'The sky held me' by Tanya Lukin Linklater

In the context of a commission for The Toronto Biennial of Art 2022, artist Tanya Lukin Linklater generated projects in relation to water, weather and embodiment. The artist wrote a series of open yet concise scores to prompt performances for the camera with four dancers. Shot over late summer, fall and early winter in Toronto and Montréal neighbourhoods, near rivers, lakes, land formations, under the sky and amidst weather, ‘Sensation is a circuit of experience, a circuit of the felt travelling in and adjacent to the body’ premiered in 2022.

For the Ontario Culture Days Festival, the written scores will be shared as a print publication and online through the Ontario Culture Days website. An audio performance by Cedar Aisipi, an Omaskeko Cree youth, prompts listeners. The scores may be experienced as gentle instructions returned to daily, or intermittently, in a practice of listening, breath, sensation and embodiment.

During the Festival, Lukin Linklater will undertake a performative lecture at the Textile Museum of Canada to coincide with the release of the publication. She will perform writings centred on embodiment and weather while screening ‘Sensation is a circuit of experience, a circuit of the felt travelling in and adjacent to the body’, 2022.