avneet
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ਅਵਨੀਤ ਆਕਾਸ਼ (ਕੌਰ) avneet akash (kaur) (they/she) is an interdisciplinary artist, disability justice advocate, writer and educator who utilises a combination of material, somatic, ecological and conceptual research to interrogate the multitude of ways power dynamics emerge and recede in society and the material world–-both natural and manufactured. their practice moves fluidly between painting, installation, printmaking/paper works, textiles, performance, sculpture, sound, video, photography, writing and low tech readily available applications.

 

akash earned her BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BEd from University of British Columbia (2017-2018: medical leave), and CYT from Prana Yoga College. they have exhibited nationally at institutions including Peel Art Gallery Museum & Archives (2024), The Gladstone Hotel (2014), Gallery Gachet (2010), Koffler Gallery (2010), North Van Arts (2010), and in the US at Obsidian Ink & Gallery (2015), Carousel Projects (2012) and Wunderkammer Company (2012). akash developed and held the inaugural Health and Wellness Coordinator position at Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency (Saugatuck MI, USA) (2015), where previously they were the recipient of the Summer Scholarship Program (2012).

 

this past decade saw the pinnacle of debility from trauma and genetics compound to create the perfect storm of urgent medical treatment and rare complex chronic illnesses.  in a seven year span akash underwent 17 surgeries and procedures, with more on the horizon. although this decade-long health crises created profound isolation and immense loss, it brought with it the opportunity to reassess and embody a disabled political self. as they work towards a new point of entry back into the world, akash continually redefines what it means to be in the studio, in community and in the world. as such she navigates a radical creative practice often from bed, and other positions of rest, subverting the normative pace and practice of art making and expectation. increasingly relying on accessible forms of making/creating, they continue to practice decolonial ways of being that reject social, racial and economic hierarchies. the compounding results of such experience have sharpened their focus to the ongoing assault of ableist colonial reverberations through environmental and civil calamity, the debilitation of sexual violence/abuse and the systemic silencing of the marginalised through isolation and alienation, to name a few.