Inner Space with Jem Woolidge

Inner Space, a monthly web series co-curated by the Inner Space Youth Advisory and AGO Staff, invites artists from across Canada to give personal tours of their studios. Giving a platform to youth curators and artists from their communities, Inner Space aims to make visible and legitimize a new generation of diverse, Canadian artists, while creating authentic youth-led digital content.
The current iteration of the Youth Advisory is project-based and is made up of youth ages 16-25 from across Canada with the goal of co-curating a series of studio tours by and for youth. Meeting bi-weekly online from October 2022-June 2023, this paid opportunity tasked the Inner Space Youth Advisory members with curating artists from their communities who they believe deserved a platform and visibility from an institutional context. The result, launched in March 2023, is a 6 episode monthly web series featuring a new generation of artists and their creative spaces from across Canada.
This month we meet artist Jem Woolidge a white-settler, transmasculine, emerging artist and facilitator based in Kjipuktuk (so-called Halifax, Nova Scotia). Jem has an interest in participatory textile work, illustrative storytelling and fashion design.
"I am drawn to the colourful playfulness of Jem’s practice in textiles and fashion. I wanted to highlight his work, because it so skillfully and intricately combines a variety of techniques including fabric dyeing, sewing, hand embroidery, pattern drafting, and weaving, to create truly unique pieces. I love how their creation process celebrates slowness through each one of these processes which are accomplished by hand. Jem’s work is imbued with intention, personalization, embellishment and colour! It serves as a reminder to be playful, to have fun, to dress up, adorn yourself, and to take the time to celebrate yourself and the people around you through playful creation." - Renee Brazeau: Youth Advisory Member
Follow the Series at @AGOYOUTH
Created and Facilitated by AGO Youth Programs: Sarah Febbraro & Madelyne Beckles
Edited by AGO Video Team: Fraser Wrighte
Curated in Collaboration with the Inner Space Youth Advisory.
Generously supported by The Lloyd Carr-Harris Foundation.
Music Via Soundstripe
© The Art Gallery of Ontario 2023