art as somatic listening

echoes from within the portal~body

Art was my first medicine.

Through art, I learned to sense what was held beneath the surface of my skin and follow my body’s lead toward healing and remembrance. What began as a means of survival gradually became a practice of mending and reconnection.

I share this work now as an invitation to reconnect with your own inner landscape. As you explore, you’re invited to notice the sensations that arise in your body. What feels easeful? What stirs curiosity? What brings discomfort? Notice and allow your body’s response to be part of the encounter.

It All Started Here:

—The Thread That Runs Through Me—

—Earth Meditations—

—Liberations—

Artist Bio

Zana Wensel (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and practices on Treaty 6 Land in Edmonton, Alberta. Throughout her artistic practice she explores the interrelationship between trauma, healing, and the body, and examines the ways in which our most-inner and outer experiences are connected. Informed by various levels of interoception (the sensing of the internal body state), Zana employs hand and body-based practices such as sewing, writing, drawing, and performance as a way of bringing consciousness to the body’s otherwise unconscious experiences. Through these means, she explores the body as both a site and conduit for self-realization, (re-)connection and healing, and weaves these threads into the greater landscapes of neurobiology, ecology, and spirituality. In doing so, she creates interactive and sensory installations that aim to re-embody viewers, and gives voice to the fabric of our human existence.

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