Lois Klassen is the hosting artist of Reading the Migration Library (RML), co-host with Deanne Achong of RML3: Undercurrents and Folds, and founder of Light Factory Publications (publisher of RML and Present Cartographers). In that capacity she collaborates with artists, writers, and designers, and edits the final bookworks.
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 Adjunct Professor at criticalmediartstudio (cMAS), School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University, and a research ethics coordinator at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Contact – lightfactorypublications [at] gmail [dot] com
Other art projects (selection):
- g’ROUND: Textile Waste Management
- Renegade Library
- Slofemists
- Comforter Art Action
- Archive City: Portraits of Lulu Island
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).
Recent Writing & Research:
- Lois Klassen (in press), “Applied Ethics of Public Art: Reflexivity, Social Support Structures, and Anticolonial Obligations,” in theme issue edited by Analays Alvarez Hernandez and Laurent Piché-Vernet, Journal of Canadian Studies.
- Lois Klassen, Andrea Kampen, and Hillary Webb (2025). “Conducting Creative Research: Research Ethics and Research Conduct in Art and Design.” Research Ethics, SAGE Publications Ltd, 17470161251396228. Open access –https://doi.org/10.1177/17470161251396228.
- Lois Klassen and Daisy Quezada Ureña (2025), “Defying Borders Through Artist Publishing and Other Aesthetic Actions: Lois Klassen in conversation with Daisy Quezada Ureña,” chapter in Diffracting the North: Contemporary Latinx Canadian Experiences and Practices in Film, New Media, and Visual Arts, Gabriela AcevesSepulveda, Analays Alvarez Hernandez, and Zaira Zarza, editors.
- Francisco-Fernando Granados and Lois Klassen (2024), “Reflecting on Ethics in Forced Migration Art and Research,” chapter inForced migration in/to Canada: From Colonization to Refugee Resettlement, Christina Clark-Kazak, Editor. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Open access.
- Francisco-Fernando Granados and Lois Klassen (2025), “Réflexion sur l’éthique dans l’art et la recherche sur la migration force,” La migration forcée au Canada, sous la direction d’Adèle Garnier, Sarah Dubuc et Christina R. Clark-Kazak; traduit par Lyse Hébert. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Open access.