Zana Wensel

Zana Wensel is a multidisciplinary artist, queer ecologist, and somatic practitioner, who lives and practices on Treaty 6 Land in Edmonton, Alberta. Throughout her artistic practice, she explores the interrelationship between trauma, healing, and the body, and examines the ways in which our most-inner and outer experiences are connected. Informed by various levels of interoception (the sensing of the internal body state), Zana employs hand and body-based practices such as sewing, writing, drawing, and performance as a way of bringing consciousness to the body’s otherwise unconscious experiences. Through these means, she explores the body as both a site and conduit for self-realization, (re-)connection and healing, and weaves these threads into the greater landscapes of neurobiology, ecology, and spirituality. In doing so, she creates interactive and sensory installations that aim to re-embody viewers, and gives voice to the fabric of our human existence.