Hey, My MTL Neighbour is an Artist is an interview series by guest blogger Tess Martens. The series features casual conversations with Tess and her Montreal creative community. The videos were shot by Richard Mugwaneza right before Tess moved back to Ontario.
Holly Timpener is a queer non-binary performance artist working in depth with the theme of queer trauma and queer resistance. By balancing their personal experience, knowledge and memories with insight gained through community research, Timpener investigates "The Personal Is Political" in a modern sociopolitical context. Timpener has held several international residencies and worked with multiple festivals including Month of Performance Art - Berlin (2013), Sled Island Festival - Calgary (2013), Nuit Blanche - Calgary (2014), and Nuit Blanche - Toronto (2015). Their work has been featured at Stride Gallery (Calgary AB, 2015), The Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto ON, 2014/2016), and Espacio Centro Gallery (Oaxaca, Mexico, 2015). They have been honoured to have worked several times with La Pocha Nosta at Montreal Arts Interculturels (2017), in the Paseo Festival (2019), and Encuentro in Mexico City (2019). Timpener has also conducted a workshop in Helsinki, Finland at the Lapsody Festival (2017).
In 2018, they performed at RIPPA Montreal, Buddies In Bad Times Theatre for the Rhubarb Festival, and collaborated on a performative film with Rojin Shafiei for Never Apart Gallery in Montreal. In 2020 Timpener worked with VestAndPage in correlation with the Venice International Performance Art Week, performed virtually at the Drip Performance Festival (Liverpool, UK) and worked with The Holy Gasp to present a 9-hour durational performance entitled Grief. In 2021 they collaborated with artist and friend Tess Martens on live and virtual works show with FADO and the Lots of Love Festival. This year Timpener is excited to present work at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s group show IGNITION and also at La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse alongside Tess Martens and Matthew Moir.
Instagram: @hollytimpener
Hey, My MTL Neighbour is an Artist: Holly Timpener
About Tess
Tess Martens graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Master of Fine Art focusing on performance art in 2018. In her art practice, personal experiences are re-contextualized through performances. Between 2019-2020, she traveled and performed in 4 performance residencies in 4 different countries. She worked closely with Marilyn Arsem, La Pocha Nostra, VestAndPage and Andrigo & Aliprandi. She actively performs in Ontario and Quebec; may it be an official performance for festivals, galleries and artist run centers or performing more underground and relying on self to just create!
About Richard
Richard Mugwaneza is a Rwandan filmmaker based in Montreal, Alumni of L'INIS, the Berlinale Talents, Durban Talents, attended Maisha film labs and laureate of the “Fonds Jeune Création Francophone ''. Since 2007, under mentorship of director Lee Isaac Chung, Richard worked on a dozen films that have been featured in Variety, screened, and won awards at prestigious film festivals such as Tribeca, Seattle, Fespaco, Khouribga, Clermont-Ferrand, Silicon Valley, Luxor, Milano, and many more. Richard's films include the Short Nota Bene (2011), the mid-length film Chora-Chora (2011), the feature film A seed of memories (2017), the documentary Neo Ancienne (in post-production) and the feature film Muntu (Currently in development).
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