Jessica Houston

Jessica Houston journeys from pole to pole, employing oral narratives, photography, objects, painting and video as her mediums. Her focus lies on climate justice issues, particularly emphasizing the deep time of ice and collaboration with nature. Through her research-based practice, Houston engages with poets, penguins, scientists, and philosophers to uncover and illuminate the geographies of resistance in the Canadian Arctic, Antarctica and Iceland. Select solo and group exhibitions include: …no footprints, even. Vanderbilt University Museum of Art, Nashville, TN, USA (2025); Beyond Her Horizons at The Royal Canadian Geographical Society in Ottawa (2024); Territoires sous observation, Museo de Arts de Querétaro, México (2023); Terra Nova, CREA Gallery, Venice, Italy (2022); Ecologies: A Song For Our Planet, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal, Canada (2021); Dear Future… University of Northern Colorado Gallery, Greely, CO, USA (2020); I Beseech You: Women, Art, Politics and Power, Schmucker Art Gallery, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA, USA (catalog) (2020); and The Call of Things, The Arktikum Museum - University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland (2019).

Houston has created site-specific works for the New Jersey MOCA, Asbury Park, New Jersey; the Castello di Corigliano, Puglia, Italy; Governors Island, NY, NY; The Albany Airport, Albany, NY and The Lewis H. Latimer House Museum, Flushing, NY. Her works are funded by The Canada Council for the Arts, National Geographic, Parks Canada, and are in the collections of Prêt d’oeuvres d’art, Musée National Des Beaux-Arts du Quebec; Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), Montréal, Québec; Bank of Montréal, Toronto; The Canada Council Art Bank; and the Consulate General of Monaco. She has been invited to the Changing Climate Residency at The Santa Fe Art Institute (2023); The Albers Foundation Residency (2021); CAMAC Centre for Art, Science and Technology in France (2009); and the Skagaströnd Residency in Iceland (2009). She teaches at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has lectured at Columbia University, Parsons University in New York; Concordia University, McGill University, UQÀM and The Montréal Museum of Fine Arts in Montréal and OCAD University in Toronto.