Jenny Hawkinson
Photo credit: Štěpán Petr
Jenny Hawkinson is a social practice artist interested in the intersection of conflict engagement and contemporary art. In her practice, ‘artist’ and ‘advocate’ hold equal weight. After receiving a BA in Visual Art in 2010, she moved to Vancouver, BC to establish roots in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. She has spent the last decade getting to know her community and participating in countless creative (ad)ventures: both personal and communal. Her work is about crossing borders that are ideological, psychological and physical. She works in textiles, installation art, video, soundscape and public interventions. Drawn to contested territories, she seeks to subvert divisive structures through absurd artistic interventions. This could be as simple as following a plastic bag around the peace walls of West Belfast, or staging a live soundscape with a brass band beneath a bridge. In recent years she has collaborated with a guerrilla theatre group to challenge the stigma of illicit drug use and lead community murals that promote intersectional community building. Kinship and conviviality are at the root of her practices. Even her community house is a site for unlikely friendships to form.
MFA 2023