Alexa Bunnell is an emerging curator, artist, writer, fermenter and bike enthusiast. Their practice is currently based in Mohkinstsís (Calgary, AB) on Treaty 7 Territory. Adoration, playfulness and multi-species conspirators guide their practice and research. They are influenced by doom metal, plant histories, bike paths shaped by rivers, mycorrhizal webs, and cold, fermented beverages on hot days.
Their artistic work has recently been presented at Workshop Studios, EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society, Marion Nicoll Gallery, White Rabbit Festival, The Bows and The New Gallery. Their writing has appeared in ReIssue Magazine, LUMA Quarterly, CMagazine, Galleries West and Canadian Art. Alexa has received numerous scholarships and grants, including from Calgary Arts Development and Canada Council of the Arts. In 2020, they were awarded runner-up for the Canadian Art Writing Prize.
Alexa is currently the Program Manager and Curator for the TREX SW region.
Documentation of a bio-data sonification soundbath performance hosted at Workshop Studios in 2024. Images by Danny Luong.
At varying points of my practice I have been taken with soliphilia: a love and responsibility for land, ecosystem, and microbiome, rooted deeply in interdependence and unity - an adoration of the interrelated whole. My interest in soliphilia is derived from a desire for building restorative relationships between myself and more-than-human kin.
These entanglements between myself and my more-than-human kin morph themselves into many forms: an interactive website describing the story of a decaying human body absorbed by the beauty of the mycelial network in a forest in Death Spins, Spun; singing out imitations of an air-raid siren out to the Fundy Bay to express wordless queer desires in Siren Song; regularly gifting home-brewed kombucha and sourdough bread to my friends and loved ones; the web of research that has morphed into a variety of critical arts writing pieces on plant-human interdependence. While I consider my artistic practice rooted in my daily practice of living in collaboration with these entanglements, I regularly revisit working within sound, video work and writing to evoke these collaborations. I often work within affective mediums, including writing (which is sometimes an essay, a script, and sometimes a surrealist story) and music, song, and singing, to express emotions that are expansive, embodied, and in many ways, inexpressible in simplistic terms.
Creating sound and music requires a deep listening practice that is embodied, relational and attentive to the sounds we hear around us. Often, this practice of listening reminds me of my own body, that it holds memories similarly to my collaborators, that it can be nourished by others and that it can nourish. When I use my voice to sing, I regulate my parasympathetic system through deep breathing and my heart rate slows down. My work is an emotionally informed listening to the soliphilic entanglements around us.