Residencies

Current Residencies

Nadine Baldow, Alive Matter (TOPOPHILIA V): Landscape Investigation in Newfoundland and Labrador

March 29 – May 11, 2024

Nadine Baldow’s practice is informed by the current geological era, known as the Anthropocene where traces of human activity become embedded within planet Earth. Are we still part of nature? Or have humans created a new kind of nature? Perhaps estrangement from nature started with a fence: did the first artificial boundary create a gap between man and nature?

In preparation for her upcoming solo exhibition “Alive Matter (TOPOPHILIA V)” at EASTERN EDGE, Nadine will focus on the Landscape Investigation of the surrounding environment of the area Newfoundland and Labrador. Structures, that carry a heavy human handprint are layers of value in an altered landscape. In time these forms establish diverse geological strata, each layer betraying the sedimented yet shifting values of the cultural forces that produced them. With these layers, Baldow seeks to gain a deep understanding of the place and the relationship between “nature” and “culture” in this landscape.

For more info on Nadine and her residency objectives, click here!

Upcoming Residencies

m’lk

May 24 – July 6, 2024

The residency will be an opportunity to create a system of collective research through a multitude of practices and existing projects, some established and most in development. With each of us siblings having a particular technical background. We hope to interact with the indigenous community of Newfoundland and Labrador, with our initial interest being in the radical resilience culture holds when travelling both over geographical distances as well as travelling in other terms- This implying a belief in no boundaries between all cultures. With our existing interest in archiving material culture and in the process of doing so getting to understand the ether of ways of living that soak into the material worlds communities form despite being far distances from a place which would more easily allow for aspects of that material world (ie:- in ingredients for food, materials for clothes and other forms of life).

Sylvan Hamburger

July 19 – August 31, 2024

Cranky signifies an erratic vessel, liable to capsize. This nautical meaning serves as a central metaphor for this proposal: I will relief print the hull of a discarded punt, alongside other sea jettison, and turn the printed impressions into textile kites to be flown along the coast. Cranky presupposes the strange and irregular flight of these soft vessels. It also alludes to the volatile consequences of globalization, consumerism, and climate change on coastal communities.

Joshua Schwebel

September 13 – October 26, 2024

During the residency I intend to visit the location of the Valentine mine and to research the processes and consequences of extracting gold from the landscape. I will speak with environmental groups and local community to discover the community reaction to this mining project, the environmental costs of resource extraction and the colonial legacy that these disruptive processes continue to enact. I will gather rubble and other materials produced by this extraction process.

Georgia Dawkin

November 8 – December 14, 2024

During this residency I will be furthering my research into Power Dressing, and the systems of misogyny within professional expectations and environments. I plan to use these resources and space to develop new performances as PROFESSIONAL WOMAN, explore developing bodies of work regarding Power Dressing and professional fashion, as well as use the time to connect and work directly with the community.

Tough Guy Mountain

January 31 – March 15, 2025

Blandscape is an interactive narrative experience presented in virtual reality (VR) and comic format. In the 15-minute virtual reality experience, a solitary intern wanders through an immense wasteland, following familiar stone statues. A bored executive watches from their office, passively observing the intern from a disembodied perspective. Eventually the intern, played by a performer in virtual reality, succumbs to the stone themselves, and the executive clicks to release a new intern into the wasteland. The interns look remarkably similar to the executive, as if they are sending endless iterations of themselves to a screen-mediated doom.

The project Blandscape is a continuation of a decade-long narrative role-play from the Tough Guy Mountain collective. Working together since 2012, the collective has developed a critical approach to creation with emerging technology. Their projects bring audiences into a fantasy world of unpaid interns and ebullient exploitative executives. The proposed project, Blandscape, is designed uniquely for the Eastern Edge studio space and audience. Through the residency at Eastern Edge we will develop a single-player, 15 minute VR experience and performance of Blandscape. We will also complete our 35 page comic of the same name, which will be made available as a zine for studio visitors during the residency. The collective will present their work through a live on-site performance of Blandscape at the end of the residency period. During this event, the audience will also be invited to put on the VR headset and experience Blandscape for themselves.

Sun Forest

February 6 – March 21, 2026

The project focuses on the creation of speculative IBPOC bio-armour for radical resistance and healing through multi-species connections and embodied practices of care. Incorporating biomaterials and living microorganic cultures within speculative body armour, the work transfigures forces and human-centric timelines of violence into conditions that can propagate equity and regeneration, and push for modes of collective and radical future imaginings. Developing a transdisciplinary installation using sculpture, performance, video, and new media, this project will continue to undergo change throughout the course of its installation, proposing symbiotic, evolving modes of being that can liberate and resist systems of racialized violence and techno-ecological harm.

Jem Woolidge

June 12 – July 25, 2026

Jem Woolidge will spend his residency developing a collection of garments for musicians, inspired by the camp aesthetics of performance spectacles and stagewear, and in collaboration with local performers. Inspired by designers like Bob Mackie describing Elton John as a ‘Male Showgirl’, his costume methodology is inherently queer, colorful, silly, and imagery-based. He is interested in the ways in which garments can disarm both the wearer and the viewer, and create a more permissive environment to perform and be an audience in.

“I was fascinated by the social permissiveness of stage performance. You can ‘get away with’ wearing anything under the prerequisite of performance, including draggy, campy, tacky garments. In contexts where dressing in a gender nonconforming manner in a casual setting would potentially cause a stir, stage performance is an outlet where things can go unquestioned. Historically, costume designers would dress their subjects in high camp, effeminate garments, and from Liberace to Twisted Sister – their oftentimes conservative fan bases would watch and applaud.”