Ottawa ON K1N 9N4
Canada
The Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) proudly presents Suzy Lake: “Distilled Resistance” for the Eleventh Annual Stonecroft Foundation Visiting Lecture.
The University of Ottawa and NGC are located on unceded territories of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation, the traditional guardians of this land.
Made possible through the generous support of the Stonecroft Foundation for the Arts, this annual lecture series fosters public and academic dialogue on contemporary art. Each year, it invites a leading Canadian artist to share their practice with students and the wider community. The series’ tenth anniversary is marked in Volume 15 (June 2025) of the National Gallery of Canada Review, featuring a selection of lectures from the past decade.
About the artist
Suzy Lake is a Detroit-born, Toronto-based artist whose work has played a central role in shaping feminist and conceptual art. Using photography, performance, and video, she explores themes of identity, gender, the politics of the body, and the dynamics of power. Her practice is widely recognized for using the artist's own body as a site of resistance, representation, and transformation. Suzy Lake's later works extend her critical investigations into the politics and poetics of the aging body, challenging beauty norms and reasserting agency through image-making. Her rigorous, deeply personal, and politically charged practice continues to resonate across generations. Lake's work is in the collections of major museums in Canada, as well as significant international institutions such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York; Museum Brandhorst in Munich, Germany; the Centre national des arts plastiques in Paris, France; the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, Michigan; the Metropolitan Musum of Art in New York City, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, New York.
For more information
Talia M Boileau, Department of Visual Arts, University of Ottawa. T +1 613 562 5868 / arvsec@uottawa.ca.
University of Ottawa—MFA Visual Arts
The University of Ottawa's MFA in Visual Arts is a two-year bilingual program grounded in research, critical discourse, and interdisciplinary practice. The program offers a close-knit academic community, attentive mentoring, and professional internship opportunities with regional art institutions and artists.
Learn more about the MFA program and the application process here.
About the National Gallery of Canada
Ankosé / Everything is Connected / Tout est relié. Founded in 1880, the National Gallery of Canada is among the world’s most respected art institutions. As a national museum, we exist to serve all Canadians, no matter where they live. We do this by sharing our collection, exhibitions, and public programming widely. We create dynamic experiences that allow for new ways of seeing ourselves and each other through the visual arts, while centering Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Our mandate is to develop, preserve and present a collection for the learning and enjoyment of all- now and for generations to come. We are home to more than 90,000 works, including one of the finest collections of Indigenous and Canadian art, major works from the 14th to the 21st century and extensive library and archival holdings. To find out more about the Gallery’s programming and activities visit gallery.ca, and follow us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
