Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba is proud to partner with the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba to present Criptych. 

Artists Susan Aydan Abbott, Yvette Cenerini, Susan Lamberd and Andrea von Wichert first came together as a group in 2019-20, during a media arts residency sponsored by Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba and Video Pool Media Arts Centre. Undertaking a conscious exploration of their relationship with technology in general and in terms of their individual artistic practices and lived experiences as persons with disabilities, the group art exhibit Criptych is the result of their investigations. They explore issues of embodiment, internal and external signs of “ability,” and the various ways technology can affect personal and societal notions of well-being, health and normalacy.

About the artists

Winnipeg artist Susan Aydan Abbott creates deeply personal works using photography, sculpture, film and installations which speak to memory, resilience, trauma, violence, and survival. She uses silicone casts of her body and face to link architecture and landscape with her own personal history, as she directly transfers the pain of her experiences against and into her own environment. Abbott has exhibited locally and nationally, and attended residencies in Hamilton, Ontario (Center3), and Feminist Art Collective in Toronto, Ontario. Her work was spotlighted on Canada Council’s website in 2018. She has received numerous grants to complete a body work on the subject of an abandoned Mental Asylum (BOOBY HATCH (WO)MANIFESTO: a Feminine Perspective of Century Manor).

Yvette Cenerini is a Francophone Métis visual artist who has participated in group shows in Manitoba, Québec, and Ontario, including a solo exhibition at La Maison des artistes, Winnipeg. Her work in photo collage is characterized by the use of animal-as-subject. It examines the intricacies of emotion and relationships through a simple aesthetic that is laden with sarcastic undertones. Having obtained both a BEd (2001) and a BFA (2010), knowledge-sharing in the forms of teaching, mentoring, cultural mediation and community engagement are important facets of her practice.

Susan Lamberd is a multi-disciplinary artist interested in challenging the preconceived notions of what an artist with a disability can create. She positions the body as the central theme of her work. Diverse media communicate ideas of access in the arts, reject the view of disability that conventional artists have maintained, and aid in discovering radical new ways in which to express these beliefs.

Andrea von Wichert is a Winnipeg visual artist/writer/performer. A self-identified clown who explores abjection as identity, her work often muses on the failure to meet culturally-defined expectations on a consistent and chronic basis. Known as a fearless performer and provocative writer and orator, she has performed spoken word internationally and collaborated with orchestral musicians and composers, witchdoctors and various other eccentric weirdos. She has produced independent performance- and art department-heavy short films and live theatre. Her creative non-fiction has been published in Prairie Fire Magazine and in a number of anthologies designed to rile the patriarchy. She has spent some time studying towards a Master of Arts at the department of English, Film and Theatre at the University of Manitoba. This summer she received a BankAbility award from CahootsTheatre recognising excellence in Canadian artists with disabilities.

WARNING: This performance is not suitable for children as it deals with mature subject matter

WHERE: Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, 710 Rosser Avenue, Unit 2
Brandon, Manitoba

EVENTS

All attendees must show proof of vaccination.