Skip to content

Lisa Anita Wegner

“I make stuff and sometimes write about it”

Tag Archives: canadian artist

July 21, 2025 Liberation Through Dreaming

Research & Development into Creative Access

For over a decade, multidisciplinary artist Lisa Anita Wegner has poured immense detail and consistent energy into crafting her immersive universe projects. Her latest creation, Elsewhere (2025), a collaboration with award-winning director Eric Rose, is a touring iteration of her long-evolving work—designed specifically for contemporary public art spaces. But its roots run deep: Lisa has been intensively developing this body of multimedia work since January 2013.

Lisa lives with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a condition that brings severe pain and cognitive challenges. Yet, rather than hinder her creativity, it opened a new artistic path. In her keynote talk Art Saved My Life (2011), she describes how even the smallest daily practices in filmmaking and performance became lifelines—eventually building into a rich and substantial artistic legacy.

Haus of Dada & The Birth of a Universe

Her home studio, Haus of Dada (est. 2011), is a functioning micro-nation—complete with its own flag, currency, and stamps. Designed for accessibility, it’s a space where she can create regardless of her physical condition. Here, the Dada Dream Lab (2012) was born: years of daily short video and performance experiments that seeded what is now the Dada Universe.

Anchored in the aesthetics and ideals of 1920s–30s Weimar Berlin, Lisa coined the phrase “Liberation Through Dreaming” in 2014, marking the symbolic end of her old identity and the emergence of The Dada Family.

Realistic Confabulation: History Meets Fantasy

Through a practice Lisa calls Realistic Confabulation, true family histories and heirlooms are woven with fictional timelines and mythologies. This narrative forms The Fictitious History of the Haus of Dada, featuring three main characters:

  • Mama Dada, born 1890 in Austria, is a fiercely anonymous performance artist and burlesque dancer—loosely inspired by Lisa’s real-life aunt Sigrid.
  • Papa Dada, born 1910 in Latvia, is a magician and somatic practitioner based on her uncle Kostje. Though a middling artist, his devotion to Mama fuels the household.
  • The Ubermarionette, their child, is a shapeshifting mirror to the viewer. Central to the Intangible Adorations series (2018–2022), this faceless figure plays over 200 roles—from mermaid to labourer, from superstar to surgeon.

Portals, Films & Time Travel

Mama Dada created nearly 200 silent black-and-white short films. One of the most notable installations, Triangle: Ascension into Another Golden Age (2014), premiered at Nuit Blanche and produced a Portal series of vivid art films, sensory experiences, and bespoke soundscapes—now featured in Elsewhere’s Time Travel Portal.

The Ubermarionette, reflecting whoever stands before them, traverses dimensions and timelines. Often disappearing due to their shared Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, they remain a symbol of vulnerability, mystery, and fame manufactured by public gaze.

A Universe Built from Absurdity and Truth

At its core, the Dada Universe invites us to dream boldly in dark times. Through absurdity, fictional family lore, and raw personal truth, Lisa Anita Wegner continues her mission: “Making the Mundane Marvelous.” Her ambitious, meticulously crafted projects have garnered robust funding and widespread acclaim.

When Lisa announces she is Lifting the Veil to Elsewhere, curators, collaborators, and audiences alike pay attention—eager to witness what’s next.

“Some artists are lateral thinkers, but Lisa thinks in all directions at once. She creates unique experiences that leave lasting sensory memories… a truly one-of-a-kind artist.”
— Scott White, Writer/Director, The Giant’s Garden

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

April 25, 2017 Road to Human Realignment

“I am working on a performance film series called Metamorphosis Human Realignment. This physical stretching practise has changed my life and now through that doorway I am creating a piece in which I tell the truth with my body. I am very excited about this work.”

After speaking at Open Show Toronto about two of my therapy videos I have become even more aware of the clear path my body of work is taking.

I created the Fictitious History of the Haus of Dada as a therapeutic art practise and the bulk of my film and performance work has stemmed from it. After using persona and then the Dada movement as parameters I now feel compelled to strip everything down and tell my story with my body. I’ll talk a bit about that in a moment.

I started here in 2008 when I was still very sick. I made this Eva and Bobby video series in my home with iMovie and started to find my voice

 

 

 

Mama Dada was going to host the installation but that didn’t feel right. Thin(k) Blank Human was born that night.

The work progressed with a library of videos like Marry The Night

A Collaboration with Steve Weiss and Leslie Barton

A solo performance at The Mod Club in Toronto

Thin(k) Blank Human: Metamorphosis is a performance piece by artist Lisa Anita Wegner (haus of dada) and musician Ray Cammaert (Pink Moth). It began as an extension of Wegner’s Trauma Therapy and represents a safe place in the search for one’s self after complete annihilation. It is both a confirmation of vitality and a call to action. The piece explores male and female layers of the neutral self and uses vibration of sound to assist in the expression of terror, hysteria, madness, resilience and joy on the journey to re-birth.

 

After this metamorphosis I realized that I will always continue to embody Thin(k) Blank Human but as for my personal artistic through line I have come through the structure of relying on artifice to find authenticity. My current work is based in realigning my chronically tight psoas muscles which have caused a leg length discrepancy and making my physical body unstable and chronically crooked. After going to a stretch class of Mary-Margaret Scrimger’s at Pursuit I understood the power of stretching my body and how I felt different immediately. Now every day I stretch for at least 10 minutes, some studio days I stretch up to three hours. In this stretching and realignment I am finding myself and who I really am as an artist without all the performance bombast that I so enjoy.

I am working on a nude performance / film series called Metamorphosis Human Realignment. This physical stretching practise has changed my life and now through that doorway I am creating a performance to tell the truth with my body. I am very excited about this work. It’s also the first time I am not sharing as I go.

LAW

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

September 29, 2015 BEING: inside the glacier. Performing GLACIOLOGY with Anandam Dance Theatre

After having the pleasure of working with choreographer Brandy Leary on my performance piece, Sex & Candy Floorshow, I was intrigued when I heard about her 2015 Nuit Blanche piece ,GLACIOLOGY. It is part of curator Christine Shaw’s exhibition Work of Wind along the Toronto Waterfront. Glaciology is a human glacier made of 50 human bodies that slowly sweeps across the Toronto waterfront from dusk until dawn.
My art practice has always been relatively solitary, and for the past three years I have performed solo for Nuit Blanche. I was very much drawn to a different way of working and the opportunity to collaborate with a large group.
At first rehearsal, I was hoping that I was physically strong enough for this project. With the dancers, acrobats and circus performers warming up, I felt unsure. As soon as Brandy started the rehearsal with a performer massage, it felt right. Her meditative style “state work” is very much up my alley. My daily practice involves body work and meditating and I felt Brandy’s concepts for the Glacier made perfect sense. My body knew what to do.
I realized that this piece of 50 bodies was actually about doing nothing. It’s about relaxing and physically giving in to the glacier as a whole. It’s about radical physical listening and gracious waiting with your whole body.
I wasn’t sure about potentially being underneath a pile of people. I dislike crowds, and thought it might be too much for me. What was a surprise was that the glacier felt like being embraced. It was a benevolent place to be. If a foot or elbow was coming toward your head, someone would guide it away. I found the physical safety of the glacier was remarkable. I also found the feeling of being protected intoxicating. In rehearsals, when I was out of the glacier watching, all I wanted was back into the warm safety of the group.
Being in the glacier is one of the peak emotional experiences I’ve had in a performing situation, and we’re still only in rehearsal. I’ve been swept up in the movement of this physical entity of 50 bodies, and it is transformative. The first time I got flipped across the top of the group, I felt such joy. Many of the performers talked about how being in the glacier bends time. An hour in the glacier feels like about 10 minutes, and I am craving the longer sessions that we have scheduled for the actual Nuit Blanche performance. I am trying to figure out how to get this kind of emotional physical work into my daily practisc.
As with any public performance, I look forward to the plethora of images that will be collected throughout the night. Please tag your images #glaciology2015
I will write more about this experience after the festival.
2015 ADT Season FB Banners DRAFT A2
Cheers
Lisa Anita Wegner
Filmmaker Performer Curator Programmer
Here is the free link to download the soundtrack for an immersive experience next weekend: http://jamesbunton.bandcamp.com/album/glaciology-i-v
About GLACIOLOGY:
A glacier composed of 50 human bodies slowly sweeps the city for 12 continuous hours as part of curator Christine Shaw’s exhibition The Work of Wind. Anandam’s Glaciology examines the permanent effects of human and ecological disruptions in the converging wakes of colonialism, globalisation, wars and unsustainable economies by overlapping and contrasting these images with the indelible power of glacial movements across landscapes.

Using the movement of glaciers across landscapes as an entry point, this piece explores states of density, collaboration, collapse, overpopulation, relocation, disruption, environmental tipping points, disappeared people, mass graves, icebergs, and melting ice caps.  Glaciology combines site specific performance with human sculpture and choreographic installation to create a surreal, constantly shifting image of bodies as landscape and simultaneously as capsules of history and memory; both human and geological.

http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/project.html?project_id=1568

Choreography: Brandy Leary

Sonic Designer/Composition: James Bunton

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,