Cassils

CASSILS (b. 1975, Canada) is a Guggenheim award winning visual and performance artist who makes their transgender body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils’s art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle, survival and empowerment. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils’s work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment.  

Cassils currently has a solo exhibition at SITE Santa Fe, NM and is developing a new performance piece as an artist in residency at Park Avenue Armory. They have recent exhibitions and performances at the Banff Center for Art and Creativity, HOME Manchester, National Theater, Southbank Center,  Victoria Albert Museum, Barbican; UK,  Perth, Institute for Contemporary Arts; AU, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC and  MU Eindhoven, Netherlands.   

They are the recipient of the National Creation Fund, a Fleck Residency from the Banff Center for the Arts, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist, a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a United States Artist Fellowship and a Creative Capital Award.

Cassils is an Associate Professor in Sculpture and Integrated Practices at PRATT Institute.

Projects:

• Claiming Space: Refiguring the Body in Landscape (2022)