CHANDRA BARNETT
Chandra Barnett is a professional artist currently living in Sault Ste. Marie, Algoma. While she was born a Saultite, much of her youth was spent in Thunder Bay, ON, and Montreal, QC, where she pursued a life immersed in the arts. She has been fortunate to have always possessed a creative mind and curious spirit, and has found great inspiration for her work and practice through travel, diverse populations, social activism, and her own community. It is through lived experience that she has found a willingness to grow and connect within her practice and out in her community allowing for her style and choice of medium of expression to change and evolve over time. Through her work she is able to express what is personally meaningful to her in her daily life.
Since relocating to the Algoma region (late 2007), Chandra has become a mother, graduated with honours from the Digital Imaging and Photography Program at Sault College (2013), and has been recognized for her award winning photography. She was fortunate to have been involved with the ArtSpeaks Project in its pilot year; offering adults and youth impacted by trauma non-clinical art-as-therapy experience in community-based art-making. Her art-based approach to learning and connection has provided a strong foundation for the ArtSpeaks Project over the years, as co-creator, workshop facilitator, and beyond. In addition, she has applied her skills to Thinking Rock Community Arts: The Rivers Speak; to Youth Social Infrastructure and Global Friends as photo documentarian, event photographer and workshop facilitator, as well as developing Mamafesto Magazine, a grassroots publication with international readership (2012).
More recently, Chandra has focused her practice on discovering a new voice of expression. Now in recovery, seeking new pathways to self-discovery, she has come to understand through opportunities to lead and participate in community based arts and programming that art is a language that speaks across cultures and experiences. She hopes to continue to extend her community work by applying her art-based healing experience and knowledge in an open, learning and multicultural setting.
As Chandra’s personal practice continues to evolve, she is excited and curious about what lies ahead and the opportunities that will present themselves; undoubtedly reshaping and shifting her practice over and over again like a river to its shoreline. This past year (2023) has brought about great waves of change in her life creating a dialectic atmosphere of lightness and loss; contemplating notions of doing versus being. “It is challenging for us all, in this time of hi-tech and uncertainty, to be present and stay grounded.” She wonders how we will utilize the natural elements to rediscover balance, and how this can be maintained.
