Hollyhock retreat
Join me August 3-8th 2025 on gorgeous Cortes Island, for a Yoga and art-making retreat at Hollyhock! “In These Bodies, On These Lands: Iyengar Yoga and art-making”.
Learn Iyengar Yoga posture and breathing practices, and begin a creative practice, or enliven and uplift your current creative work.
Experience ways to integrate journaling/writing, drawing, and intuitive painting with movement (Asana) and breath (Pranayama) rooted in this Yoga tradition. Try out various approaches to making and moving in an encouraging, nourishing environment. No Yoga or art experience necessary. Retreat information & registration ✨
Where is Cortes Island? Cortes is situated 150km North of Vancouver, in the Discovery Islands archipelago on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Travel directions here.
Reconciling through the Body
I was a presenter at the 5th Annual World Conference on Reconciliation in Assisi, Italy July 2024. I shared about the course I teach in UVic’s Faculty of Education entitled “Yoga: In These Bodies, on These Lands”, and how/why we explore the TRC Calls to Action.
I also shared about an art project I’m deep in the middle of, because it has me asking, and living through questions like:
•What body-based/movement or breathing practices support and prepare us for the ongoing work of reconciliation, conflict-resolution, peace-building?
•How are we meeting our inner conflicts, so that we can be (more) present when we seek to understand and reconcile external conflicts and injustices?
More about the International Association for Reconciliation Studies.
New project
Funded by the BC Arts Council
This spring/summer I’m in the studio working on a new project, tentatively titled “How to Build a Boat (with the breath)”. An opportunity to explore interconnections between my Pranayama (Yoga,) drawing, and video practices. I’m getting requests to share project updates. If you’re interested in being on that list send me a note here.
Weathering
DARE-DARE Artist Run Centre
Devora Neumark and I are co-creating a public writing project in collaboration with participants from CÉDA, an education centre and DARE-DARE neighbour that has been active in Montreal’s South-West for 50 years. CÉDA aims to improve the conditions of people living in situations of poverty and exclusion in order to build a fairer society
“Weathering” is part of DARE-DARE’s Mutual Becomings or Mutual Devenirs programming and runs November 30, 2023 - March 2024. We are collectively exploring how we can care for our own and each other’s internal weather through art - as the weather external to us is so drastically shifting across the planet. Details here.
Preparing. Rehearsing
A selection of my drawings are installed at Open Space artist-run centre (Victoria, BC) until July 29, 2023. I had the honour of working with artist Tanya Lukin Linklater and Open Space, leading Yoga sessions for Tanya’s Hair Prints mono-prints & Open Rehearsals project in April. My drawings are responses to experiencing the Open Rehearsals and Hair Prints, watching & listening closely to the dance artists, and spending time with all of the collaborators. The exhibition runs from April 22 - July 29, 2023.
Thank you to Tanya, Mina Linklater, curator Toby Lawrence, dance artist Ivanie Aubin-Malo and fellow collaborator/respondent Camille Georgeson-Usher. I am deeply moved by the many ways in which this project was grounded in a spirit of generosity.
Yoga: Cultural Appropriation or True Belonging?
I was a presenter at the annual Sports and Discrimination Conference in The Netherlands, June 2023. I shared about the course I teach in UVic’s Faculty of Education (EPHE - Exercise, Physical Health and Education Dept.) entitled “Yoga: In These Bodies, on These Lands”. This is an experiential course where we do Asana & Pranayama, while learning Yoga philosophy, and asking - what does it mean to explore this ancient, Indigenous art/science/psychology on these specific lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən and SENĆOŦEN peoples? How do we talk about and feel through this together? All of my co-learners are in fields where they will be inviting other people to inhabit their own bodies in some way (Physio, O.T. etc.) - we discuss how to do this in ways that are mindful of cultural awareness and committed to the ongoing work of cultivating brave/safe space/s together.