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2024: thanks for visiting, this site was in limbo for a while as I went through a grieving period post-covid that had little to do with covid. Getting back to myself and being an artist again. Here's my long bio (short versions available on request):
Leslie Sharpe (she/her) is currently based in Amiskwaciy Wâskahikan/Edmonton, Canada where she is a settler-descendant. The thematic focus for her multimodal art practice has included feminist issues, themes related to animals, landscape and climate change, and histories of technology related to place and identity. Sharpe has been an awarded artist-in-residence at Ivvavik National Park (Yukon, Canada), The Banff Centre, (Alberta, Canada), PS1 National Studio Program (New York), and Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY). She has exhibited and presented her work internationally in Canada, Columbia, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, the UK, and USA, as well as in online/live streaming digital formats.
Recently her work has shifted to include more sound art practices using field recording, and she has completed the following residency workshops through CAMP Next Level Arts Residencies (Aulus-les-Bains, France): Online workshops 2020-2022 during covid – 2020: “Deep Listening Phase 1” w/ Phill Niblock, Julia Kent, BJ Nilsen, & Tim Shaw. “Deep Listening, Phase 2” w/ Hans-Joachim Roedelius, & Kelly Jayne Jones. 2021: “Sound, Language and Position” w/ Antye Greie (aka AGF). “Catalysts, Vibrant Matter and Resonances” w/ BJ Nilsen. On-site in Aulus-les-Bains – 2022-2024: CAMP Next Level Arts Residencies, Aulus-les-Bains, France (in-person): 2022: “Deep Listening Phase 1 Reboot” w/ Phill Niblock, BJ Nilsen, & Tim Shaw. 2023: “Ecoacoustics: Listening, Transmitting and Curating Soundscapes” w/ Alice Eldridge, Raquel Castro, Grant Smith, Leah Barclay, Hildegard Westerkamp and Annea Lockwood. forthcoming (August, 2024): “Listening Around The Surface” w/ Jana Winderen.
Sharpe’s publications include writings in Interrogating the Anthropocene (Palgrave, 2018), Far Field: Digital Culture, Climate Change, and the Poles (Intellect Press, 2012), Textile Messages: Dispatches from the World of E-Textiles and Education (Peter Lang, 2013), Leonardo, Vol 51/3 (MIT Press, 2018), and Leonardo Online Special Issue on Locative Media (MIT press, 2005).
Leslie Sharpe lived, taught and exhibited her work in the USA for over 25 years before moving back to Canada in 2011 to Chair the Fine Art program at MacEwan University in Alberta, where she is now Associate Professor of Studio Arts, and has served as Chair, Interim Chair, and Program Coordinator building the new BFA in Studio Arts. She previously taught art at Pratt Institute, New York (Adjunct Lecturer), University of California, San Diego (Awarded UC Faculty Fellow), and Indiana University, Bloomington (Associate Professor). Sharpe has taught in the areas of site-specific practice, art and climate change, locative media, intermedia, digital art, time-based media-sound and video, installation and drawing. In her “Landmarks 2017” course, students explored issues around colonial and indigenous histories of place, culminating in performative drawing, drawing and installation in outdoor works at Elk Island National Park, the Works festival, as well as on a national website for Landmarks.