Join us Saturday, July 15 from 5:00 – 6:00pm for Lauren Prousky's performance work Going up the down escalator (looking for a neutral path) at Kitchener Ribfest.
Going up the down escalator is the culmination of the artist’s long-suffering pursuit of body neutrality. Forever fretting over what to consume and what to expel (both physically and artistically), intestines eventually became Prousky’s muse.
In a pair of performances for the CAFKA biennial, she will parade through public spaces in downtown Kitchener-Waterloo, dressed as a sexy intestine. At Kitchener’s Ribfest, members of the public are invited to dine with Prousky, dressed in her glamourous intestinal costume. Admiring the radical indifference and quiet power of our intestines, Prousky proposes that by honouring them we honour the various processes that keep us moving, even when we feel stuck.
Lauren Prousky is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and culture worker. She has an MFA from the University of Waterloo and a BFA from Concordia University. Recent exhibitions include her AGO x RBC artist-in-residence project Black Tie Soup Night at the AGO, Public Sweat x University of Waterloo Art Gallery, School of Art Gallery at the University of Manitoba, the plumb, Xpace Cultural Centre and Cambridge Art Galleries. Lauren has had residencies at Studio Kura in Japan, Fish Factory Creative Centre in Iceland, Caetani Cultural Centre in British Columbia, Co-Create Residency in Ontario and Maple Terrace Residency in Brooklyn. In 2021, she was selected to participate in the COVE/COVOX program, facilitated by Inter Arts Matrix and funded by Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Trillium Foundation, to develop the large-scale collaborative performance piece, When we speak at the same time we speak the same language. Lauren has published work with Public Parking, Hoax, Untethered, SUM and Peripheral Review and has curated exhibitions within a variety of contexts including Lumen Festival, Gallery Stratford, Apollo Cinema and a public pool.
This project is made possible through the support of the Good Foundation, Region of Waterloo Arts Fund and the Keith and Winifred Shantz fund for the arts held by Waterloo Region Community Foundation.