INCUBATION

Uptown Waterloo BIA Artists-in-Residency

Throughout the Festival

Wen Li : I am a multi-media artist from Waterloo Ontario. I received a BFA from University of Waterloo. My art reflects on the contingency, and embraces the unpredictability inherent in our thoughts, bodies, and environment. The background in engineering from China allows me to explore the cultural hybridity and identity from a unique angle.

During the Artist Residency program, I will spend at least two days a week, walking around uptown Waterloo, doing research, collecting images (including photos, drawings, and frottage prints), and preparing materials for making two artist books. First artist book is made with collection of traced walking paths, themed by the past experiences and present interests. The second artist book will adopt embossment technique to present certain memorable images or objects from the walking experience. The visual elements created in the artist books can be incorporated in the different art forms in the future.

Behnaz Fatemi is a multidisciplinary artist and PhD candidate in Visual Culture at Western University. Her research-driven practice spans durational performance, drawing, video, and installation, exploring themes of diaspora, trauma, the politics of care, and resistance. Fatemi’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, Iran, and the United States. She served as Kitchener’s Artist in Residence (2020–21) and was selected for the CAFKA biennial (2023). She received the Emerging Artist Award from Arts Awards Waterloo Region (2021). Her practice has been supported by grants and funding from Pat the Dog Theatre Creation, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, the International Master’s Award of Excellence at the University of Waterloo, and the Doctoral Entrance Award at Western University.

This project explores cultural displacement, historical erasure, and museum politics through a diasporic lens. Inspired by a visit to the British Museum in 2023, where I encountered ancient Iranian artifacts for the first time, my residency focuses on researching and reinterpreting these objects.
During my residency I will create sound-generating wearable pieces informed by my research into ancient Iranian artifacts from the British Museum’s digital archives, with a focus on jewelry and sonic objects.

These explorations will shape the design of pieces such as necklaces and Dastmal, a textile used in Bakhtiari dance, intended for interaction and performance. Each piece will activate sound through movement, integrating lightweight materials with symbolic ties to Iranian tradition, such as felt, velvet fabrics, and papier-mâché, alongside coins, Zang (bells), and jangling metal elements.

By intertwining performance, sound, and materiality, this project reclaims cultural heritage and transforms historical absence into presence. Through movement and sonic activation, it engages with the politics of care and resistance, offering a tactile exploration of diasporic identity. Instagram: behnazfaatemi

Eric Almberg (he/they/she) is an emerging artist and educator living in Haldimand Tract treaty territory, colonially known as Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Eric has primarily shown work in festivals such as the Silver Skate Festival and The Works Festival of Art and Design, and in unsponsored public spaces. They have received research grants from the Edmonton Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and Pat the Dog Theatre Creation, and have taken part in artist residencies with PRAKSIS in Bali, and Island Mountain Arts and Gibson Timber Frames in Canada. Alongside the bicycle cart project at the centre of the Pat The Dog Residency, Eric is investigating wood-focused alchemy and rug tufting. You will likely either find Eric running workshops at one of several arts organisations, or spending time with their partner Stephanie Florence and two cats, Kiki and OKi.

A confused traveler has found their way to Waterloo from a not-so-distant future where salvage is central, and folks live closely with the land — and each other — following the collapse of capitalistic industry as we live it today. Knowing the importance of mobile sites for exchange, storytelling, and community building, this visitor set to making A Cart Like A Campfire. During the Pat the Dog Residency, Eric Almberg will be constructing a bicycle trailer-cart using salvaged lumber and hand-cut joinery techniques, building a pop-up platform for publicly available skill-sharing and storytelling. You may find your everyday routine and expectations of Uptown Waterloo interrupted when you stumble across Eric, muttering in their developing character persona, bent over something like a cross between a fruit stand and a shed on wheels.

Bianca Daniela Nachtman is a self-taught seamstress and artist creating one-off wearable pieces from upcycled materials for over 5 years under the brand name GORM. Bianca focuses on making genderless pieces that exist for people who do not fear the spirit of experimentation.

My focus during the artist residency will be to present my recent collection “Wild Mother, You And I Are Earth” in a new way. The goal is to create a theatrical experience from a window display. I want it to pull you in, stop you in your tracks and make you realize you’re bigger than this. 

 

Esther Slevinsky is an artist based in Waterloo, Ontario. In 2006 she graduated from ACAD (Alberta University for the Arts) with a Bdes in Graphic Design and Illustration. She worked as a mural artist for two decades before transitioning to painting on canvas in 2018. Her work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions throughout Ontario including a solo show, Homebody, at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts in March 2020. Esther’s installation piece Chips and Cancer was part the CAFKA.23 Biennial in Waterloo Region.

The Hug-able Pretzel project is an extension of my thematic work exploring our connection and interaction with food. The large sculptural soft pretzel will offer sensory experiences reflective of the senses we use with food: visual, smell, touch/texture, and temperature. Viewers will be able to stand in the top loops to receive a pretzel hug. They will be greeted with a fresh bakery scent, course salt lights on top of the pretzel, soft fabric covering a foam pretzel structure, and a warm heat emanating from within as if it were fresh out of the oven.

Wen Li : I am a multi-media artist from Waterloo Ontario. I received a BFA from University of Waterloo. My art reflects on the contingency, and embraces the unpredictability inherent in our thoughts, bodies, and environment. The background in engineering from China allows me to explore the cultural hybridity and identity from a unique angle.

During the Artist Residency program, I will spend at least two days a week, walking around uptown Waterloo, doing research, collecting images (including photos, drawings, and frottage prints), and preparing materials for making two artist books. First artist book is made with collection of traced walking paths, themed by the past experiences and present interests. The second artist book will adopt embossment technique to present certain memorable images or objects from the walking experience. The visual elements created in the artist books can be incorporated in the different art forms in the future.

 

Behnaz Fatemi is a multidisciplinary artist and PhD candidate in Visual Culture at Western University. Her research-driven practice spans durational performance, drawing, video, and installation, exploring themes of diaspora, trauma, the politics of care, and resistance. Fatemi’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, Iran, and the United States. She served as Kitchener’s Artist in Residence (2020–21) and was selected for the CAFKA biennial (2023). She received the Emerging Artist Award from Arts Awards Waterloo Region (2021). Her practice has been supported by grants and funding from Pat the Dog Theatre Creation, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, the International Master’s Award of Excellence at the University of Waterloo, and the Doctoral Entrance Award at Western University.

This project explores cultural displacement, historical erasure, and museum politics through a diasporic lens. Inspired by a visit to the British Museum in 2023, where I encountered ancient Iranian artifacts for the first time, my residency focuses on researching and reinterpreting these objects.
During my residency I will create sound-generating wearable pieces informed by my research into ancient Iranian artifacts from the British Museum’s digital archives, with a focus on jewelry and sonic objects.

These explorations will shape the design of pieces such as necklaces and Dastmal, a textile used in Bakhtiari dance, intended for interaction and performance. Each piece will activate sound through movement, integrating lightweight materials with symbolic ties to Iranian tradition, such as felt, velvet fabrics, and papier-mâché, alongside coins, Zang (bells), and jangling metal elements.

By intertwining performance, sound, and materiality, this project reclaims cultural heritage and transforms historical absence into presence. Through movement and sonic activation, it engages with the politics of care and resistance, offering a tactile exploration of diasporic identity. Instagram: behnazfaatemi

Eric Almberg (he/they/she) is an emerging artist and educator living in Haldimand Tract treaty territory, colonially known as Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Eric has primarily shown work in festivals such as the Silver Skate Festival and The Works Festival of Art and Design, and in unsponsored public spaces. They have received research grants from the Edmonton Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and Pat the Dog Theatre Creation, and have taken part in artist residencies with PRAKSIS in Bali, and Island Mountain Arts and Gibson Timber Frames in Canada. Alongside the bicycle cart project at the centre of the Pat The Dog Residency, Eric is investigating wood-focused alchemy and rug tufting. You will likely either find Eric running workshops at one of several arts organisations, or spending time with their partner Stephanie Florence and two cats, Kiki and OKi.

A confused traveler has found their way to Waterloo from a not-so-distant future where salvage is central, and folks live closely with the land — and each other — following the collapse of capitalistic industry as we live it today. Knowing the importance of mobile sites for exchange, storytelling, and community building, this visitor set to making A Cart Like A Campfire. During the Pat the Dog Residency, Eric Almberg will be constructing a bicycle trailer-cart using salvaged lumber and hand-cut joinery techniques, building a pop-up platform for publicly available skill-sharing and storytelling. You may find your everyday routine and expectations of Uptown Waterloo interrupted when you stumble across Eric, muttering in their developing character persona, bent over something like a cross between a fruit stand and a shed on wheels.

Bianca Daniela Nachtman is a self-taught seamstress and artist creating one-off wearable pieces from upcycled materials for over 5 years under the brand name GORM. Bianca focuses on making genderless pieces that exist for people who do not fear the spirit of experimentation. 

My focus during the artist residency will be to present my recent collection “Wild Mother, You And I Are Earth” in a new way. The goal is to create a theatrical experience from a window display. I want it to pull you in, stop you in your tracks and make you realize you’re bigger than this.

Esther Slevinsky is an artist based in Waterloo, Ontario. In 2006 she graduated from ACAD (Alberta University for the Arts) with a Bdes in Graphic Design and Illustration. She worked as a mural artist for two decades before transitioning to painting on canvas in 2018. Her work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions throughout Ontario including a solo show, Homebody, at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts in March 2020. Esther’s installation piece Chips and Cancer was part the CAFKA.23 Biennial in Waterloo Region.

The Hug-able Pretzel project is an extension of my thematic work exploring our connection and interaction with food. The large sculptural soft pretzel will offer sensory experiences reflective of the senses we use with food: visual, smell, touch/texture, and temperature. Viewers will be able to stand in the top loops to receive a pretzel hug. They will be greeted with a fresh bakery scent, course salt lights on top of the pretzel, soft fabric covering a foam pretzel structure, and a warm heat emanating from within as if it were fresh out of the oven.