Between Things: Alberta Ceramics

I am honoured to exhibit my work (Haptic Objects, ASMR for Empaths) at the Art Gallery of Alberta (September 2023-March 2024, Edmonton, AB) in ‘Between Things: Alberta Ceramics’, alongside the ceramic works of Mary Shannon Will, Les Manning, Greg Payce, Bridget Fairbank, Trudy Golley, Amy Gogarty, Mabel Tan, Jocelyn Reid, Noriko Masuda, Zimra Beiner, Kasia Sosnowski, Mariko Paterson, Rob Froese, Benjamin Oswald, and Corwyn Lund. Curated by Lindsey Sharman and Diana Sherlock. From https://www.youraga.ca/exhibitions/between-things-alberta-ceramics

“At a moment when ceramics are everywhere, Between Things: Alberta Ceramics includes sculptures and installations made by contemporary artists committed to clay to ask how ceramics can activate our experience of and relationship to the world around us. This exhibition examines the ceramic object through three interconnected ideas—the ceramic object in relation to its materials and processes; the ceramic object in relation to its context; and the affective nature of the ceramic object in relation to the self and body. The artists in this exhibition make contemporary ceramics that reconnect us with the material world and each other.”

Haptic Objects

Haptic Objects is an ongoing project exploring the senses through tactile engagement with objects. In this video I activate a small selection of the objects with gesture in a performance for camera. In making these ceramic pieces I wanted a variety of different forms that would invite a diverse range of approaches in relation to the body and gesture. Some of the objects were created to explore different qualities of touch, and differ from my previous works intended to bring pleasure/comfort (see video ASMR for Empaths).    • ASMR for Empaths  
Objects list in order of appearance: 1. Grasping Set (terracotta) 2. Two Wands (stoneware) 3. Open Chain (terracotta) 4. Black Rings (black stoneware) 5. Legs and Ring (terracotta and porcelain) 6. Closed Chain (porcelain) 7. Earthen Portals (terracotta) 8. Vessel with Circles (porcelain and terracotta) 9. Cage (porcelain) 10. Prehistoric Fidgets (terracotta) 11.Two Spines (terracotta) 12. Auger and Ring (black stoneware and terracotta)

This video and the creation of the ceramic objects featured in the video was generously supported through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Production Assistance: Jackson 2Bears

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

https://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/visual-arts-banff-artist-residence-summer-2023/20230626

Artist in Residence (Visual Arts) Program welcomes applicants for Summer 2023. I am excited to announce that I will be working alongside Faculty as a Guest Speaker for the June/July 2023 program to deliver a workshop and lecture. More on that as it takes shape in the months to come.

Faculty: Jackson 2Bears, Lynda Gammon, Kitty Scott

Craft + Science

Alberta Craft Feature Gallery (Edmonton, 10186 – 106 Street) MARCH 5 2022-JULY 9 2022 and AUGUST 6-NOVEMBER 5 2022 at Alberta Craft Gallery (Calgary, 1721-29 ave SW, Suite 280)

My ceramic sculpture work, Haptic Objects, and digital video work ASMR for Empaths are featured in this juried group exhibition exploring the intersection of science and craft.

“Craft and Science explores the interesting ways that science and craft intersect. Both fields rely on creative problem-solving skills, research, specialized training, traditional and innovative techniques and methodologies, imagination, and curiosity to fuel the search for answers. Science not only serves as a source of inspiration – scientific methods and principals are used every day by craft artists in the processes and creation of their work. Likewise, artists are called upon to find creative solutions and alternative perspectives in laboratory and research settings.” Alberta Craft Council website

View a short presentation of my work in the context of this exhibition here:

https://www.pechakucha.com/presentations/haptic-objects-tanya-doody-craft-science

ASMR for Empaths

ASMR for Empaths (2021) is a digital video work foregrounding touch and sound, featuring a gestural performance with handmade ceramic objects. This video was created as a gesture of care, and is intended as an offering to the most empathetic, absorbent, and porous among us, for whom stresses accumulate in the body and mind. Special thanks to Jackson 2bears for his production work on this video.

ASMR (auto or autonomous sensory meridian response) is described as a tingling sensation that begins at the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, often compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia–I was attracted to the idea that this could be used to reach out across distances to create the sensation of touch in remote viewers. I stumbled on ASMR completely by accident when I was strategizing how to exhibit my recent body of work, Objects for Empaths during the global pandemic. Working within the format of ASMR video I was able to create a performance-for-video work featuring the handmade ceramic objects paired with gesture. The formal aspects that were borrowed from ASMR video content are not the only thing shared with the genre. ASMR content is often intended to bring about a sense of calm…my work is aligned in sentiment, and intended as an act of care.

WIND (We Invent Neutral Defence)

Tanya Doody and Jackson 2bears

October 18, 2018

Biennale d’art performatif de Rouyn-Noranda (17-20 October 2018)

WIND (We Invent Neutral Defence) was designed as a series of performance art vignettes with audience members accessing the performance space in small groups. The episodic performances emerged from the artist team’s contemplation of the wind–an ever-present and formidable force where they are located in Southern Alberta–and is meant as a dialogue with the natural forces around us that characterize place. From the project statement: “…seeking to make a situation for contemplation and encounter, a bounding box in which to manifest instances though which we listen, respond, dialogue with an old friend, a force, a consistent character, though disembodied. Currents are de-territorialized pathways…mutable, unfixed, ever shifting. The artists seek to create a container for non-urgent intimate experience.”

https://lecart.org/fr/programmation/9e-biennale/tanya-doody-et-jackson-2bears/

(Meet) Where the Sidewalk Ends

Collaborative Series: Tanya Doody with Tara Lynn MacDougall and Jean Pierre Marchant

November 3, 2018

​(Meet) Where the Sidewalk Ends is a site-responsive performance action and collaborative performance between Tanya Doody, Tara Lynn MacDougall and Jean-Pierre Marchant. It was presented as a part of Trap\door Artist-Run Centre’s members’ exhibition, Dispersions (2018).

“The performance layered oratory, object and video-based actions to address the construction of place. The end of a sidewalk is staged as an uncanny site of stalled development where the artists dwell to enact an affective, speculatory space directed toward an undetermined potentiality.” -Tara Lynn MacDougall https://www.taralynnmacdougall.com/meet-where-the-sidewalk-ends.html

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Saving Seeds action

Collaborative Series: Tanya Doody with Stephanie Wilson

October 6, 2018

This Collaborative Series was part of Dispersions, Trap\door ARC’s juried members exhibition, wherein I mounted a call for participation to other members. Saving Seeds grew out of meetings with Stephanie Wilson where we discussed harvesting and seed saving practices. Over a period of weeks leading up to the public action, we collected seeds and harvested plants to distribute. During the performance held in Lethbridge, AB, seeds were bundled and dispersed to community members in a gesture that valued saving, sharing, and growing community.

From the projects catalogue:

“Over a period of weeks leading up to the performance Doody and Wilson collected local indigenous and cultivated seeds and plant matter. During the performance the artists distributed seeds in wrapped bundles, sharing the historical, practical, spiritual and magical properties of each with performance participants. Harvesting, perserving, and dispersing the seeds became a process of coming to know place through social means of exchange and conversation.” – Andrew Rabyniuk, Director, Trap\door ARC

 

 

Call for Participation

August/September 2018: Call for Participation: Collaborative Project Opportunity

General:
This call for participation originates from Tanya Doody. She is seeking three active Trap\door ARC Members in good standing to participate in a new Collaborative Series.

She hopes to create 3 works, with 3 different artists, for this project.

She is an artist working in performance art, object making, and is a ceramic artist and designer, with an interest in working collaboratively. Through her performance works she creates interstices for social exchange, and places this collaborative work within that context.

Details:
Artists/collaborators are asked to undergo a collaborative working process with local artist and Trap\door Member Tanya Doody to create new work(s) within a limited time frame.

Artists/collaborators must have availability and willingness to meet a minimum of once/week for 4-6 weeks, or until the work is completed.

Artworks and all process will be truly collaborative, from concept to execution to presentation.

Artworks produced through this collaborative process will be presented under the auspices of Dispersions, Trap\door’s upcoming members’ exhibition.

Artworks produced through this collaborative process will be the joint property of Tanya Doody and collaborating artist(s).

Next Step:
To express interest in participating in this Collaborative Series, contact Tanya through email: tanyadoody@gmail.com

Deadline:
Don’t be shy, time is ticking!
Decisions will be made by September 7, 2018.
Work is expected to begin week of September 10, 2018

LIVE! 2017 Biennale

EVANESCING THIS HARROWED STRATA 

Tanya Doody and Jackson 2Bears

Thursday, October 5 @ VIVO Media Arts Centre, Vancouver, BC, CANADA

Evanescing This Harrowed Strata is a collaborative multimedia performance piece by multidisciplinary artist Tanya Doody and Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) multimedia artist Jackson 2Bears. With this artwork we begin to talk about stories written on the land, and the conflicted histories layered on the earth in this territory; we endeavour to immerse ourselves in troubled narratives, and we want to explore strange and complicated encounters and perform alternative vocalizations.

In this performance we feature projections and live-feed video, and use both live and pre-recorded sound. We activate a bed of clay ‘strata’ with contact microphones; we use a digitally-enabled hand-drum and purpose-built ceramic objects with digital FX to dig with, to scream into, to crawl upon. A small tree weighed down with a ceramic ball and chain is unearthed and dragged, a ceramic shoe pulverizes all that lies beneath.

Photo credit: Rennie Brown and Ash Tanasiychuk