Louise Liliefeldt - Remembering Series

Weeping Body, 2002

...Weeping Body is about the blood sweat and tears that we all endure. It is a sad and quiet piece, but through the actions of the body and the determination of the mind that allow the body to continue, strength will prevail....

There are people I love, and their are people I'll love for forever, this goes to Toronto base, South African performance artist, Louise Liliefeldt. There are so many stories I can share with you, our dancing in the cages with Christine Zeidler, the drunk girl who peed in the bed, Sneaky Dees, the Tavern bar, me asking to be excused then going outside and taking a nap on the pavement. Her bike, her boots, wearing clothes wrong side up, her boyfriends, her support of the band, Barenaked ladies and her survival instincts.

I remember Louise working at VTape with Lisa Steele, the co-creator of what is considered as the largest independent artists video archival in North America. I managed to see Lisa in 2003, coming out of the Bloor retro cinema in Toronto. I remember a video she made parodying Canada as a powerful country, and having their cousins below, America franchising things that were distinctly Canadian. I don't think students got it then because she had to explain the concept to us. O Canada (eh!)


Break your concentration. cut off a finger. Louise Liliefeldt with a knife, Toronto , 2004

Louise Liliefeldt, the funny side but the true Liliefeldt is just under the skin with a her ability in control, stillness, tolerance and self infliction. This is not her threshold, but rather of the spectator. Her performances are psychological, played out as a game of Russian roulette of art as she morphs into the character and loses herself into a kind of sub-conscious state. And this is were art can transcend. Liliefeldt has been at the discipline for nearly two decades.


Seer from 1998