Ephemera Fae
Photo by Jeff Cancelosi
BIOGRAPHY
Ephemera Lynn Cadieux-Fae is a social practice interdisciplinary artist with a love of teaching, community, and mental health. Fae was born in Garden City, MI, and resides in Detroit. Currently, they are an MFA candidate at Wayne State University (WSU) expected to graduate in the spring of 2023.
In 2019, Fae was commissioned to lead a large-scale mural project, A City Celebration at Woodward Warren Park, Detroit. They were also a co-leader for two large scale mural projects at WSU, Interactive Hands (to be installed) and The Real: Detroit outside Scott Hall. Their work has been shown locally and throughout Michigan, including the following: Irwin House Gallery, the Michigan Senate Building, Black Box Gallery, and in 2020 they were part of the first nine artists involved in When There Were Nine.
In 2021, Fae was one of three art administrators to assist with the interdisciplinary program, “Using Visual Thinking Strategies to Enhance Observational Skills Through Art and Imaging” funded by the Association of American Medical College (AAMC) Grant and under the guidance of Grace Serra (Art Collection Curator, WSU Art Collection). The program taught WSU medical students how to use visual thinking strategies to interpret works of art. The skill helped develop an awareness of varied viewpoints within medical imagery, related to the health of their patients.
Fae can be found writing poetry, setting up surveys, and making videos in the loft apartment they share with their wife Olivia-Grace in Banglatown, Detroit, MI. Together they wrangle their dogs Foxy and Bliss while saving house plants from Mercury Murder Mittens Omega, the resident house predator (cat).
ARTIST STATEMENT
Through video, sculpture, audio and installation I critique the care systems available to us and how they homogenize our experiences as patients, users, doctors, employees and workers. I create patterns and textures that emphasize dissonance. Immersing bodies into reflective spaces where these systems; constricting, reducing, and erasive, must be faced.
My spaces whether physical, digital, temporary or completely intangible provide a sense of disruption that encourages awareness of our presence within the uncomfortable realities we make. Drawing focus to our paralleled experiences of powerlessness in the face of personal crisis and bureaucracy. All rooted in my intentional engagement with others who have operated in, and around, mental health care systems or have needed to, but been kept away.
I enjoy emphasizing the tension between the organic act of being human and the homogenizing strictures of our social systems. I am a queer neurodivergent mad disabled artist. I believe seeing the spaces where these tensions become tragic is necessary for survival. The systems we expect to provide care have to adapt to the true needs of real people. The reflections will hurt a little but the dark humor will help the medicine go down.