This is an exciting day for Lost Telegram Press. We have been working with Jinian Harwig for quite a while with the hope of finally signing a contract and getting down to working on her book. Just a short time ago she sent the latest version of her manuscript and it will offer an different look at the way that we can produce books. Hopefully we can work some very different aspects into the design of this book to knock your socks off.
Initially Jinian sent us a flip-book a while back and seeing the quality of her films, we wanted to do more justice to her work by producing a book that discussed that work. She agreed and surprised us. We look forward to working with her.
Jinian is an emerging Ottawa-based artist working at the intersection of film, digital, and disability. At the age of 15, she woke up for school with what was thought to be the flu. That ‘flu’ only got worse and the mysterious illness continues into her 30s.
Experimental film became a way of coping as she trudged through her bachelors degree. As her artistic journey began, her practice and she, as a person, flourished in tandem. Through art she is able to explore and recontextualize much of her horrid experiences with chronic and acute illness. She is able to give them narrative and by controlling that narrative she can reclaim some of the power that is constantly being pulled from her. Working under a research creation dogma, she incorporates heavy theory into all her works, and blends it with these highly personal experiences. This allows her to create art pieces that are accessible on multiple levels: intellectual, aesthetic and emotional.
She won the Frith Prize at Trent University 3 times and has been published in Absynth Magazine, tba: Journal of Art, Media, and Visual Culture at Western University and through the Trent University Alternative Arts Collective.
Jinian has also had he work exhibited in various film festivals and public exhibitions in Vancouver, Peterborough, Chicago, Markham, Hamilton and Penticton.
