Brad Necyk /  Telling Stories Otherwise

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January 10 - February 28, 2020

"Over the past four years, I have been co-creating art in collaboration with people living with illness in communities across Canada. I have been working with recent transplant patients, head and neck cancer patients, suicide survivors in the Arctic, and psychiatric patients at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. In this exhibition, embedded in artworks, you will see the works we co-created as I spent time with these individuals and in their communities. You will also see my own illness experiences and how they weave and knot with the work, as well as insights created with patients. Illness is a vital meaning-making event in people's lives, and the stories we use to narrate our illness to others and ourselves matter deeply. I aim to tell stories about the experience of illness with the hope that this might increase our confidence and vocabulary to discuss, experience, and express these meaningful events."

Brad Necyk is a multimedia artist and writer in Canada whose practice engages with issues of medicine, mental health, and precarious populations and subjects. His works include drawings and paintings, still and motion film, sculpture, 3D imaging and printing, virtual reality, and performance.  He recently completed a research-creation PhD in Psychiatry and was awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal.