2026 – Year of the Fire Horse


katnancy, Suspension of Disbelief (For Amy), 2026, digital scan with live manipulation of a 35mm negative.
negative made & developed in Winnipeg, Treaty 1, so-called Canada, 2025 ∞ scan made in Gimuy, so-called Australia, 2026

Break the Frame in Rhythms of Chance.
Dance. Dance. Dance.

—katnancy, 2026

katnancy, Darkroom Dancer, 2024, webcam image, made in Winnipeg, Treaty 1, so-called Canada
katnancy, Obscura, 2021, 35mm photograph printed at 4″x6″, “damaged” in haphazard storage(born of its own accord), in Winnipeg

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

hello, strangelings ❤

I’m an artist, who writes, and writes, and writes, and edits, and edits, and edits, into oblivion, sometimes.

I perceive/experience/believe art to be the Truth-seeking sinew of society, the fire we gather ‘round, reminding us to remember — we are all connected. Kapwa.

I practice photomedia, grounding in the materiality of experimental photography (drawing with light + chemistry), and expanding this into experimental film (time), and installation (space). Through these I live out my desire to break the frame and rip the script eg. cut, tear, scratch, lick, bite, burn, kiss1, melt, rot, glitch2, remix3 and re-member4 the photograph as an embodied act of rejecting socialised barriers produced by and for hegemonies through images. These become rituals to stay awake, and remember to remember the constructed and manipulative of nature of representation and perception, and their influence on determining value, power and priority. I consider the camera obscura / dark chamber / darkroom as womb space, and the photographic process as séance… making possible windows of communication and collaboration [art as invitation5] between worlds, and co-conceiving and midwifing new worlds that may not exist or be perceived without the photographic process (& all its interferences). The ritual repetition in experimental photo & animation processes conjures a rhythmic dance, mirroring the rhythmic visual incantations spoken/sung by the images (within, without, between, beyond themselves). Through sympoiesis with chance as an act of faith/suspension of disbelief, I surrender control and dictation, and the images begin to sing themselves into existence, transform, layer, obscure or retract themselves. I, in turn, Listen.

katnancy, 2018, Exhibition text for Portals

If you have any questions, comments, or are curious about any of the photo/animation processes in my work, please write to me. I hope that my work, and my website as living archive, may serve as a resource for my fellow artists. I also facilitate experimental photography, and experimental animation workshops.

thanks for being here.
🌈 happy pride 5 eva ♡ i hope you’ve been dancing.

Love, katnancy 🦋

Transcend The Climb / Non-Linear Time, 2015, pinhole photograph of the emergency exit stairwell near the darkrooms at the Queensland College of Art & Design, made with the pinhole camera I made as part of my very first term of studies <3. This picture is pretty smol IRL. My fingerprint on the photo paper is what made the lighter lines at the bottom half of the image.

Footnotes:

  1. When I include kissing in this list, I’m considering the kiss as conscious protest and mutual disarmament. “[Heidi] Dorow described kissing as a blood pact. ‘Everyone in the world tells me to be afraid of you, and that you’re a danger,’ was how she described its rationale. Kissing someone refuted this. It was a way of saying, ‘I’m not afraid of you. I’m with you.’” Making Out, Making Change: The History of Queer Kiss-Ins by Stef Rubino —Jan 13, 2025 ↩︎
  2. “Glitch Is Error
    We are the most fantastic and beautiful mistake. Never meant to survive, we are still here: an error in the algorithm. We are not empty signifiers, however; we are not dead-end hyperlinks. We reject the violent act of naming. We will reconfigure ourselves as we see fit. Modifying and recoding, we choose our own names, build our own families and communities, proudly fail in the present as we dream new futures.”    — Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, Russel, L, 2020     ↩︎
  3. “Glitch Is Remix
    Affirming our role in building new worlds, we will imagine, innovate, and remix. We will rearrange and repurpose by any means necessary, rendering what rises from this rebirth unrecognizable from the violence of its original. We will create fissures in the social and cultural algorithm as an active act of advocacy, advocating for the user, advocating for ourselves and advocating for one another.”     — Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, Russel, L, 2020     ↩︎
  4. “Filipino indigenous cultures and the concepts we borrow such as Kapwa and Loob are all primarily Land-based. University of the Philippines Humanities professor, Felipe de Leon, Jr. names Filipino culture as inherently shamanistic and animistic. The animist worldview asserts that all of creation is sacred. It is the role and function of the Babaylan to mediate between the world of the spirits and the human and non-human world and re-member for us the deep connectedness between worlds; thus suturing and healing the split in our psyche.” — Mendoza Strobel, L, 2010, BABAYLAN: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous, introduction here ↩︎
  5. “New worlds are born from invitations.” — McIntyre, L and Cumti, k, 2024, like a fire we gather round: Phytograms, Ecologies, and Multivocal Agency ↩︎