April Vannini

April Vannini is a non-disciplinary researcher and artist living on Gabriola Island, B.C. April earned her research degrees in Anthropology (M.A.) and Media Communication and Philosophy (Ph.D.). 

As an artist April’s individual and collaborative creative process uses a variety of mediums including: photography, video, audio field recordings, multimedia platforms, and found materials for eco-diagramming projects. She is currently working on a collaborative new media psychogeography project called Here Where I Wish. The project uses pre-made game cards that offer chance elements to navigate a walk through Venice, during the 56th Venice Biennale. April together with Sean Smith and Barb Fornssler founded a curative collective called  Murmur Land Studios (MLS). MLS  is an experimental field school initiative offering event-based pedagogy in art, philosophy, movement, ecology and temporary camping community for the post-anthropocene era. Our attempt is to curate spaces of creative inquiry which attract diverse makers, thinkers and doers together around thematic concerns relevant to the challenging times which lay before us. 

As a researcher April has written, published and collaborated in projects as diverse as the Canadian Indian Act, BC Ferries and small Island communities, movement and mobility, and genetic testing of the female sporting body. She is the co-author of a book with Phillip Vannini called Wilderness that explores wilderness geographies.  The book considers how wilderness and wild places become enacted through various practices and culture  The book is part of a larger collaborative research project  called In the Name of Wild . The project is a five year transmedia-ethnographic journey across 6 continents and 24 World Heritage sites in search of the meaning of wild. 

April is a sessional instructor in the School of Communication and Culture at Royal Roads University in Victoria, B.C. She teaches field research methods, cultural theory, and media project courses. She also collaborates with other artists and scholars in research-creation workshops and residencies. Her most recent artistic collaboration was a 12-day art/research-creation residency called Channel Surf, which was curated by the Department of Biological Flow. As an artist collective/canoe caravan, 29 participants paddled and camped along the Rideau Canal in Ontario, Canada, before performing a culminating collective exhibition of the journey at Gallery 101 in Ottawa.