Dr. Kristine Nic Thoreson

Biography

Dr. Thoreson is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator originally from Calgary, Alberta. Her work incorporates postcolonial and eco-critical frameworks within visual cultural studies, creative research practice, and secondary / post-secondary teaching and learning contexts.

Informed by human geography, her work explores the intersections between how we experience and represent place, the value of relational photography in landscapes of belonging and tourism; and beginning teacher experiences of outsider/insider transitions. Artistically, she is currently exploring photographic “close-readings” of Parkland and Montane Cordillera ecoregion flora in Alberta and BC; and visual strategies for communicating key caribou conservation messages within oil and gas-based economies. 

Her SSHRC funded PhD (2016) in Research-Creation problematized sublime aesthetics popular within representations of space and place in the Atlantic coast of Canada and Western Greenland. Kristine's research and selected artworks have been presented locally and internationally in Calgary, Ontario, Minnesota (USA), Falmouth (England), on BBC TV (UK), and in the Shetland Islands (UK). 

Thoreson's work is informed by landscape studies, cultural geography, performance studies, and the social and technological histories of photography. Topics of interest include the circumpolar North (especially photography of Greenland), the politics of representation, climate change and biodiversity / species conservation (especially caribou and reindeer). Her artwork is multi-disciplinary including drawing, gallery installation, and silver-based / digital photography. She is the founder and director of Junction North Stewardship Foundation, and has been a freelance writer for Galleries West magazine. 

Since 2007, Kristine has taught students in art, design and theory at The Banff Centre, AUARTS (formerly ACAD), The City of Calgary, the Calgary Board of Education, Rocky View Schools and the University of Calgary.