UNIT/PITT presents the La Commune 2021 Artists in Residence! Each of the 10 artists below, who represent a variety of media, are tasked with responding to an aspect of La Commune 2021 Free School that resonates with their practice and with their lives. Click here to view the responses.

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Ada Dragomir. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 and the U/P logo in all caps block text surround a tinted red image of the artist in a performance as she bends over to clean a toilet in a gallery space.
Image: I will have to clean this up, II (2020) performance with pink toilet, hand-fabricated glycerine soap scrub-brush, pulverized charcoal, linseed oil, artist’s body, excerpt from Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” 16:01 min video, audio. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Born shortly before the tumult of the Romanian revolution, and currently living as a guest on unceded and occupied xwməθkwəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ lands, Ada Dragomir works across media feeling most at home somewhere between spoofed youtube videos and serious sculptural objects. By harnessing the power of absurdity and irony to point to uncomfortable political realities, her practice primarily addresses questions of productivity, value, and labour. A recent graduate of Emily Carr University (BFA 2020), Dragomir has participated in several exhibitions and curatorial projects including curating Ritual Union at the RBC Media Commons Gallery, addressing the political implications of technology on the body. Most recently, she exhibited a solo show titled Against Working as part of the 2020 Capture Photography Festival. Dragomir has been published in Femme Art Review and Woo Magazine, and finds immense pleasure in reading and writing as avenues for creative expression.

Find out more about Ada’s practice below:

Website: adadragomir.com

Instagram: @ada_dragomir_

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Alysha Seriani. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the artist sitting cross-legged on the floor amidst photo and moving ephemera with their arms half up as if mid-gesture.
Image: Photo by Hazel Meyer courtesy of the artist.

Alysha Seriani is an emerging interdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of film production, pedagogy, media art and community projects. Her work proposes horizontal modes of collaboration and seeks to witness intersectional practices, intergenerational learning and queer joy. In 2019, she was a recipient of Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch program, and her first short film SOAK (2014) is distributed by the CFMDC. She developed a youth mentorship program and associate produced THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN (2019) and has been a contributor and collaborator for many media artworks and independent films that have exhibited at film festivals and galleries internationally. She has also led and participated in multiple community projects within and alongside artist-run and youth-serving organizations, public schools and museums including VIVO Media Arts Centre, Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG), Writers’ Exchange, Museum of Vancouver, Cineworks Independent Filmmakers’ Society, and Vancouver International Film Festival.

Find out more about Alysha’s practice below:

Website: alyshaseriani.com

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Emily Guerrero. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the artist's face mid range, their brown hair being blown slightly by the wind, wearing glasses.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Emily Guerrero is an archivist and librarian living on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and Səlí̓lwətaʔ Nations. They research gossip as both information practice and a method of care. They have worked at Xwi7xwa Library, SFU, and most recently as the archivist at VIVO Media Arts Centre. They are a parent and a Leo.

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Kara Stanton. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the artist standing in a confident pose beside their artwork on a plinth to their left and along the wall behind.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Kara Stanton is a poet and cultural worker based on Lekwungen territories. Through poetry and interdisciplinary projects, they trace the relationships between land and body, articulating their entangled experiences of water, the weather, chronic migraines, and dyke embodiment. They have shown projects at the fifty fifty arts collective and the Comox Valley Art Gallery and published poems in Poetry is Dead and Arc Poetry Magazine.

Image courtesy of the artist.

Manuel Axel Strain is a 2-spirit interdisciplinary artist with Musqueam/Simpcw/Syilx heritage based in the stolen and sacred lands,waters and air of the Katzie/Kwantlen peoples. Although they have attended Emily Carr University of Art + Design they are more appreciative of the knowledge they have gained from their mother, father, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and ancestors. Strain uses their lived experience as a source of agency to investigate different ways of healing and knowing. Invested with personal and political histories, their practice includes painting, photography, sculpture, performance, and installation, through which mental and spiritual well-being take paramount significance. They have contributed work to Capture Photography Festival through Richmond Public Art, the Vancouver International Airport, and The Musqueam Cultural Centre, and have exhibited work in many places in the land that is now called Canada.

They are a guest lecturer at the Vancouver Community College, where they curated the Indigenous Art Symposium “Indigenizing Higher Education.” Some of their most meaningful curatorial and community projects include “My Blood Can’t Feel the Land” with Gallery Gachet and The Talking Stick Festival, “Resistance and Resurgence,” a 2-Spirit exhibition at Interurban Art Gallery, “Destigmatization and Harm Reduction” at the Musqueam Cultural Pavilion, “Ancestral Ties to the Flood”, and “The Land Can’t Hear Your Voices,” created during a residency as the Maple Ridge Artist in Residence, as well as open studio events at Lookout Housing and Raincity Housing.

Find out more about Manuel’s practice below:

Website: www.manuelaxelstrain.com

Instagram: @manuelaxelstrain

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Mary Rusak. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the work "Untitled, 2020" a polaroid transfer work. A ragged-edge square foregrounds an abstract image of a body of water with sticks poking from the edges.
Image: Untitled, polaroid transfer, 2020. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Mary Rusak is a photographer and printmaker currently based out of Vancouver, BC. Her practice consists primarily of analog and alternative techniques including methods like cyanotypes and anthotypes. In 2014, Mary completed a certificate program at the Haliburton School of Art and Design which focused on drawing and painting. Following this, in 2020 she graduated with a BFA from Emily Carr University with a major in photography and a minor in social practice and community engagement. Her work explores themes of sustainability and reciprocity, and aims to understand the science of the world we live in.

Find out more about Mary’s practice below:

Website: www.maryrusak.com

Instagram: @ma.re.ru

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Pippa Lattey. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the artist's face wearing glasses and sporting short hair in front of their newest work, "Al Neil's piano in the Blue Cabin".
Image of the artist in front of their recent work, Al Neil’s piano in the Blue Cabin, 2021. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Pippa Lattey works with sculpture, movement, sound and place. She is artist-in-residence at the The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency in Jan-March 2021. She has exhibited in BC, Saskatchewan and Washington State. Outdoor projects include Gestures of Birds (2018) in New Westminster, and Banana Installation outside the Vancouver Art Gallery with ISEA (2015, in collaboration with Thomas Evdokimoff). Collaborative and curatorial projects include Parking Spot Projects, and Vending Machine Experiment.

Pippa gratefully lives and works on the unceded, traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She studied at Emily Carr University of Art and Design (BFA 2016), Langara College (Diploma 2013), and the University of Victoria (BSc 2003). Awards include the Langara College Sculpture Studio Award, First Capital Realty Sculpture Competition, BC Arts Council Early Career Development, and Canada Council Research and Creation.

Find out more about Pippa’s practice below:

Instagram: @pippalattey

Website: www.pippalattey.com

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Rhys Edwards. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the artist in profile, wearing a suit with a sepia tinted tone to the photo.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Rhys Edwards is an emerging artist, curator, and writer. He is Assistant Curator at Surrey Art Gallery, where he most recently curated the permanent collection exhibition Where We Have Been. He has written for Canadian Art, The Capilano Review, C Magazine, and BC Studies.

As an artist, his works employ classical and academic methods in the pursuit of anti-representation. In 2019, he was accepted into the RBC Emerging Artists program, and was also nominated for the Salt Spring National Art Prize. He graduated with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia in 2014, and he lives and works on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh Nations, Kwantlen, Katzie, and Semiahmoo nations.

Find out more about Rhys’s practice below:

Website: rhysedwards.ca

Instagram: @rhys_edwards_art

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Ryan Ermacora. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the artist and another individual from behind sitting in a relaxed position in a grassy field, with a filmmakers camera in front of them.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Ryan Ermacora is an award-winning filmmaker based in Vancouver, BC. His work investigates the visible and invisible ways in which humans have engraved themselves into natural spaces and is informed by an interest in avant-garde depictions of landscape and labour. His style is defined by a self-reflexive and structural approach to cinema. His work has screened at festivals such as Cinéma du Réel, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Images, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, and VIFF.

Find out more about Ryan’s practice below:

Website: ryanermacora.com

Instagram: @ryanermacora

Promotional image for LACOMMUNE2021 Artist in Residence Stephanie Gagne. The words LA COMMUNE 2021 in white all caps text and the black U/P logo surround a tinted red image of the artist looking at the camera in a glamour shot pose, with styled long brown hair, star shaped earrings, and a pink boa.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Stephanie Gagne is a Vancouver-based visual artist, with a BFA from Emily Carr University, and an MFA from Simon Fraser University. Her interests include popular culture, neighbourhoods, and childhood nostalgia. Stephanie’s interdisciplinary projects often involve sculpture, photography, and video.

Stephanie currently works as a teaching assistant in media history at Emily Carr University, and at the Polygon Gallery. Her recent project Ball and Chain was presented in the Vancouver Art Gallery plaza. She has curated multiple group exhibitions for Capture Photography Festival. Her event Plastic Picnic was part of the Canada 150+ celebrations in Stanley Park.

Gagne continuously volunteers for artist-run organizations such as Malaspina Printmakers, Vivo Media Arts Centre, and The Western Front. She has also organized public panels and educational programs for Britannia Shipyards, The Anvil Centre, North Van Arts, Gallery Gachet, Hillcrest Community Centre, and Roundhouse Community Centre.