Laura Gildner

Within my artistic practice I have increasingly become fascinated by the idea of social choreography: I am drawn to bringing unexpected groupings of people together to collaborate on works that reveal themselves as relationships between otherwise strangers are formed. I am fuelled by the exchange of trust and power that can develop from these interactions, while constantly negotiating how ethical lines inherent to lens-based media inform both my relationship with the subjects of my work as well as the works themselves.

What intrigues me perhaps the most about social choreography is its ability to directly confront our languages and patterns of viewing in relation to the human form. Can understandings of aesthetic value become challenged through interactions between multiple bodies? Is judgement cooperatively rehearsed just as much as it is performed? Why do we tend to fetishize the body as the ultimate bearer of the truth?

During this residency I would like to work on a project that considers these ideas by staging a participatory event (or series of events), resulting in a photo/video installation. Through an open call and word of mouth, I will organize a group of participants to collaborate with me in an investigative social choreography specific to Toronto Island.

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Laura Gildner is an intermedia artist from Ottawa currently studying at the University of Victoria. She has exhibited and performed across Canada including recent exhibitions and performances at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Open Space, and Presentation House Gallery; taken part in residencies and projects in Italy and the US; and regularly curates and organizes community based art events in and around her current residence on unceded Lekwungen Territory (Victoria, BC). Laura was nominated for the Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize in Photography, Film, and Video Art in both 2017 and 2018.

Luminous Bodies

art residency that sheds light on diversity of human bodies

Laura Gildner