Stendhal Syndrome: Image-Making Workshop
Fri Mar 20, 2026 | 6–8 PM
Nan Goldin, Stendhal Syndrome, 2024 (video still), single-channel video, Jointly owned by the Vancouver Art Gallery and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Purchased with funds from the Curators’ Council Fund for Women Artists and the Jean MacMillan Southam Fund, Image: © Nan Goldin, Courtesy of the Artist and Gagosian
Join us for an intimate, self-directed creative workshop where participants explore the concept of Stendhal Syndrome—the overwhelming experience of emotion, beauty and intimacy in the presence of art.
Using this idea as a starting point and inspired by the exhibition Nan Goldin: Stendhal Syndrome, participants will reflect on feeling, vulnerability and embodied response through their own artmaking. The session invites participants to create collage responses to select artworks, translating emotional resonance into visual form.
Throughout the evening, a live sonic intervention will serve as the compositional framework—shaping atmosphere, pacing and collective attention. Rather than functioning as background, the soundscape operates as an interpretive mechanism, supporting participants’ creative processes and gently guiding dialogue. Through the pairing of sound and visual art, the intervention invites exploration of cross-modal perception—where listening informs seeing and sensory boundaries begin to blur. In this in-between space, heightened awareness, intuition and creative discovery can emerge.
The mix weaves together music and audio samples that resonate with Nan Goldin’s artistic practice and activism, situating her work within contemporary conversations around Black Futures and the broader social and political conditions shaping the present moment. Created collaboratively by Jefferson Aladé, Losso™️ and Kristen Liston of JOMA Studios, the intervention unfolds through improvisation and live mixing—echoing the participants’ own processes and reinforcing listening as a shared, generative act.
Free for Experiences and Artist Circle Members; $10 for Ideas Members; and $15 for Access Pass Holders and the general public.
If cost is a barrier to you or if you have any access requests for this event, please reach out to learn@vanartgallery.bc.ca.
This event is co-presented with The Black Arts Centre.
EVENT SCHEDULE
5:15 PM: Event check-in begins
Arrive early to view the exhibition Nan Goldin: Stendhal Syndrome on 2nd Floor. Gallery admission is not included with your event ticket.
6 PM: Workshop doors open
6:15 PM: Workshop begins
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
JOMA Studios is a cultural production studio based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). Founded in 2020 by artist-director Jefferson Aladé, the studio operates between institutions and communities—designing collective listening experiences, relational environments and socially-engaged installations that bring publics into shared encounters. Through JOMA Studios, they have developed The Ryze—a platform and playground for collective listening. The Ryze produces listening sessions, DJ programs, sonic installations and curatorial collaborations that foreground global artists and sound cultures. In 2025, they welcomed their first two residents, Losso Silva and Kristen Liston, expanding their capacity across visual direction, research and programming development.
Jefferson Aladé creates with openness. He is an interdisciplinary artist-director whose practice operates in the space between creation and curation. His work spans performance, spatial design, sonic interventions, teaching and gathering, treating sound as material for shaping shared environments. Aladé has performed and developed sound programs for cultural institutions and festivals across North America, including the Hammer Museum, Red Bull Media House and Vancouver Mural Fest. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a minor in Music Industry from UCLA and a Master of Design (Interdisciplinary) from Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Kristen Liston creates with care. She cultivates shared space through rigorous research, thoughtful curation and sustained artist engagement. At The Ryze, she supports programming development, artist selection and interviews—shaping the conceptual and relational frameworks that underpin our listening sessions. As a DJ and sound selector, Liston contributes regularly to JOMA Studio’s programs while strengthening the research and community-building dimensions of their work.
Losso™️ creates with intention. His practice examines how visual systems shape perception, challenging conventions of legibility and function to open alternative readings of space. At The Ryze, he leads visual direction—developing identity systems, scenography and projection design that extend our listening environments into visual form. Working between graphic design and sonic storytelling, Losso™️ constructs research-driven sound narratives through DJ sets and sonic dissertations, including projects engaging contemporary African cultural and political discourse.
