zana wensel

INTERVIEW:

Zana Wensel is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and creates on Treaty 6 Land, in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton). Throughout her practice, she examines the interrelationship between trauma, healing, and the body, and explores the ways in which our most-inner and outer experiences are connected. Informed by various levels of interoception (the sensing of the internal body state), Zana employs hand and body-based practices such as drawing, sewing, and performance as a way of bringing consciousness to the body’s otherwise unconscious experiences. Through these means, she ultimately explores the body as both a site and conduit for self-realization and healing. In doing so, she seeks out various forms of catharsis, and gives voice to the fabric of our human existence.

About the Work

What needs to be freed up in ourselves in order to be part of the change we want to see in the world? What can we (re)discover through pleasure and fluidity?—in our thoughts; our identities and orientations; and in our ways of being? How can we re-imagine our world? How can we re-imagine ourselves? How can we be more open, more loving, and more connected in a world that pushes us in the opposite direction? Reflecting upon this tumultuous, yet unique time in which we find ourselves, Liberations explores notions of healing through pleasure, queerness and imagination. Inspired by hand-written protest signs, these textile flags aim to activate a sense of liberation and belonging in the body and Self, through calls of joy and revelation. Quilted together to form bold and colorful statements, the flags simultaneously act as an invitation to go beyond what we know, and push for what we need more of, channeling an essence of delight, embodiment and hope.