Lorna Brown


Lorna Brown is a Canadian artist, curator and writer. Her work focuses on public space, social phenomena such as boredom, and institutional structures and systems.

Background

Lorna Brown was born in Oxbow, Saskatchewan, Canada. She started exhibiting her work in 1984. Brown taught studio and critical studies which includes art, design and media history, humanities, and social science courses at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and Simon Fraser University's School for Contemporary Arts from 1989-1999. From 1999-2004, Brown was the director and curator of Artspeak, one of many Canadian artist-run centres in Vancouver, B.C. and is currently the Associate Director/Curator at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia.

Exhibitions

Lorna Brown has been an independent curator since 2004. Digital Natives a public art project with Other Sights for Artists' Projects, a non-profit arts organization in Vancouver, B.C. was commissioned by the City of Vancouver for the city's 125th anniversary. Digital Natives utilized an electronic billboard, located on Skwxwú7mesh territory and visible from Burrard Bridge, to share a curated series of Twitter messages in English and Skwxwú7mesh. Brown curated Beginning with the Seventies, a research project that investigated feminism, art, and activism in Vancouver in the 1970s and beyond. Beginning with the Seventies culminated in several exhibitions at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, such as GLUT in 2018. GLUT featured women artists and writers such as Alexandra Bischoff, Lisa Robertson, Gathie Falk, Laiwan, Divya Mehra, Evelyn Roth, Elizabeth Zvonar, and Judith Copithorne among many more.

Writing

Lorna Brown contributes essays, reviews, and interviews to publications such as Fillip and The Capilano Review.
Her writing also appears in exhibition catalogues, journals and books. Select examples include: