Vladimir Kanic is the creator of living algae sculptures that use spectators’ breath as food and convert it into oxygen while mitigating the effects of global climate crisis. His world-building practice imagines the living sculptures as beacons of decarbonized future, where social and climate justice are collaborative public acts as essential as breathing. Solving climate change includes addressing systemic environmental racism, as race and ethnicity continue to be a source of exploitation and abuse at the core of climate injustice. By placing living algae sculptures in polluted urban areas, the effects of climate change impacting marginalized communities could be scaled down.
Kanic’s art practice is informed by his maritime heritage and free diving experience. He uses diving and breathing to access his cultural, ancestral, and personal worlds while exploring memories of the Earth’s geological time deposited within the bodies of living algae. As Earth’s principal carbon sinks, algae produce approximatively 60% of planetary oxygen while consuming gasses produced by burning of Earth’s geological layers, coal, oil and gas.
The artist’s collaboration with living algae, as both an artistic medium and a carbon capture mechanism, embodies a commitment to “cultivating responsibility that feels for both the human and the non-human” (Haraway 2016). It is a call for a symbiotic future, one that reconsiders our place within the Anthropocene and the potential of interspecies collaboration to enhance our artistic practices and deepen our understanding of humanity.
Kanic graduated OCAD University as the Governor General’s Academic Medal and Sir Edmund Walker Award recipient along with the Sustainability Innovation Award, CIBC Fine Arts Award, MITACS Business Strategy Award, Newcomer Arts Award, RBC Emerging Artist Award, and InterAccess Media Prize. His living sculptures have been exhibited throughout Canada and featured on TEDx talk platform. He is currently completing his MFA in Visual Arts at York University.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024: Abbozzo Gallery, Garden of Breaths Solo Exhibition, Living Algae Sculptures (UPCOMING)
2023: Abbozzo Gallery, Garden of Waves Solo Exhibition, Living Algae Sculptures
2023: InterAccess Gallery, Garden of Waves Solo Exhibition, Living Algae Sculptures
Nov 2021 – June 2022: Abbozzo Gallery, Book of Waves Solo Exhibition, Living Algae Sculptures
PUBLIC ART
2023: Aga Khan Museum, Algae Animation, Projection Mapping, Commissioned
2023: Artist Project Toronto, Living Algae Sculptures Commissioned by OCAD University / CEAD
2022: Nuit Blanche TO at Humber Galleries, Living Algae Sculptures, Commissioned by the City of Toronto
2020: Big Art Toronto, Only Lovers Leave to Die, Experimental Animation Commissioned by the City of Toronto, Projection Mapping
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023: Abbozzo Gallery 30th Anniversary, Living Algae Sculptures
2023: Industrial Arts Markham, Breath of Origin, Living Algae Sculptures
2023: Ada Slaight Gallery, Insidious Devices, Living Algae Sculptures
2022: UrbanSpace Gallery / 401 Richmond, Nuit Blanche TO, Living Algae Sculptures
2022: Collision Gallery, Hivemind Oxygen, Living Algae Sculptures
2022: Hamptons Fine Art Fair, Living Algae Sculptures
2022: 915 Dupont Gallery, 502 Bad Gateway, Living Algae Sculptures
2022: OCAD University, Gradex#107, Living Algae Sculptures
2022: OCAD University, Letters at The End, Living Algae Sculptures
2021: Ada Sleight Gallery, Witness/Media, Living Algae Sculptures
2021: Abbozzo Gallery, Fresh Voices, Mirror Without Organs, Interactive Video Installation / Expanded Cinema
AWARDS & HONOURS
2024: Sustainability Innovation Award
2023: CIBC Fine Arts Award
2023: Governor General’s Award / Silver Academic Medal
2023: Toronto Arts Foundation Newcomer Arts Award
2023: Sir Edmund Walker Award
2023: Artscape Daniels / Ray Ferris Springboard Alumnus
2023: Artist Project TO Career Launcher Award and Commission
2022: Power Plant Gallery Emerging Artists Network Alumnus
2022: Nuit Blanche Independent Project Commission, City of Toronto
2022: InterAccess Media Prize
2022: MITACS Business Strategy Award
2022: Integrated Media Faculty Award, OCAD University
2021: Poggetto Award for Best Academic Achievement, OCAD University
2021: CRSC Student Award for Canadian Colour Research, CRSC
TALKS/CONFERENCES
2023: TedX Talk Vancouver, Living Algae Sculptures
2023: The Night of Ideas, Guest speaker on art that can mitigate the effects of global climate emergency, hosted by the French Consulate and OCAD University
2022: The Art We Want Conference, Speaker on student-led Public engagement regarding democratizing public art
2022: Reinventing Environmentalism Conference, Keynote speaker on a talk about the intersection and power of the art and environmentalism hosted by the University of Toronto Environmental Action (UTEA)
2021: CivicLabTO Academic Summit, Speaker at the symposium promoting good research, collaboration and strong urban policymaking hosted by York University
2021: Teaching Creative Technologies Remotely, Speaker at the Virtual UnSymposium hosted by Integrated Digital Media at NYU