Aubyn O’Grady has been the Program Director & Chair of the Yukon School of Visual Arts since 2018. Aubyn’s interdisciplinary academic and art works exist in the space between performance and pedagogy. Community engagement is the focus of her arts practice, often taking up the very place she lives in as one of her materials.
She is a frequent and enthusiastic collaborator, and so, can rarely take sole credit for any project she organizes. However, she can be credited with conceptualizing the Dawson City League of Lady Wrestlers (2013-2017), the Swimming Lessons Aquatic Lecture series (2017-2018), Local Field School (2020+), and Drawlidays (2019, 2020), a Dawson City-wide portrait exchange.
Aubyn currently co-teaches Expanded Field with Jackie Olson and teaches Visual Culture Studies (VCS) 102 in the Foundation Year Program.
She is also an alumni of the YSOVA Foundation Year Program (2011)!
nrayburn@yukonu.ca
My artistic practice is a blundering convergence of video, text, and still imagery. Often via appropriation and obsessive repetition, my work humorously addresses ideas around ‘the other’, human/non-human relations, and concepts of boundary and transgression through the lens of sci-fi, history, religion, and popular culture.
I have screened at video festivals internationally, including Athens Digital Art Festival (Greece), European Media Arts Festival (Germany), Lausanne Underground Film Festival (Switzerland), Seattle Transmedia & Independent Film Festival (USA), Antimatter [Media Art] Festival (Canada), Experiments in Cinema (USA), & Festival de Cine Experimental de Bogotá (Colombia), and exhibited at galleries such as Ohio State University Mansfield Gallery, Latitude 53, Stride Gallery, Harcourt House, & Artspace. I hold an MFA from the University of Western Ontario, am the founder and producer of Cold Cuts Video Festival, and am currently an instructor in 4-D: Introduction to Time-based Media & Visual Studies.
hannah.jickling@yukonu.ca
Hannah Jickling is originally from Whitehorse and is currently based in both Vancouver and Dawson - between Musqueam, Squamish Tsleil-waututh and Tr'ondëk Hwëch’in Territories. Atypical forms of distribution, entrepreneurial scheming and audience-seeking are important strategies for supporting and disseminating her work. She frequently collaborates with her partner Reed H. Reed through their ongoing project platform, Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Together, Jickling and Reed are recipients of the 2016 Ian Wallace Award for Teaching Excellence (Emily Carr University of Art & Design), a 2017 Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Public Art (City of Vancouver) and a 2018 VIVA Award (Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts).
hreed@yukonu.ca
Reed H. Reed is an artist who makes texts, editions, and other public projects. They frequently collaborate with their partner, Hannah Jickling. Together, they are fascinated with the contact high intrinsic to collaborative research, especially in their recent projects with children. Jickling and Reed have exhibited and performed internationally, with both individual and collaborative work appearing in such venues as: The Vancouver Art Gallery (BC), The Portland Art Museum (OR), Bästa Biennalen (SE), Art League (TX), The Kelowna Art Gallery (BC), The ODD Gallery (YK), Dalhousie University Art Gallery (NS), The Dunlop Art Gallery (SK), and The Power Plant (ON). They have forthcoming exhibitions at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (ON), The Nanaimo Art Gallery (BC), and Centre Phi (MTL).
Jickling and Reed are recipients of the 2016 Ian Wallace Award for Teaching Excellence (Emily Carr University of Art & Design), a 2017 Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Public Art (City of Vancouver) and a 2018 VIVA Award (Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts).
Reed lives between the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-waututh First Nations (Vancouver, BC) and on Tr'ondëk Hwëchin Territory (Dawson City, YT).
jacqueline.olson@yukonu.ca
Jackie Olson, with a rich heritage of Gwich'in and Danish roots, hails from Dawson City, YT, where she spent the majority of her life. Her journey, however, led her to Whitehorse for a significant three-year period, working with the Yukon Indian Arts and Craft society (1995-1998). This experience, coupled with studying at Camosun College (Victoria, BC), ignited her interest in Arts Administration. Initially viewing it as a means to enhance her professional skills, Jackie discovered her true passion for creating art during her arts administration training at Camosun.
Pursuing this newfound passion, she furthered her education at the Alberta College of Art, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Jackie has since been actively involved in the arts scene. Her artistic journey has taken her to numerous exhibitions in cities like Zurich (Switzerland), Munich (Germany), Calgary, Banff, Red Deer, Yellowknife, Edmonton, Whitehorse, and her hometown of Dawson City.
Jackie's art has found a place in collections worldwide, including prestigious institutions such as the Bavaria State Anthropology Museum in Munich, Germany, the National Indian Art Centre, the Yukon Permanent Art Collection, and the Yukon Arts Centre Permanent Collection, among others.
Jackie teaches the Expanded Field Course at SOVA, and 2D in the the SOVA Foundation Year.
info@yukonsova.ca
Chantal Rousseau has been a practicing artist for over 25 years, primarily focused on painting and animation. She has had numerous exhibitions within Canada and internationally, as well as creating site-specific artist-led exhibitions and temporary public art projects.
