Jessica Marion Barr
Jessica Marion Barr is an artist, educator, and researcher who completed her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Queen's University in fall 2015, focusing on ecological elegies. Her interdisciplinary practice incorporates artmaking, arts-science research, and pedagogy, investigating creative and collaborative approaches to issues around climate change, species decline, and social/ecological justice. Jessica has recently exhibited artwork at the Design Annex of the Art Gallery of Hamilton; Gladstone Hotel (Toronto); World of Threads Festival (Oakville); Wall Space Gallery (Ottawa); FINA Gallery, University of British Columbia (Kelowna, BC); Hart House (University of Toronto); and Union Gallery, The Artel, Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, and the Ban Righ Centre (Kingston, ON). Jessica's 2013 Nuit Blanche (Toronto) installation project Indicator investigated the concept of indicator species and empire; the project was included in NOW Magazine's Critics' Picks as well as The Grid's "Nuit Blanche Animated" (listen to Jessica's sound installation Indications on SoundCloud). Vernal Pool: A Participatory Project about Place + Precipitation, a collaboration with artist Karen Abel, was the recipient of the 2014 Jury’s Choice Award and the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects/GROUND Award at Grow Op: Exploring Landscape and Place at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto (more on this project at https://vernal-pool.tumblr.com/).