AiR Emily Neufeld

Say hi to our Artist in Residence, Emily Neufeld, who has just completed a cross-island trip working on some abandoned houses with her family and assistant Drew Pardy.

A note from Emily:

“Hello! Thank you for welcoming me into your community. My work is all about exploring people and places, so meeting new people and exploring new places adds new dimensions to my art practice.

For the past several years, I’ve been making art in homes that are either abandoned or slated for demolition (or both). I’m fascinated by the idea of “place” and the way people’s homes (and the environment that surrounds those homes) have an effect on the people who live there. At the same time, people leave countless impressions on the places they live. This creates a neverending cycle where people change the places they live in, while those places also change them, and so on.

I’m very excited to be here, exploring Newfoundland for the first time, and I’m honoured that many of you are graciously allowing me to make art while I explore.”

Emily will be showing her work in the group show Holding Place, featuring Christeen Francis, Emily Neufeld, and Andrew Testa (August 28 – October 9, 2021).

Artist Bio:
Emily was born and raised in farming country where Treaty 6 and 7 meet in what is now called Red Deer, Alberta. She now lives and works in the unceded territory of the Squamish and T’sleil Waututh peoples in North Vancouver. She is examining her own Mennonite and Scottish settler colonial histories by investigating her relationship to these Indigenous lands in which she now lives and works. Her definition of this place extends beyond the land itself to include plants, the soil microbiome and animal habitats (including the human animal). Her work explores how all of these aspects of place influence and are influenced by each other. This will be Emily’s first time visiting Newfoundland. Recent solo exhibitions include Prairie Invasions: A Lullaby (2020, Richmond Art Gallery, BC), Before Demolition: Tides (2019, Eyelevel Gallery, NS), Motherlands (The Pole, Den Haag, ND) and Before Demolition (2017: Burrard Arts Foundation, BC). She received her BFA from ECUAD in 2013. Neufeld has created and participates in community sharing gardens, and sees land as fundamental to her research process.