about

Jess Dobkin’s performances, artist’s talks and workshops are presented internationally at museums, galleries, theatres, universities and in public spaces. Her creative endeavors have received wide support and recognition, including awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council, and repeated funding from the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art and the Astraea Foundation.

Her work has toured internationally, and she has performed, lectured and conducted performance art workshops in the US, Canada, Germany, Belgium, and the UK. Her performances have been presented at renowned avant-garde venues in New York including P.S.122, The Kitchen, LaMama, Dixon Place, the Joyce SoHo and the WOW Cafe. In Toronto, her work has been presented at The Power Plant, The Ontario College of Art & Design Professional Gallery, YYZ Artists’ Outlet, the WARC Gallery, SPIN Gallery, Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, the Inside/Out Festival, and other venues.

Her performances receive extensive print, radio, television and web media attention and have been the subject of recent journal articles in Gastronomica and The Canadian Theatre Review. She was named “Best Performance Artist” by NOW Toronto and X-tra Magazine, and her “Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar” performance continues to draw international media attention and interest.

Jess has presented as a Visiting Artist at numerous universities including Yale University, Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, Brown University, Swarthmore College, McGill University, RISD, University of Michigan, and Goldsmiths University of London. She has worked as a Sessional Lecturer in the Visual Studies department at the University of Toronto, and is currently an Instructor at the Ontario College of Art & Design. She also serves on the University of Toronto/Sheridan College Art and Art History Program Advisory Committee and on the Board of Directors at YYZ Artists’ Outlet, an artist-run centre in Toronto.