic and more, Tristan strives for originality, cohesion and diverse perspectives in all his work.
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