After nomadic years of living in Turkey, U.S.A., and Spain with her family, Nurgul Rodriguez settled in Calgary, Alberta in 2009. She received her MFA from the University of Calgary in 2017. She has an active individual practice that crosses a variety of disciplines and media. She explores her growing interest in different forms of “diasporic” existence beings and becoming during identity formation within a new culture. She makes clay and paper sculptural objects and installation art that suggest a presence; they convey a sense of otherness and body, and identity forming. She currently lives in Calgary making, writing, teaching, collaborating and always learning.

ARTIST STATEMENT

We are living in an era shaped by global refugee crises and immigration issues, and for me making art is an expression of how I understand the experiences of migration in a country that prides itself on its multiculturalism. In my creative research practice, I aim to contribute to knowledge in text-based artwork and artifacts through the making of large porcelain installation with inscribed text. I have been investigating the concept of becoming identity with the use of method of auto-ethnography and studying of policies made in Canada for immigrants and their process of identity transformation in a level of cultural, social and political in a context of contemporary art. My artistic research uses text, material exploration such as porcelain, sound and scanned images to discover new viewers as a participatory to experience an empathy through interacting art installation.

Fall 2018