Poiẽsis is an arts collective comprised of lens-based artists working and living on the unceded traditional territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations (so-called Vancouver).
The term Poiēsis is from the ancient Greek word ποιεῖν (poiein), which means to make or to bring into being. Aristotle adopted the term in his Poetics, a response to Plato’s theory of mimesis in art, as introduced in The Republic. Central to our thinking as a collective, Heidegger defined the term as the “poetical bringing into appearance and concrete imagery” of that which previously did not exist.
Poiēsis Collective is a group of artists (Andream, David Aquino, Vanessa Denham, Jaiden George, Khim Mata Hipol, Paniz Mani and Charlie Mahoney-Volk) that come from widely varying backgrounds but which are united in their commitment to approach photography in a critical yet generative manner, as well as common thematic interests in self-reflectivity, staging, economies of image production and exchange, the creation and maintenance of place and self through images, the construction and deconstruction of images, (self)portraiture, and critical perspectives on race and gender.
