When we started working on this project, one of the characteristics we kept emphasizing was that of placeโ€”be it the city, region, or biome that we are from. In many of our conversations, โ€œPrairiesโ€ became the wordโ€”the catchallโ€”for the complexity of the place we were trying to encapsulate. As the project progressed, we started to wonder what exactly we meant when we said “making art in the Prairies,” or, “in the West.” With that question in mind, we decided to focus our first season on the Contours of Identityโ€”in this case Prairie identity, and all the other ways of describing the land west of Ontario and east of the Rocky Mountains. Over the next few months we will have conversations, produce writing, and think about how we begin to answer this question.

Image of Preston Pavlis by Zachary Ayotte, 2025.

Preston Pavlis: The Look of Truth

Earlier this year, Zach interviewed artist Preston Pavlis about his practice, resisting external pressure, and the influence of photography on his work.ย  Read More…


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