2025 information

THIRD SHIFT ARTISTS

Tony Nicholas

Cycles

“Cycles” illustrates the life and death of an Atlantic salmon, using tattoo as the main medium. It follows the salmon’s passage through various skins and bodies, echoing the different stages of transformation all living souls undergo. Each frame has been painstakingly tattooed and photographed by the artist and features drumming performed with his Skicinowato teacher and classmates.

You can check out Cycles and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Anthony “Tony” Vincent Nicholas (he/him/they)(@mongoosemeat) is a two-spirit multidisciplinary artist from Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation). He currently lives in Fredericton, NB and works out of The Collective in Lincoln, NB. Focusing primarily on tattoo work, he specializes in fine-line black and grey, with an emphasis on nature and abstract as his preferred subjects.

Fibres Revolve Together: Weaving Communities Together

Using the tent frame as a “loom,” mesh fencing will be attached to the two or more sides of the tent, creating a “warp” for weaving. Karen and Ronnie will demonstrate how to weave in the mesh, getting the community engagement project underway. Visitors will be invited to weave rope, strips of repurposed cloth, yarn and other materials through the fencing. Mesh fencing will also be inside the tent for children and adults to weave through. The mesh areas will be large enough for several people to weave at the same time. People can weave through the mesh or add pieces of yarn or strips of fabric to the mesh by knotting them.

As the mesh is woven, it will create a three-dimensional installation by using different sizes of weft. Participants can choose to weave straight across or weave shapes like circles, squares, triangles or other shapes, or they can knit or crochet a small piece and attach it to the mesh fencing. This will be an interactive project for children, adults, families, seniors, and newcomers. At the end of the evening, the woven mesh can be removed from the sides of the tent and displayed somewhere.

You can check out Fibres Revolve Together: Weaving Communities Together and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

The Warped Weavers consists of Karen LeBlanc (left) and Ronnie Stanley (right).

Karen LeBlanc (she/her)(@loominations1) lives on the Wolastoq River in Fredericton NB where she has her weaving studio. She has installed three public art commissions. Her Weave in the Park was in the 2023 THIRD SHIFT Festival and she won two awards in 2024. Karen exhibits internationally, nationally, and regionally and teaches weaving workshops and courses.

Ronnie Stanley (she/her)(@loomlust) is a hand-weaver and fiber artist based in Hanford Brook NB. She weaves on traditional floor looms and sells her work under the name “Fundy Coast Weavery”. Her use of quality materials and attention to detail ensures the creation of exceptional pieces that can be passed down through generations.

While Supplies Last

I use my body in all my works. How my body interacts with objects, and objects within spaces, often acts to decipher or deconstruct a task. My practice investigates the connections between systems, objects, and subjectivities, often citing feminist and labour strategies. Frequently, I use large volumes of manufactured objects (hot water bottles, bagged ice, cans of beer, etc) to reveal these connections.

During this performance, I will feed crushed eggshells through a laminator, along with other pieces of paper(cue cards, cut-out letters, leftover dates from birth control pill packs), unravelling threads from my clothing, and strands of my hair. My performative gesture will result in a 9x14cm lamination, and viewers/participants can take the resulting object. I consider the resulting object a conceptual time card.

This work connects the artist’s body to object-making with deeper nuance. The action and object reveal the extractive processes of art-making, the tension between audience consumption and creation, and the entropy involved in that process.

Using a laminator and other office appliances harkens to passports, bureaucracy, and other types of documents that need ‘seals of approval’ to be considered valid. Eggshells are a material that typically goes to waste, and points to themes of femininity, shelter, and fertilizing. During the time I was conceptualizing the piece and working through iterations with it, egg prices suddenly increased in the United States, drawing attention to the severity of avian flu, the instability of food prices globally, and other matters related to the cost of living.

You can check out While Supplies Last and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Laura Paolini (she/her)(@laura.paolini) currently lives in Ottawa, the unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe Algonquin territory. Her artwork is primarily conceptual and manifests through installations, videos, and performances, often unfolding where these forms meet, merge and collapse. She has performed at art-based events and festivals and has exhibited, screened and performed locally and internationally. Paolini’s work strives to create hybrid spaces, which point to larger social matrices that are relational and informed by recent political and social history. Paolini earned an MFA from the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa (2021). Her video works are distributed through Vtape (Toronto) and Bridge Video(Chicago).

Gravity well

As I contemplated the theme “Revolve,” two images came to mind: the orbits of celestial bodies and the “Spiral of Addiction and Recovery.” Gravity Well combines these two ideas, using a model of gravity to express my experience of recovery and addiction.

Addiction is a process of constriction; it sucks you in until your whole world revolves around your addiction, in the same way a large mass eventually sucks in a smaller mass. Recovery, on the other hand, is an expansive process, one that takes continued effort and is nearly impossible alone.

You can check out Gravity Well and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Lex Stephenson (they/them) was born and raised in Menahqesk (Saint John, New Brunswick). They hold a Bachelor of Knowledge Integration, specializing in Collaborative Design, from the University of Waterloo, an MA in Museum Studies from UCL and an MEd in Counselling from UNB. They work as a counselling therapist and create art in their spare time. Lex creates large-scale installation pieces with a focus on interactivity, collaboration, and play. Their pieces explore themes such as mental health, queerness, resilience, oppression, hope, joy, and community.

HEAVY LIFTING / POURQUOI LE TEMPS EST SI LOURD

HEAVY LIFTING / POURQUOI LE TEMPS EST SI LOURD is a sound piece and durational performance playing on the myth of Sisyphus. During this walking intervention with a stepladder, heavy chain, and helium balloons, I will circle the same path at different intervals through the event’s schedule. The idea is to continue the same rhythmic action, trying to lift this set of balloons above my head to make them fly. The chain is often too heavy to lift, as I learn to manage my efforts and bring it a few feet further. The chain becomes my dance partner, being dragged from point A to point B, up the stepladder to then crash on the pavement each time. A series of gestures becomes a sound pattern, a meditation, a song in your head. When I have had enough, I disappear, leaving some trace of the performance. Colourful balloons attached to a chain linger in the wind until I resume the next interval along the path. My public interventions are meant to be seen by chance, haphazardly, creating surprise for the passerby.

Like a glitch in the machine, the symbolic actions I perform are often eerie and enigmatic, while the slow-paced rhythmic sounds are equally important to the experience. Let the shadow unravel and let go of mindsets that no longer serve you.

You can check out HEAVY LIFTING / POURQUOI LE TEMPS EST SI LOURD and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August at

Acadian multidisciplinary artist Maryse Arseneault (she/they) holds a Masters in Studio Arts from Concordia University and is currently lecturer at the Université de Moncton. Adopting forms of slow activism, she confronts memory and psychogeography in relation to our feelings of belonging. She is interested in how our investment in these spaces can disrupt colonial mindsets. She explores notions of alienation and stewardship as she pursues her artistic interventions, mainly through performance, drawing, and audio-video.

Turning Light

Turning Light is a site-responsive installation composed of multiple slowly rotating beams of light. As they sweep through darkened outdoor spaces, the beams cast shifting silhouettes onto nearby walls, trees and pavement. The work is minimal in structure but atmospheric in effect, transforming familiar surroundings into fleeting compositions of light and shadow.

The project draws inspiration from both natural and mechanical rhythms: planetary motion, lighthouse signals and the steady turn of simple machines. Each light is mounted on a small motorized platform. As the lights rotate, patterns quietly emerge and disappear, offering a subtle shift in how we perceive the space around us.

Turning Light invites quiet observation. It offers a contemplative way to engage with place, where even small revolutions can reshape what we notice, and how we feel.

You can check out Turning Light and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Since completing his studies in film production at Concordia University, Roberto Santaguida’s (he/him) films and videos have been shown at more than 400 international festivals, including Tampere Film Festival (Finland), CPH: DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Denmark), Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil (Brazil), Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (United States), transmediale (Germany), and Message to Man (Russia). He has also taken part in artist residencies in numerous countries, including Iran, Romania, Germany, Norway, and Australia. Roberto is the recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award, the Chalmers Arts Fellowship and a fellowship from Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany.

The Thought Seat

“The Thought Seat” is an art installation where observers are encouraged to engage in a tête-à-tête exercise with a series of thought provoking questions in a setting that is especially inviting. Six chairs, (created with used metal) will be arranged in pairs in the formation of the distinctive serpentine silhouette known as a “vis-à-vis ” chair. Each seat will have a question attached that spurs contemplation, and generates discussion so that a conversation is sparked at every seat with whomever is sitting in the attached seat.

“The Thought Seat” aims to connect to this year’s theme “Revolve” by focusing on the exchange of thoughts and ideas. Conversation itself is a revolving cycle—one person shares a thought, the other reflects and responds, and the dialogue continues. This mirrors the way ideas evolve, change, and come full circle over time. Life itself is a series of revolving questions—our perspectives shift as we gain experiences and wisdom. The discussion between two people represents how we constantly re-evaluate our beliefs, revisiting ideas with new insights. The conversation represents a microcosm of human learning: one person’s perspective influences another, creating an ongoing revolving cycle of curiosity, wisdom and knowledge. “The Thought Seat” is an art installation which will welcome people to come together casually in a fun environment, to exchange thoughts, and leave with new perspectives.

You can check out The Thought Seat and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Jean Hudson (she/her) is a mostly self-taught artist who works from her studio located near Fredericton, New Brunswick, where creative concepts are fabricated alongside her partner, Jack. Deeply inspired by nature and driven by a profound commitment to environmental stewardship, Jean transforms both new and reclaimed metal into large art pieces.

With a passion for creating site-specific public art, she relishes the process of engaging with a location and its community, aiming to spark dialogue. Each installation is thoughtfully crafted to communicate its message, challenging audiences to look beyond the surface and discover the full story. Through her art, Jean celebrates the transformative power of creativity to elevate public spaces and enrich the cultural environment.

You can find more of Jean’s work on her website!

Let Me Be Your Punching Bag!

“Let Me Be Your Punching Bag!” is a playful, text-based interactive installation for all ages. Participants are invited to release worries and emotions through physical movement, channeling built-up energy and intense feelings by striking the boxing columns. These columns are able to be marked with glow-in-the-dark markers, with participants being encouraged to write handwritten words of personal struggle—in any language that brings comfort. As more words appear, the columns respond with motion and light, bouncing back and forth, transforming the space into a site of catharsis, play, and emotional release.

You can check out Let Me Be Your Punching Bag! and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Narges Porsandekhial (she/her)(@narges_porsande) is an emerging Persian polydisciplinary creator and writer with a BA in Handicrafts and an MFA from University of Saskatchewan. Her work spans from installations and socially engaged practices to public art, text-based projects, and research-creation. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally and also serves as a cultural worker.

The Future is IN

Sat at a small booth, a figure with a suit and paper bag head sits stoically. Before them are a strange miniature of Saint John’s Uptown, a kitchen timer, pencils and papers, and a set of dice. A small map details an unknown wasteland known as Nowhere. Upon closer examination, sand and blood rest upon the deteriorated stand and its weathered proprietor. A time-worn sign proclaims: The Future is IN.

Following in the footsteps of prior THIRD SHIFT installation The Artist is IN, The Future is IN is equal parts interactive performance and tabletop roleplaying game. Audience members individually approach the stand and receive a description of Nowhere, a post-apocalyptic world that sees the whole of our planet crumpled in a geo-mystical event, with a specific focus on the altered area that was once Uptown. Participants take and fill out a character sheet—a page denoting qualities and abilities of player characters—then are given a 5-minute RPG session in the Uptown of Nowhere. Whether they choose to engage with mysteries, seek out surviving familiar comforts, or embrace the community that now calls this ruined and reclaimed space home, one thing is always true: the time for our stories—and our world—is fleeting.

You can check out The Future is IN and more at the Saint John City Market on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Brandon Lorimer (he/him)(@brandon.lorimer) is a filmmaker, actor, playwright, and art vagabond. A founding member of Bus Stop Theatre Playwright’s Unit in Halifax, he spent several years in Montréal developing his practice with an eccentric collection of filmmakers, theatre groups, and game designers. His short Anomalist was selected as part of the 2021-2022 cohort of the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative’s Film 5 program where he trained as a screenwriter. Since completing the program, he founded Wolf Hart Productions in honour of his late friend Michael “Wohlfy” Wohlfahrt. His first short, DWELLING, is a dystopian short film inspired by the East Coast housing crisis, and his surrealist black comedy 12-Inch Hell was nominated for Talent to Watch. Brandon uses surreality and genre as a framework that speaks to modern alienation and mental illness, tackling existential and socio-political issues through the lens of fantastic realities, to understand our world through those we dream of.

SAFE SUPPLY DOES NOT EXIST. YET?

“SAFE SUPPLY DOES NOT EXIST. YET?” is an LED sign with different facts concerning the current fentanyl crisis, which has tragically claimed over 49,000 lives in Canada since 2016. These facts are juxtaposed with myths surrounding the concept of safe(r) supply, a critical harm-reduction strategy, particularly based on Vancouver’s experience. New Brunswick, to my knowledge, has very little, if any, exposure to safe supply programs, making this an important issue to address. The LED sign will be in the windows of Haven, and will have a half-sheet of plywood next to it. This plywood will feature a few select words, ‘written’ with electroluminescent wire, to emphasize the hypocrisy surrounding government inaction and the unchecked public perception of the issue.

By using this installation, I aim to draw attention to the stark contrast between the facts of the fentanyl crisis and the misinformation about safe supply, encouraging viewers to reflect critically. This project will also be framed within the context of the THIRD SHIFT festival, as it offers an opportunity to engage with the local environment and foster communal exchange. The history and relationship with the land the Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq people have is integral to understanding the broader cultural and social context of the installation. This understanding will inform my approach to the work, ensuring it aligns with the values of respect, equity, and ongoing relationship-building emphasized by THIRD SHIFT.

You can check out SAFE SUPPLY DOES NOT EXIST. YET? and more at Haven Music Hall on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Chuck Heilman (she/they)(@chuckylucky) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). Drawing deeply from lived experience—including addiction, survival, and the sex and drug trade—Chuck creates work rooted in community, resilience, and social justice. With a BFA from NSCAD University, their practice spans painting, drawing, photography, and light installations. Chuck’s art challenges stigma and embraces the absurd, often using unconventional materials to explore themes of harm, humor, and healing. Grounded in both formal training and lived realities, their work is a bold and compassionate response to life in the margins, aiming to make art that is raw, inclusive, and real.

The City Speaks, It Shimmers

The City Speaks, It Shimmers is an ongoing collaboration between Dominic Pinney and Cohen Wylie.

Focusing on the exchange of information which occurs through the windows between private and public city spaces, this work seeks to explore these liminal boundaries through an interactive media-scape which responds to the audio-visual ephemera of the urban nighttime. Working out of homes, apartments, and storefronts the artists simultaneously record and broadcast/project abstracted live audio and video feeds through windows to create a live feedback loop of urban stimuli. Inviting viewer participation, The City Speaks, It Shimmers uses defamiliarization and interaction to question the cyclic relationship between a built environment and its inhabitants.

Inspired by the lights and sounds one experiences in home environments within the city, of passing headlights flickering through closed blinds, the faint conversations of passersby and the rumble of distant traffic, an ambient glow in a living room at night caused by the signage across the street. Taking this interior experience and re-broadcasting it out into the night, working with delays and analogue modulation, The City Speaks, It Shimmers opens a line of communication for the city to speak back to itself.

You can check out The City Speaks, It Shimmers and more at Haven Music Hall on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Dominic Pinney (left) and Cohen Wylie (right) are Hamilton-based creatives working in new media installation.

Pinney (he/him)(@cool_bulbs) is a visual artist whose work examines urban stimuli through sculpture, projection, and light-based installation. His work explores the affective resonances between public and private city environments, tied to the anxiety of existing and moving through city space.

Wylie (he/him)(@cohenwylie) is a musician, a founding member of psych-rock band The Crowleys, and audio engineer. His band’s latest album, Strange Seasons (2023), is a reflection on young adult life through the lens of a society weighed down by consumerism and fleeting attention spans.

Project wet floor sign

Project Wet Floor Sign is a site-responsive installation and evolving performance by Jared Perry. Using sculptural caution signs that mimic the familiar wet floor sign with a rough, hand-drawn aesthetic, the work plays with ideas of safety, disruption, and spatial awareness. Throughout the night, the signs will be continuously moved, subtly shifting their relationship to the environment and to audience movement. This quiet choreography emphasizes instability, adaptation, and the temporary nature of control in public space. The project reflects on how small interventions can interrupt routine and perception. Like the objects they reference, the sculptures signal caution; but here, their message is ambiguous, even humorous. Their movement challenges viewers to reconsider the overlooked cues that guide daily life. Project Wet Floor Sign embraces change and reconfiguration, echoing the rhythms of constant motion and evolving relationships between object, space, and observer.

You can check out Project Wet Floor Sign on King’s Street on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Jared Perry (he/him)(@jvperryart) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Prince Edward Island. His work explores the visual language of everyday life, collecting and altering instructional images such as wet floor signs and safety graphics. Through sculpture, photography, and drawing, Perry transforms the banal into sites of quiet absurdity and reflection. He holds a BFA from Mount Allison University.

it is a small sphere and a heavy sphere

What have we here? it is a small sphere and a heavy sphere is an homage to Alexander Calder’s seminal mobile, Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere (1932/33), which consisted of a heavy lead ball, a small wooden ball and 7 found objects which he called impedimenta (a wooden crate, a symbol, 4 glass bottles, a tin can.)

 By pushing the heavy sphere, the small sphere is sent flying through a series of engagements and avoidances with the impedimenta, playing with expectations as we try to anticipate it’s complex and unpredictable interactions. It’s not Rube Goldberg, nor is it Fischli and Weiss. It is the way things go.

 Calder intended for this work to exist as an idea – one that can be played over and over again. The idea is the only fixed aspect of the composition and he welcomed others to try different types of arrangements and compositions of impedimenta.  it is a small sphere and a heavy sphere is an ode to Calder, designed for the outside art-at-night experience of THIRD SHIFT. Come give it a try, you’ll understand why.

You can check out it is a small sphere and a heavy sphere in front of the Saint John City Hall on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Andrew Maize (he/they) makes art that is often playful, collaborative and improvised, its form is contingent on the relationships of environmental, technological, social, and material situations. As an educator and organizer, he has been involved in collaborative projects that engage communities with art, both in traditional and non-traditional spaces. He has been meaning to make a list of all the different jobs he had over the years, but it would be a lot of work. He has taught and hopes to teach again in Expanded Media and Fine Arts at NSCAD University.

Orbital

Orbital is an interactive digital installation that will chart the courses of the over 10,000 satellites that currently circulate the earth in the snapshot of a single evening. Stringing constellations together from the film of atmospheric dust, these pinpricks and poetics will be animated in the digital night sky, suspended in their net of radiating wavelengths beyond the visible light spectrum. Orbital will ping out from an Arduino board (Cu, Li, SiO2, Co), below the vast network of global and atmospheric interconnectivity (thermosphere, mesosphere), and straight into your hand.

You can check out Orbital and more at Ihtoli-Maqahamok – The Gathering Space on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Daisy Graham (@dzygrm) is an interdisciplinary artist and cartographer based in Kjipuktuk. Seeking the boundaries of place, memory, data, and ephemera in analogue and digital iterations, Daisy’s work bridges the gap between these disciplines. Seeking to reproject our somatic relations to landscape and geography, whose data collection and use is often by and for resource extraction, surveillance, or militaristic industries. Currently, Daisy is researching the functions and interactions of geology with the internet and data storage models, specifically involving the earthen materiality of the satellite grid and growing carbon impacts of “the cloud”.

surrender ; remember

“surrender ; remember” is a 15-minute traveling nighttime performance-art piece with one performer, two flags and one large mixed-media sculpture. The piece is an exploration of cycles and histories that wear us down and at the same time recalls the momentum that propels us forward. Set to a manipulated version of William Baskinski’s “Disintegration Loops”, the performance echoes themes of tiresome deterioration through a traveling dying parade to eventually land and hear a singing round: “When you were born you cried and the world rejoiced, live your life so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice”. The performer moves through a series of waving white-lace flags as extensions of boredom, angst, celebration, joy and surrender. The 20′-long sculpture, made of chicken wire and woven scraps of discarded plastics and fabrics is created from collected bits of the artist’s life; resembling a blanket, a train, a river, a sky of a lifetime of memory and experiences. The performance asks: how can we transcend ourselves from damaging histories and at the same time celebrate our resilience that has brought us here and move forward?

You can check out surrender ; remember and more at Ihtoli-maqahamok – The Gathering Space on Saturday, the 16th of August at 8:45pm!

Jeighk (they/them) is a non-binary, self-taught interdisciplinary artist based out of K’jipuktuk/Halifax, unceded Mi’kmaq Territory. They work in a diverse range of mediums that have included shadow puppetry, live performance art, mixed-media sculpture and wood cutouts. Jeighk has participated in several residencies throughout Nova Scotia including Kinetic Open Studio Series (Halifax, NS), The Centre for Craft + Parks Canada (Sydney + Cheticamp, Cape Breton), The Loft at Mermaid Theatre (Windsor, NS), Ross Creek Centre for the Arts (Canning, NS) and in Ontario, Hall’s Island Artist Residency (Halibrton, ON). Jeighk works with themes of mental health, non-binary bodies and the natural world. They like early morning studio routines, listening to the radio and playing dress-up.

You can find more of their works on their website.

AS ABOVE SO BELOW

Above the busy streets of Saint John, below the churning surface of the Reversing Falls… there are eyes on us. Grotesque creatures, or are they just ‘grotesques’? While some believe that gargoyles were meant to illustrate evil and sin, others suggest that they were apotropaic devices — objects, symbols, or marks meant to ward off evil spirits. This project asks, “What is the nature of our beast?”

AS ABOVE SO BELOW is an interactive sculptural installation that draws upon the historic Gothic architecture of Saint John, the folkloric history of the region, and the sounds of the city. Utilizing hand sculpting and concrete casting, five concrete grotesques will be made in the image of the Ug Wug. Story and song tell of this local legend, a 30 metre long half-salmon half-seal monster inhabiting the waters of west Saint John’s Reversing Falls.

The gargoyles will be installed The Gathering Space like watchful (sea) dogs, as though creating a protective circle around festival participants. Each sculpture will have an accompanying soundscape, accessed via QR code, sampling both the industrial noise of the city and the natural crash of waterways. The practical purpose of a gargoyle — to convey water — and the watery origins of the Ug Wug are united, and participants are not so much transported as re-immersed in their own city.

This project seeks to give audiences a moment of contemplation, of considering their relationship with a city that is changing. Do we feel safe here, are we protected from harm? Fantasy can provide solace, and it can create a playful, protected space in which to connect with others.

You can check out AS ABOVE, SO BELOW and more at Ihtoli-maqahamok – The Gathering Space on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Lindsay Jacquard (she/her)(@l.jacquard)(left) is an artist and arts administrator from Nova Scotia, now living in Menagoesg/Saint John, New Brunswick. She holds a Master’s in Arts Leadership from Queen’s University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University. She is passionate about encouraging and enabling creative pursuits, working with organizations such as Imperial Theatre, Third Space Gallery, Flourish Festival, Halifax Regional Municipality, and the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts. Lindsay’s own artistic practice involves painting, portraiture, strangeness, and play.

Nich Patzelt (he/him)(@nichpatzelt)(right) is a multidisciplinary artist, currently working out of Montreal, Quebec. His works explore character and different methods of story telling through a combination of two-dimensional and three-dimensional media. His work often incorporates whimsical or uncanny elements with fantastical themes. His current work encourages activation by the viewer in order to invoke a sense of play and childlike wonder often lost in adulthood.

THIRD SHIFT

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Key Industries

Beauty of resiliency in growth and change

A collaborative art installation that explores the resilience of people with disabilities, honoring their growth, and transformation. It reflects transformation, challenges norms, and honors the beauty in every stage of becoming.

You can check out Beauty of resiliency in growth and change and more at King’s Square on Saturday, the 16th of August!

Key Industries Inc. (@keyindustries1) is a Saint John-based organization that empowers individuals with disabilities through employment support, life skills training, and inclusive community programs. As part of their creative team, Sarah Gorospe (she/her), a Filipina artist and immigrant, contributes to the organization’s mission by facilitating expressive, hands-on art sessions that promote confidence, connection, and self-expression. Her work supports Key’s commitment to fostering dignity, purpose, and opportunity for all participants. Through collaboration and creativity, Sarah helps create welcoming spaces where individuals are encouraged to grow, belong, and thrive—reflecting the heart of Key Industries’ vision for inclusive community impact.

‘Someone is always making art’ – Explorations of the Resilience of Youth

This installation explores Third Shift’s Revolve by looking at the ongoing cycles of resilience in our world and in the lives of youth. Just like the seasons or the turning of the earth, young people are always in motion, growing, shifting, and changing. As they explored the rhythm of their own voices, the idea of youth resilience became central to this project.

One quote that guided the work says:

“No matter how many bad things happen, there will always be good happening. Someone is always making art… The marginalized groups that they try to keep quiet will always exist… The people they try to silence will always be around.”

The youth involved in this project thought deeply about what it means to be resilient. They talked about persistence, connection, hope, and strength, and how these qualities show up in their everyday lives. Thoughtful attention was paid to the ways resilience makes them powerful and the struggle leading up to feeling resilient. Topics of systemic injustices, political discourses, and generational experiences will be felt as you travel through this exhibit. Through this process, youth found stronger connections to each other and to the Saint John community. That sense of belonging to both people and place was a powerful part of their Journey. Resilience isn’t just about surviving challenges. It’s also about creating, connecting, and finding ways to move forward. This exhibit is a celebration of youth resilience, a testament to their courage, creativity, and collective voice.

You can check out ‘Someone is always making art’ – Explorations of the Resilience of Youth and more at the Saint John City Market on Saturday, the 16th of August!

The I-Click Photography Project (@willowyouthprojects) is dedicated to amplifying youth voices through visual storytelling. Youth from the Teen Resource Centre are guided through a process of identity exploration, build confidence in how they would like their stories told, and learn to use professional cameras to represent their narratives. Through a combination of group and individual sessions in partnership with the Saint John Arts Centre, youth develop photography skills and learn the art of storytelling through visual representation. It culminates into a final exhibition showcasing what each youth feels are important for our community to understand about who they are and what they have experienced.

Artists: Iman Abdalla, Elizabeth Adeyeri, Asmaa Al Rajeh, John Archer, Cécile Carson, Halo Cass, Kayleigh Crandall, Kaylee Duffield, Casidy Jones, Brooke Killam, Sawyer Lyons, Jason Marr, Kaleena Mckee, Jordan McKinnon, Trevlin Morris, and Alli Thomas

Stay Tuned – Strata

These three musician/sound artists have been making experimental and improvised sounds in various projects for several decades all across Canada and mostly in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. This will be the first appearance of the three together as such. They predict the aesthetic will span the fissure between music and noise. There will be cello, contrabass, modular synthesis, processing, and objects to communicate a rare language formed from texture, pitch, scratch and hum. The message is listening and cooperation, while the negotiation is complex and very human.

You can check out Stay Tuned – Strata at the Saint John Arts Centre on Saturday, the 16th of August at 7pm.

Brandon Auger (he/him)(@brandon.auger)(left), Andrew Reed Miller (he/him)(@andrewreedmiller)(centre), and Norm Adams (he/him)(@normadamshfx)(right) are musicians and sound artists who make up Resonance New Music (@r_sonance).

They have been making experimental and improvised sounds in various projects for several decades all across Canada, mostly in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Their collective backgrounds include symphonic music, composing, computer programming, improvisation and object making.

THIRD watch ARTISTS

Aylin Abassi & Lea Hamilton

Suitcase

“Do you like to see my accent?”

How does the way we speak become embodied for ourselves and others, and how does it affect how we understand and view each other?

Suitcase is a collaborative video artwork that circles around these questions by documenting an attempt at cultural exchange between Aylin Abbasi and Lea Hamilton, two artists hailing from Iran and Canada respectively. While exploring themes of communication and the political implications of place, Suitcase is grounded in friendship, humour, and absurdity. Their rhythms do not always match, but through this work, Abbasi and Hamilton hope to speak to how communication (or attempts at it) can bridge distances between people.

You can check out Suitcase and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Lea Hamilton (she/her)(@leahamilton29)(left) and Aylin Abbasi (she/her)(@aylin.abbasi64)(right) are two multidisciplinary artists based in Ottawa, Ontario, whose collaboration began in 2023. Together, they are interested in exploring personal narratives, themes of identity, communication, and cultural negotiation, and questioning the political disparity embedded in their lived experiences. Their practice in video, performance, and sculpture is characterized by their use of humour and absurdity, as well as their minimalist and poetic aesthetic choices.

Window

Gathering impressions of my surroundings.

You can check out Window and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Andreas Fobes (he/him)(@andreasfobes) is a filmmaker and educator currently living in Epekwitk/Prince Edward Island.

Episode 2021/2: Zoom Escapes

In 2020, during the pandemic lockdowns, Johanna Householder and Judith Price decided to keep their performance practices alive by collaborating over Zoom. Their improvisatory recordings resulted in the Diptychs Project, six Episodes made in collaboration with six sound artists, first curated for the Dunlop Gallery, Regina, by Tomas Jonsson (2022); as a video installation for the Contact Photography Festival, at Aird Gallery, Toronto (2023); and at Flux Media Gallery, Victoria, BC (2024). Other episodes have been shown online for the IMAF Festival, Serbia (2020); R-A-W, Belfast (2021).

As a communications platform, ZOOM exposes a persistent paradox; it claims to make us more connected when it often intensifies a sense of isolation. This contradiction was brought into focus by veteran performance artists Johanna Householder and Judith Price, when they entered the paradox to make a suite of video “Episodes” using ZOOM to record their investigations. Shot over several months during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020-2022, their project, DIPTYCHS: 43° N, 79° W / 48° N, 123° W (the latitude and longitude of Toronto, ON and Victoria, BC respectively) “attempts to restore embodiment and peripheral vision to a world condensed into a 2880 x 1800 slab of metals and electrons.”

In 2021, they extended their Diptychs collaboration to include sound artists. These collaborations also took place over Zoom, and included Jeff Morton, who scored Episode 2021/2: Zoom Escapes. In Episode 2021/2: Zoom Escapes, they try to leave the confines of home and return, pushing the limits of wi-fi, and discover that the Zoom algorithm takes over the editing, deciding who and what to show. Disconnected, they challenge each other to arrive again at the starting point, at exactly the same moment.

In this Episode they initiate a conversation about a unique way of seeing and being; and by pushing against the architectures of the computer and the home, it becomes a meditation on the passage of time in an extended technological space.

You can check out Episode 2021/2: Zoom Escapes and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Johanna Householder (she/her)(left) works at the intersection of popular and unpopular culture, making performance art and video works, often working collaboratively. She is a founder of the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art biennial, based in Tkaronto (Treaty 13 territory).

Judith Price (she/her)(right) combines a 30+ year transdisciplinary art practice with a background in modern dance. Her work includes performance, site-specific installations, and short films. Price is a founder of the Open Action performance collective. She lives and works as an uninvited guest on the unceded territories of the Lekwungen/Esquimalt, Songhees WSÁNEĆ nations.

Jeff Morton lives in rural southeast Saskatchewan, on Treaty 2, land of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the traditional homeland of the Métis Nation. His work integrates music composition and media art, exploring themes of sound-making, communication, and transcription. Drawing on traditional instruments, found musical objects, natural materials, and technology, his performances and installations have been presented in galleries, festivals, and showcases across Canada and internationally.

À Mains Nues // With Our Bare Hands

English follows;

Une toile, une table de préparation ou un étal. Des pigments, de la pâte ou des pièces de viande. Lorsqu’entrent en scène un peintre, un boulanger et un boucher, leurs gestes se succèdent et se superposent.

Telle est la chorégraphie interchangeable qui prend place et établit une surprenante connexion entre les trois corps de métier. Un air de jazz tient lieu de narration, rythmant la concentration, la précision, la répétition et la création liées à leur pratique respective de manière simultanée. Quelques pensées sans prétention apparaissent à l’écran : « La création, c’est comme le pain. Il faut y mettre de la levure pour la faire lever. »

Une ode au travail manuel, aux nobles gestes des mains nues.

–

A canvas, a work-table, a market stall. Paint, dough, slabs of meat. When a painter, a baker, or a butcher comes into the frame, their gestures meld and overlap.

An interchangeable choreography emerges and forges a surprising connection between the three trades. Jazz stands in for narration, setting the rhythm of concentration, precision, repetition, and creation, in three different practices simultaneously. Words of simple wisdom appear on the screen: “Creation is like bread. You need to add yeast to make it rise.”

This short film is ode to manual tasks, to the noble work of bare hands.

You can check out À Mains Nues // With Our Bare Hands and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Armstrong (He/Him)(@palmfoot) is a self taught filmmaker dancing between the borders of fact and fiction. Rendering notions of truths through a tango of time based media.

Domain

Domain (2023/2024) is a short black and white video piece wherein the artist addresses their late grandfather’s superstition that women were bad luck aboard fishing vessels. Historically many large ships used figureheads of nude women to calm the seas. Inspired by this practice, Howlett transforms herself into a symbol of good luck by donning transparent oil gear. The artist coils rope as a soundscape of field recordings and a poem she wrote titled “She Tows the Line” plays over the scene.

Thank you to Andrew Lewis for the video footage and help with editing and to Benjamin Goss for the field recordings.

You can check out Domain and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

JoAnna (Jo) Howlett (she/they)(@joannahowlett) is an interdisciplinary artist and lobster fisherman from Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island). Through a mixture of sculpture, photo, and video, their practice reflects upon tradition and superstition in the Atlantic lobster fishery. Her work also engages with themes of mending connections, gendered labour, and the continuation of familial legacy. Howlett holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Prince Edward Island, a diploma in Cabinetmaking and Wood Manufacturing from Holland College, and a certificate in Studio Art from NSCAD University. She received a PEI Arts Award in 2024 (Gertie and Henry Purdy Emerging Artist Bursary).

Flesh Ballet

A quadruple amputee and a seamstress metamorphose into a giant flesh mound. Made by the arts collective ‘Are you artists or cops?’ to develop an art film exploring how modern society interprets disability. An in-studio experiment involving collaborative spontaneity and in-the-moment creative decision making with an improvised jazz soundtrack.

You can check out Flesh Ballet and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Are you artists or cops? is a multidisciplinary collective composed of filmmaker Frederick Kroetsch, visual artist Kasie Campbell, artist, filmmaker, and disability advocate Daniel Ennett, and cinematographer and creative producer David Baron. Together, they’re creating genre-defying art films that merge sculpture, performance, disability advocacy, and experimental cinematography.

Kasie Campbell (she/her)(@kasie.m.campbell) is an established Canadian visual artist known for her dynamic soft sculpture practice, immersive installations, and performance-based work. Her work navigates themes of gaze, femininity, and the grotesque.

Daniel Ennett (he/him)(@p.paradox) is a painter and photographer focusing on the human form. Daniel has worked with the main artist applicant Frederick Kroetsch for over a decade. Previously they have made web-series and art films together and are currently directing the TV-series Push on CBC. In September 2023 they received a prestigious Telefilm Talent-to-Watch grant to make their first feature-length documentary called The Crip Trip. Their art film Form & Function was shot on 35mm celluloid and won the Gotta Minute Film Festival.

Frederick Kroetsch (he/him)(@frederick_kroetsch) has created and directed dozens of eclectic projects, including the short documentary Blind Ambition, the TV-series Queen of the Oil Patch and the documentary Last of the Fur Traders. Frederick spends much of his time directing TV-series like CBC’s Push and Wildrose Vet. In 2023 he was the runner up for the Edmonton Film Prize. Through his relationship with Daniel, he is driven to explore disability advocacy through art.

David Baron (he/him)(@baroncamera) is a Canadian cinematographer based in Alberta, Canada. His work can be seen on: NBC, CBC, AMC, National Geographic, Crave, Shudder, APTN and Cottage Life. David’s most recent credits include: “This Too Shall Pass” a coming of age film set in the late 80’s directed by Rob Grant, “Shadow of God” an exorcism film directed my Michael Peterson, “”Wild Rose Vet” which premiered early 2022 on Cottage Life and APTN; “Blind Ambition: The Wop May Story”, shot on 35mm film, which won Best Documentary Short and an audience choice award at Edmonton International Film Festival; “Queen of the Oil Patch” Season 2 which started airing in June 2020; “The Former Life of Amber Valley” which won a 2018 Canadian Screen Award. In 2023, David was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Photography, Lifestyle or Reality/Competition.

I get paid to exist

“I get paid to exist” is an experimental video exploring themes of late stage capitalism, commercial wellness culture and privilege, seen through the filter of tech platforms.

Videos sourced from Tiktok were run through natural language processing to create supercuts of the most common words and phrases. This frenetic soundtrack accompanies distorted video clips, highlighting the absurdity of existing for social media.

You can check out I get paid to exist and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Leslie Predy (she/her)(@predster) is an artist, musician, and designer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work addresses how we interact with technologies, and how this frames the ways we communicate with each other. Her artistic practice generates audio-visual performances, videos, recordings, installations, and publications. Leslie also performs as Doom Tickler, an experimental noise project that incorporates samples, hand built electronics, and improvisational, rhythmic vocal approaches. Leslie has performed and exhibited with Long Winter, Electric Eclectics, Music Gallery, Xpace, Pop Montreal, Ukai Projects, and various DIY spaces.

egosurfing

A metatextual and poetic meditation on internet stardom, gay porn and colonialism.

I was interested in how the sands of time erode flesh, memory and monuments, and also how digital processes similarly erode or artifact media. The film is a treatise on the power of impermanence, reckoning with historical legacies that are tenuous, poorly preserved and, in some cases, entirely speculative. In keeping with my established body of work, egosurfing takes the form of a found-footage collage film. I have digitally restored and incorporated sections of older films. I have lifted passages from literature, and provided them as a loose framework. The whole thing pivots, and operates on an untethered, liquid logic. The throughline, binding it, is two-fold:

the re-occurrence of my name, how it has been disseminated within historical and sub-cultural contexts and;

a uniform, analog aesthetic, taking the appearance of a bootleg video (a forgotten childhood tape? A rare porno?)

It covers two hundred and forty years and several generations of Deveau(x)’s and yet it still barely scratches the surface. It does not resolve. It does not demystify. What I hope, is that it haunts people. To the degree that Anna Maria haunts me. That perhaps there is something universal to be gleaned from this reflexive exercise; beyond ego-gratification, beyond the ability to expound. We have all been other people. Physically, in our heads, and coincidentally in the lives of others, past and present. What synchronicities, what paradoxes might we unearth, if only we begin to dig?

“the sun never sets on the colonies. it exposes—with each burst, onto bare floors and peeling paint—the failure to assimilate them.

You can check out egosurfing and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Andrew Deveaux (he/they)(@hypnagogic_logic) is an interdisciplinary filmmaker and media artist whose work explores queer subjectivity through found media, virtual environments and analog aesthetics. Combining archival and original material, 3D imaging, animation, photography, sound and voice-over narration, he parses stories from diverse media forms. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen’s University and a post-baccalaureate certificate from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. His work has screened across Canada and internationally.

The Steak

The Steak is a dialogue-free short film exploring war, innocence, and human rights through a single continuous take. Set in a war-torn landscape, the story follows a Red Cross soldier who stumbles upon a child and offers him a moment of quiet humanity in the midst of chaos. The absence of spoken language, combined with precise choreography and symbolic visuals, allows the film to transcend borders and connect with audiences globally.

Created by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Kiarash Dadgar, The Steak reflects his interest in visual storytelling, moral complexity, and the fading of individual dignity within systems of violence. The film has screened at over 275 international film festivals and has won more than 105 awards. It will be presented at THIRD SHIFT as a cinematic installation, offering a contemplative experience that invites viewers to reflect on compassion, silence, and survival.

You can check out The Steak and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Kiarash Dadgar (he/him)(@kiarash.dadgar) is an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto. His work explores themes of migration, memory, repression, and the quiet dignity of marginalized individuals, often through formal experimentation and visual storytelling. His debut short film The Steak has screened at over 275 international film festivals, including Slamdance, RiverRun, and Busan, and has won more than 105 awards. Currently completing his MFA in Film at York University, Kiarash blends cinematic precision with poetic minimalism to create work that is both emotionally resonant and socially engaged.

K-COSMOSIS

K-COSMOSIS explores the blended nature of cosmologies within Korean metaphysics. Weaving an intricate tale of relationality, the piece brings together multiple narratives across time and space, celebrating a multifaceted understanding of history, identity, ideology, and mythology. Viewers experience the synthesis of a divided yet intra-related universe, where perceived boundaries are blurred, and things and thoughts are not independently formed but emerged out of entanglement with a plurality of others. Informed by the Feminist and Queer philosophies of quantum physics, the piece uses procedurally-generated particle systems to imagine the world through an ongoing blending. K-COSMOSIS invites viewers to see the world through osmosis rather than duality to reveal a profound sharedness and connection.

You can check out K-COSMOSIS and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Bomi Yook (she/her)(@bomi.yook) is a media artist based in Calgary, working with immersive media, experimental animation, and video performance. Her work explores hybridity within identity, cultural landscapes, and knowledge systems, often drawing on the collective memory of the Korean diaspora, with its complex ties to immigration and colonization. Navigating the nuances of belonging to multiple cultural frameworks, Yook’s practice reflects on the paradoxical nature of identity, emphasizing its incompleteness, incongruity, and intersubjectivity. Exploring the Ecologies of Trace—of the Other and Otherness within the self—her works reveal identity and ideologies as inter-constitutive, seeing the world as a paradoxical blend of contexts rather than distinct, isolated definitions.

A Mixed Bag

“A short message from Bag Boy, the newly self-appointed Leader of All, to humbly request the love, loyalty, and money of all who are watching. For your devotion, he promises you nothing in abundance.”

A Mixed Bag is a satirical propaganda video inspired by the stylings of early agitprop posters and the nightmarishly absurd Western fascism of today. Using a hypnotic rhythm and calming speech, Bag Boy seeks to placate the people of the world with an honest expression of complete empowerment while giving absolutely nothing in return. Lampooning the promises of the right-wing and using the trappings of historically aggressive media for a softly surrealist despotism, the audience is offered the all too common political mixed bag—only to find that the bag is completely empty.”

You can check out A Mixed Bag and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Synthetic Ubiquity

Synthetic Ubiquity is a short performance art video that explores agency, escapism, and the blurred lines between performance and reality in the age of constant digital presence. It invites the viewer to pause, reflect, and question how much of their own reality is truly theirs when technology, like a revolving door, keeps pulling us back in even during moments of rest.

Ironically, AI-generated hosts narrate the video attempting to describe the performance and the complex relationship between humans and technology. As these synthetic voices try to impose structure on an unstructured moment, they reveal the disconnect between our lived experience and AI’s attempts to define it. Their scripted, robotic analysis raises an important question: who decides what something means: is it us or the ubiquitous algorithms watching us?

You can check out Synthetic Ubiquity and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Amanda Tkaczyk (she/her)(@whatsoever_creates) is an emerging BIPOC multi-disciplinary artist who explores themes of loss, belonging, grief, and spontaneity through her expressive abstract paintings, provocative web interactives, mesmerising digital collages, and innovative experimental performances. Previously a competitor at the Canadian Festival for Spoken Word, Amanda has had performances and exhibitions at Guelph Public Art Gallery, Cambridge Centre for the Arts, and Hillside Festival (Guelph). Amanda is an Expressive Arts Practitioner (Ontario Expressive Art Therapy Association) with a focus on black wellness & community. Outside of the arts, she is an award-winning educator and technology professional with a background in artificial intelligence and privacy.

La Suspension

Suspension

Stopping time

A necessary in-between

Finding my place

A photo-montage projection with sound that explores movement through dance and camera. We worked around the theme of suspension and the place of women and men in our society, still dominated by patriarchy. A place reinforced by the quest for performance and image generated by social networks, among other things. What roles do we take on, whether imposed or not? Are we really free in our choices? This project was produced as part of the AAAPNB’s two-person residency, La création à deux! held in Bouctouche in September 2024.

You can check out La Suspension and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Originally from Rang-St-Georges, New Brunswick, Monelle Doiron (elle/she/her) (@monelledoiron) is a contemporary dance artist. Collaborative creation is at the heart of her practice, where she explores performance, choreography and videodance. She was awarded the Éloizes prize in 2022 for her choreographic exploration of video dance Les oiseaux.

Cindy Duclos (elle/she/her)(@cindyduclosphotographe) hails from the Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick. Specializing in Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) photography, she creates captivating abstract images that invite viewers to see beyond the ordinary. The two artists met during a creative residency in Bouctouche, NB in 2024.

Sojourn

A sojourn is a temporary stay; temporariness is contextual and this piece is a reflection on that, our own timescale changes our sense of who or what feels permanent, and in reality all of us are temporary residents here on this planet. This 4 minute animation work is centred on Prince Edward County’s South Shore, a place of significant biodiversity as well as a high density flight path for migratory songbirds, and a popular tourist destination. The conservation of undeveloped lands is crucial to the overall health of this planet and all its inhabitants, and I was drawn to capturing the south shore because I wanted to experience and capture the magic of this wild place.

Development is rapidly transforming Prince Edward County and Ontario at large, ravaging environments and green space in its wake. With the recent greenbelt scandal, the ongoing Ontario Place scandal and the terrible housing scarcity it’s clear that there isn’t a desire to provide humans with affordable housing, there’s just a desire for more greed, in what’s clearly a prevailing colonialist mindset.

Sojourn is a meditation on access to nature, land, and temporary stays. The process involved shooting video footage in the spring and summer of 2024 along the South Shore, rotoscoping that footage and then returning in the fall to shoot the animation frames in motion on the trails at Prince Edward Point, and Monarch Point.

You can check out Sojourn and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Stacey Sproule (she/her)(@staceysproule) is a Picton-based multi-disciplinary artist working in hand-drawn animation. Using and subverting animation techniques and processes she explores the liminal, the ephemeral, and the magical. She holds a BFA from OCAD in Drawing and Painting. Her work has been supported by the OAC, she has received a full fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, and has exhibited at Forest City Gallery, FADO, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and others. Her work has been featured in festivals including 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival, Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation, the Rhubarb Festival, and the West Virginia Mountaineer Film Festival.

Household portrait

Household Portrait is a video work that takes the form of an obsession in the aftermath of grief. When I moved back to my childhood home to help my dad take care of my mom as she was dying, I found myself wandering around the house in the in-between moments of caring for someone, not knowing what to do other than wait, but also being unwilling to leave the house. I’d find myself moving around in a daze – in some ways a reprieve of the kind of dances you might do as a teenager, mugging around your parents’ house, only here I was 34, albeit back sleeping in my teenage room.

Afterwards, with my mom gone, in the house where she died, I became increasingly concerned with how eerily similar our bodies were, and dance again became the conduit to express this. I revisited these dances, using CCTV cameras to film myself repeating movements, sometimes taping the cameras to my body. The work subverts the increasing ubiquity of home security, using cameras intended for protection (yet simultaneously vulnerable to breaches of security) to look towards inward, existential threats instead of external ones. In direct contradiction to the purported protections offered by security cameras, turning these cameras on myself renders me more vulnerable, not less so, in the process.The work invites viewers into the time-space collapse of sorrow and love – the shock, the inability to focus. It is absurd, unseemly, overwhelming – a dense panic attack of a poem.

You can check out Household Portrait and more on August 15th at the BMO Studio Theatre!

Nora Rosenthal (she/her)(@infrared_crayfish) is a writer, filmmaker and artist whose work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Film Board of Canada. She holds an MFA in Film Production from York University and has participated in residencies through the Banff Centre, the RIDM, and the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. Her writing has appeared in Momus, MUBI’s Notebook, The Editorial Magazine and IDA’s Documentary Magazine. Her short film Nine Easy Dances had its international premiere at Visions du Réel, garnered her two Best Director awards, and was nominated for Best Short Documentary by the International Documentary Association.

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