Lois Klassen is the hosting artist of Reading the Migration Library and founder of Light Factory Publications (publisher of RML, the Present Cartographers imprint, and more). In that capacity she collaborates with artists, writers, and designers, and edits the final bookworks. She is always on the look out for collaboration opportunities and for creative events related to migration issues.
Klassen is a second generation immigrant/settler, born on Treaty Two Territory, in what is known as the Interlake region of Manitoba, Canada. Since 2000, Klassen has lived and worked with deep gratitude on Coast Salish Territory of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, in what is known as Vancouver, Canada. She is a volunteer Workplace Connections Mentor with MOSAIC (an immigrant services organization) and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at criticalmediartstudio (cMAS), School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University.
Previous art projects (selection):
Online Podcasts, Recordings, etc.:
- “Assembling Recipes for Combatting Dread,” online and print curatorial text for Assembling Recipes for Sustainability, a mail art project curated by Amanda White, Zoë Heyn-Jones and Kirsty Robertson, Centre for Sustainable Curating, Western University, 2023.
- Beyond Institutional Ethics in Art Practice, SFPIRG, SFU Graduate Student Society (2022).
- New Books Network – Documenting Displacement, with Nihal Soganci, Adnan Al Mhamied, and Katarzyna Grabska (2022).
- Tertulia: Artist Book Publishing by American, Canadian, and Mexican Artists, with Carlos Colín, Daisy Quezada Ureña, and Gabriela Galíndez (2022).
- Research and Creation in Sites of Ethical Demand – Models of Conduct and Practice, PRIO (Peace Research Institute Oslo) Centre on Culture and Violent Conflict (2022).
- “Mountain View Cemetery, A Public Artwork,” (Vancouver, B.C: Google Maps, 2022).
- La Frontera Speaks, Episode 3, Institute of Oral History, University of Texas in El Paso (2020).
- “Ever Elsewhere: Siting a Mennonite Imaginary” Panel Discussion, The Reach Gallery Museum (2020).
- “Human Mobility / Human Dignity: Ethics in the act of representing migration and detention”, Fairhaven College, Western Washington University (2018).
- Art Talking Women Episode 8: Lois Klassen, (Margaret Dragu, Director) Cinevolution, VIVO Media Arts Centre (2016).
Writing & Research: