The paranormal, cultural transmission, Indigenous futurism, time, spectrality and existences in artist and MFA student Zoë Laycock’s work.
Every so often, her pastel hair changes between cotton-candy pink, bleach blonde, and light blue. Add that to her grounded demeanor and passion for bingo, and Zoë Laycock might not be what you expect when meeting a paranormal enthusiast.
She’s now stepping further into the unknown. Entering the second half of her Masters of Fine Arts degree, Zoë’s exploring how to connect with the spirit world through interdimensional communication. Not a straightforward task.
Connecting to the Beyond
To evoke a sense of otherworldliness, her installations turn towards the spiritual. As an Anishinaabe Red River Métis woman, her work takes inspiration from a multitude of sources; her grandparents’ clothes, homemade regalia, her flower beadwork, ceremonial spaces, and pop-cultural uses of ghost radars you’d see in movies and reality TV dramas (think Ghost Hunter). Even sounds of the Rocky Mountain lakes and shorelines near Exshaw, Alberta – one of her most treasured homes – trickles into her installations.
“My desire to occupy spaces to facilitate communication and sites of belief, of the beyond, fundamentally comes from my traditional knowledge and understanding that we are all connected” remarks Zoë.
“Human and non-human, physical and non-physical bodies, the spirit world, the Earth, the cosmos, and all in between.”
Zoë is a multidisciplinary artist. Her immersive, theatrical, A/V practice ultimately brings her closer to finding how we can better communicate with otherworldly beings.
Read the full article and see more of Zoë’s work on ECU News.