Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Graduate Studies

This research paper examines the importance and value of matrilineal knowledge and emotional knowledge as foundations for an art practice, as well as artmaking as a means of processing difficult emotions such as grief. The studio research investigates traditional craft practices and explores their reorganization within the realm of painting as a way of visually making order to better understand emotional experience and maternal relationships. This hands-on material research involves many processes including stitching, smocking, weaving, painting, and performance. Through the act of making, the work undergoes many layers of doing and undoing, and relies on tactile repetitions of movements and gestures, as well as an intuitive sense of colour. This multilayered way of working results in three dimensional sculptural paintings which speak to motherhood, memory, grief, and care. Textiles are embodied forms of knowledge that articulate powerful relationships between materiality and nostalgia. Speaking to life’s many transformations, through soft sculpture, painting, textile installation, and performance, studio research becomes a feminist expression of care.

This research paper examines the importance and value of matrilineal knowledge and emotional knowledge as foundations for an art practice, as well as artmaking as a means of processing difficult emotions such as grief. The studio research investigates traditional craft practices and explores their reorganization within the realm of painting as a way of visually making order to better understand emotional experience and maternal relationships. This hands-on material research involves many processes including stitching, smocking, weaving, painting, and performance. Through the act of making, the work undergoes many layers of doing and undoing, and relies on tactile repetitions of movements and gestures, as well as an intuitive sense of colour. This multilayered way of working results in three dimensional sculptural paintings which speak to motherhood, memory, grief, and care. Textiles are embodied forms of knowledge that articulate powerful relationships between materiality and nostalgia. Speaking to life’s many transformations, through soft sculpture, painting, textile installation, and performance, studio research becomes a feminist expression of care.

My thesis project focuses on using visual arts practice and storytelling to represent more-than-human animals traditionally categorized as “livestock.” Through volunteer work and relationship building at a farm sanctuary, and respectful creative processes, I am strengthening interspecies friendships and encouraging more empathetic connections with more-than-human animals. Integrating critical animal studies, empathy studies, storytelling, drawing and printmaking methods, I aim to inspire others to reconsider their relationships with commonly recognized farm animals such as sheeps, gooses, pigs, cows and chickens, and recognize them as unique individuals with agency and inherent value. I value my relationships with the animals who inspire my artwork. First and foremost, my practice is rooted in sincere love.

Art-making in Indigenous contexts preserves cultural values, understandings, and frameworks and is uplifted through storytelling. Creating art and perpetuating cultural practices connect me to my ancestral memories, often drawing upon personal moments of joy, trauma, and self-determination. Questioning what is important and relevant is something that we each must choose for ourself and how we preserve the stories we make today for ancestors of tomorrow to recount. Sharing inspirations, creative processes, and journeys of exploration, allow me to express my story and commitment to my family and homelands. Experiencing, embracing, embodying, and empowering Indigenous knowledge, voices, and methodologies are systems I employ in activating customary mindsets in daily life. Acknowledging change through culturally grounded innovation allows long-held stories to persist and maintain connections to new adaptations and forms. Through these practices, I play my part in creating opportunities for the next generation to engage with the diversity and intricacies of my storied histories, places, and people. Perpetuating the values and cultural frameworks that allowed my forebearers to survive and flourish need to be lived every day, in turn providing opportunities for the next generation to be inspired. This is how I honor my past, celebrate the present, and safeguard the future.

In this thesis, I discuss feminist acts of resistance and the politics of location, relating this to my own artwork and to that of other performance artists. Taking this as a point of departure, I further position my creative practice in relation to other artists who explore identity and self-imaging and who deploy strategies such as camouflage to discuss aspects of the human condition. The artwork leads to a tangible personal transformation in the final performance at the end of the program. Nomadic thought helps to situate the final piece on a trajectory that makes nomadic acts of counter-actualization a viable path forward as a feminist artist. In the following pages, using an autoethnographic approach, I share personal stories that relate to the artwork, weaving together events and situations that took place over a lifetime and synthesized into my current art practice. As an interdisciplinary performance artist, I create wearable, performative art for the camera. I applied for the Master’s program at Emily Carr to step fully into live performance. I began the Master’s in June 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic had begun, making a live audience impossible - and would not become possible - until the end of the program two years later. Being ‘performative’ - sewing wearable art and documenting it on film and video - was my way of adapting to the pandemic restrictions and was a new direction in my practice. In addition to performance/performative art, I write and perform original music, paint, and create video, conceptual and installation art. I will focus this writing on the art that was made during my time at Emily Carr, where I performed for the camera and was eventually able to perform for a live audience at the final grad show in July 2022. This thesis will also discuss the use of humour in feminist art. Humour is often present in my art, but I employ absurdity when levity isn’t possible. By employing absurdity, for example making a beautiful dress with huge 25 foot long sleeves, a sense of humour is evident even if the work isn’t funny. Hence: absurdity strives to reach through this serious moment in time as a reminder that one day, we can laugh about this too. I will position the ‘funniest’ art I have made with other feminist artists who use humour in their work.

In this thesis, I discuss feminist acts of resistance and the politics of location, relating this to my own artwork and to that of other performance artists. Taking this as a point of departure, I further position my creative practice in relation to other artists who explore identity and self-imaging and who deploy strategies such as camouflage to discuss aspects of the human condition. The artwork leads to a tangible personal transformation in the final performance at the end of the program. Nomadic thought helps to situate the final piece on a trajectory that makes nomadic acts of counter-actualization a viable path forward as a feminist artist. In the following pages, using an autoethnographic approach, I share personal stories that relate to the artwork, weaving together events and situations that took place over a lifetime and synthesized into my current art practice. As an interdisciplinary performance artist, I create wearable, performative art for the camera. I applied for the Master’s program at Emily Carr to step fully into live performance. I began the Master’s in June 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic had begun, making a live audience impossible - and would not become possible - until the end of the program two years later. Being ‘performative’ - sewing wearable art and documenting it on film and video - was my way of adapting to the pandemic restrictions and was a new direction in my practice. In addition to performance/performative art, I write and perform original music, paint, and create video, conceptual and installation art. I will focus this writing on the art that was made during my time at Emily Carr, where I performed for the camera and was eventually able to perform for a live audience at the final grad show in July 2022. This thesis will also discuss the use of humour in feminist art. Humour is often present in my art, but I employ absurdity when levity isn’t possible. By employing absurdity, for example making a beautiful dress with huge 25 foot long sleeves, a sense of humour is evident even if the work isn’t funny. Hence: absurdity strives to reach through this serious moment in time as a reminder that one day, we can laugh about this too. I will position the ‘funniest’ art I have made with other feminist artists who use humour in their work.