Artist Talk: Nan Goldin

Join us for an evening with internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin, featuring a special screening of Stendhal Syndrome (2024) and a conversation with Eva Respini, Interim Co-CEO & Curator at Large at the Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as an introduction by Dr. Trish Kelly, President & Vice-Chancellor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

This special program offers a rare opportunity to engage deeply with Goldin’s influential practice across photography, film and installation. Known for her uncompromising portrayals of intimacy, community, desire and loss, her work foregrounds lived experience while confronting structures of power, addiction and social marginalization.

The evening begins with a screening of Stendhal Syndrome, a film from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection that extends Goldin’s photographic concerns into the moving image, exploring the emotional intensity of looking and the transformative power of art.

In the second half of the program, Goldin will be joined in conversation with Respini to reflect on the artist’s trajectory, the ethics of representation and the role of art as both witness and intervention. Together, they will consider how Goldin’s work continues to shape contemporary visual culture and artistic activism.

This event is $10 for Experiences Members and above; $15 for Ideas Members; and $30 for Access Pass Holders and the general public, with $5 tickets available for students with valid ID.

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This program is co-presented with Emily Carr University of Art + Design as part of 100 Years in the Making. This event is organized in support of ECU 100, Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s centennial anniversary, and is presented with support from the Audain Foundation.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Nan Goldin is an American photographer and artist. Since the 1970s her work has explored notions of gender and definitions of normality. By documenting her life and the lives of the friends who surround her, Goldin gives a voice and visibility to her communities especially the bohemian LGBT communities which were deeply impacted by the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s. These images of her “extended family” became the subject of her seminal slide show and first book The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Her retrospective This Will Not End Well, the first exhibition dedicated to her work as a filmmaker, is currently traveling through Europe (Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan; and GrandPalaisRmn, Paris). Her work was also recently on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery in Nan Goldin: Stendhal Syndrome (2025). She is the founding member of the advocacy group P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), which targeted the pharmaceutical companies responsible for the overdose epidemic. She has been an outspoken advocate for Palestine since the 1970s. She lives and works in New York City and Paris.