Exhibition runs: January 28 – February 22, 2013
Artist’s Bios
ŽELJKA BLAKŠI?
(Still Dreaming) (2012)
Željka Blakši? born in Zagreb (Croatia) is an international visual artist who currently works between
New York, Berlin and Zagreb. She holds an MFA from The School of Visual Arts, Photography, Video
and Related Media Department. In her work she investigates commemorative practices, culture of
remembrance and thus related identities through complex interrelationships between dysfunctions,
impossibilities and absurdities. By exploring possibilities and peripheral areas of different media,
often combining sound, video and performance her works translates into complex audio-visual
systems. Her artistic career began in the early adolescence in the field of music, and she continues
to nurture it through performances with musicians in experimental music and visual appearances.
In 2010 she won the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award and is a new recipient of The District Kunstund
Kulturförderung studio grant program located in Berlin, Germany that concentrates explicitly
on the promotion of contemporary female artists. Recently she exhibited her work at Art Gallery of
SESI in Sao Paolo (Brazil), The Kitchen and Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center in New York
and Urbanfestival in Zagreb, among others.
LAURA DUTTON
Migration (2010)
Laura Dutton is an artist currently based in Victoria, BC. She holds an MFA from the University of
Victoria, and a BFA from Concordia University. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the
Contemporary Art Gallery of Vancouver, Toronto Urban Film Festival, LUZ Gallery, First Canadian
Place Gallery, amongst others, including upcoming exhibitions at VU in Quebec City, and PAVED
Arts in Saskatoon. She is currently teaching in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Victoria.
In Migration a murder of crows fly across the sky on their way to their evening roost. Their journey
seems circular, as if they are caught in an endless moment of travel.
JOHANNA HELDEBRO
Untitled (2013)
Johanna was raised in Northern Sweden. She holds a BFA in Photography from Concordia
University, and an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from School of Visual Arts in New
York City, where she was the recipient of the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award for her thesis work,
To Come Within Reach of You…. Johanna has exhibited her work in Indonesia, Europe, throughout
North America, most recently at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki (Finland), the 4th
Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in Moscow (Russia), Galleri Box in Gothenburg (Sweden)
and Gallery Steinsland Berliner in Stockholm (Sweden). Johanna is the co-editor of Laura, a print
arts periodical that she launched in 2010 together with her longtime collaborator Jared Leon. She is
the curator of Art POP, the visual arts component of POP Montreal. Johanna’s often uncomfortably
personal work explores notions of obsession, photographic representation and personal boundaries
including the inherent tensions that exist within personal relationships such as notions of family, the
monotony of the everyday and the shaping of identities within that context.
LISSA RIVERA
Incantations of a Doll Collector (2009)
Lissa Rivera received her MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She has been included in
the publication 25 under 25 Up-and Coming American Photographers, published by Duke
University and powerHouse Books, as well as The Humble Arts Foundation’s Collector’s Guide
to Emerging Art Photography. Rivera was chosen for the biennial exhibition Women to Watch at
the National Museum of Woman in Arts, Washington D.C. Her photographs have been featured in
the New England Photography Biennial at the Danforth Museum of Art where her work received
the Purchase Award. Lissa was the Creative Director of the Photography Collection at The Burns
Archive in New York City, and currently works for the photo archive at The Museum of the City
of New York. Incantations of a Doll Collector creates a removed environment through which to
explore the fantasies of transformation expressed in homemade videos posted on the Internet.
The nineteenth century display references the aesthetic of the Victorian medical anomaly, where
the most unusual specimen would be displayed, in this case highlighting enigmatic and perverse
occurrences in human psychology.
MINNA SUONIEMI
Little Red Riding Hood & Wolf (2012), Lullaby (2012), Blow Job (2008)
Minna Suoniemi is a Finnish artist currently based in Helsinki, and Tampere. Her work has been
shown in exhibitions all over the world, including at the Whitechapel Project Space in London,
Atelier Frankfurt, Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, and Kiasma: the Museum of Contemporary
Art in Helsinki. Minna is a lecturer of art at Tampere University of Applied Sciences and used to
run her own gallery and artist space in Tampere. Minna works primarily with video in which she
examines human behaviour through humour and the grotesque.
SARAH RARA
Air Quality (2012)
Sarah Rara is a Los Angeles-based artist and musician, originally from Livingston, New Jersey. She
holds an MFA from University of Southern California, and a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown
University. Rara has created performances and video installations in a wide variety of contexts–
including MOCA Los Angeles, The Smell, Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Fellows of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Public Fiction, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis,
the Hammer Museum among many others. Rara is a member of Lucky Dragons, an ongoing
collaboration between herself and artist Luke Fischbeck. Air Quality a new video work examines
transparency, filtering, and the double image. It playfully returns to age-old questions: is it possible
to think two thoughts at once? Is time symmetrical? Is fire alive? Air Quality—an array of interwoven
images—studies how filters both organize and scatter light, connecting this physical process to the
clear / unclear transfer of information.
CAJSA VON ZEIPEL
A-Z (2010)
Cajsa von Zeipel was born in 1983 in Gothenburg, Sweden. She holds a BFA from the Royal
Institute of Fine Art in Stockholm, Sweden, where she currently lives. Her work has been included in
exhibitions at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Gallery Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Borås Konstmuseum,
and Varbergs Konsthall, and is primarily sculpture-based, often referencing classical sculpture
and art historical traditions. With her work, Cajsa raises questions about youth culture aesthetics,
representations of women, and sexuality. In the work A-Z, a dialogue is structured around the order
of the alphabet, juxtaposing form with the attitude of the speakers, turning both on its head.