Wayne Baerwaldt

Curator-in-residence In Residency July 2024

Wayne Baerwaldt, Photo by Dallas Loken

Wayne Baerwaldt is an independent visual arts curator and producer based in Alberta and Saskatchewan. His best-known curatorial projects trace performative elements in artmaking with an emphasis on unstable, disputed identities and the language of their construction and presentation in public and private spaces. Recent curated projects include If I May Digress: Richard Boulet and Collaborators, Marie Lannoo: In Extremis and Ydessa Hendeles: Grand Hotel, a collateral event of the 60th Venice Biennale. He was the guest editor for Issue #62 of PUBLIC, with the theme “The Gender-Diverse Lens,” and conducts ongoing research in social justice issues and questions of representation as a Michele Sereda Artist in Residence for Socially Engaged Practice at the University of Regina. He is a board member of the Hnatyshyn Foundation, Ottawa, and a member of the advisory committee of participant, inc., in New York City.

While in residence at the Griffin, Baerwaldt will begin research on a curatorial project and publication tentatively titled Babyland and Beyond, with the intent to offer a new narrative on and contextualization of the significant collaborative residencies initiated at both Babyland and Vancouver’s Western Front. Research for this project will attempt to detail an evolving discourse on contemporary artmaking by the late Michael Morris, which influenced artists and concepts underpinning artmaking in multiple media across Canada and elsewhere. Michael Morris, Vincent Trasov and Mick Henry established Babyland as an international artist retreat at Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast in 1970. The venerable Western Front is one of Canada’s first artist-run centres, co-founded by Morris and Trasov in 1973.