Nik Forrest

Nik Forrest is a trans-disciplinary artist based in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal. Currently a PhD student and SSHRC fellow in the Interdisciplinary Humanities program at Concordia, their research combines sound studies, gender studies and creative practice in sound performance and installation. At a time when so much visual information is produced and consumed, sound can provide a different sensory experience, reorienting listeners to re-consider interconnections between the three ecological registers: the environment, social relations and human subjectivity (Guattari). Through its intrinsic qualities—how it travels, animates and interacts with its surroundings—sound defies normative boundaries between self/other/environment as well as binary categories(such as inside/outside, nature/culture). Sound can thus be understood as an ecological medium that makes palpable the enmeshed intersubjective relations suited to the social challenges of our current moment, including questions of gender and sexuality. Nik’s research-creation methodology aims to make these ideas perceptible and actionable through sound performance and installation, proposing different relations between the body and its immediate material and social environments. Sound moves us: as a mechanical, sensory and perceptual event, it can work to re-attune awareness of our immediate and larger surroundings. Nik’s sound installations have been shown at Oboro (Montreal), Eastern Block (Montreal), Paved Arts and New Media (Saskatoon), Latitude 54 (Edmonton) and most recently at the Kunsthalle Mulhouse (France). Their short experimental videos have been shown widely at festivals, galleries and museums including: The Mix Festival (New York), The Glasgow Film and Video Workshop (Scotland), The Oberhausen Short film and Video Festival (Germany), Ausland (Berlin), Le Center d’Art Santa Monica (Barcelona), Signal and Noise (Vancouver) Mount Saint Vincents University Gallery (Halifax), The Images Festival, Toronto and the Festival Internationale du Films sur l’Art (Montreal). Nik has also participated in several international artist’s residencies including: The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec studio exchange residency in Buenos Aires, The Canada Council studio at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, The Plug-In Summer Institute Winnipe) and Villa Magdelana K in Hamburg. Their work is included in the collections of The National Gallery of Canada, The Saskatchewan Arts Board and Concordia University’s media collection.