Homesick
March 22 - may 10, 2025
Project Room Gallery
Alexandra Bischoff
Homesick
* Note: Alexandra Bischoff will be in the exhibition participating in a durational performance every Saturday throughout the course of the exhibition from 11am to 4pm
We find ourselves at a pivotal moment where the cultural fabric that once provided comfort, connection, and stability is unraveling at an alarming pace, leaving more individuals feeling untethered and disconnected. Set against this backdrop, Alexandra Bischoff’s exhibition homesick feels oddly aligned with the current zeitgeist taking on even greater resonance exploring the lasting impacts and legacies resulting from the lasting impacts and legacies of familial instability.
Through a forensic examination of her own family’s history, Bischoff seeks a deeper personal understanding, drawing parallels between her own life and the lingering impact of choices made by those who came before her. But beyond the tangible traces of the past, she also considers the role of the unseen, the lingering ghosts embedded in our familial DNA, which unbeknownst to us, continue to shape our sense of self, belonging, and cultural connection.
Anyone who has been adopted and later meets their biological family for the first time can describe the strange, visceral connection that comes with looking into the eyes of a direct relative. It’s an unspoken recognition, a deep-seated familiarity that exists even before words are exchanged. This deeply felt recognition suggests that identity is not solely shaped by lived experience but is also woven from inherited memory, cultural lineage, and the silent imprints of those who came before us.
Through Bischoff’s exploration of her family’s history, we are invited to consider the weight of history that lingers in our bloodlines, the stories left untold, and the ways in which we navigate belonging in a world where the past is never truly gone but continues to shape our present in ways both seen and unseen. By engaging with these ancestral echoes, Bischoff’s work prompts us to reflect on the complexities of identity, the resilience of familial bonds, and the ongoing dialogue between past and present that informs our collective sense of place.
Ultimately homesick compels us to examine the ways in which these inherited legacies manifest in our lives, influencing our choices, relationships, and sense of home, not just as a physical space, but as an evolving emotional and cultural construct
Alexandra Bischoff ~ Artist Statement
Alexandra Bischoff’s exhibition "homesick" is a portrait of family, home, and loss as told through the artist’s family history. Much of Bischoff’s recent artworks unpack personal definitions of ‘home’; in “homesick,” Bischoff interrogates their maternal grandfather’s peculiar choices to understand how conceptions of ‘home’ can be inherited.
Central to the exhibition is the artist’s book “Lloyd O” (2021–24), which unravels an unlikely family lore. In 1959, Bischoff’s maternal grandfather Lloyd Orville Moss founded a business called the Truth Tapes which produced how-to vinyl records espousing advice on cultivating Catholic households. He sunk all his savings into the project, but the records didn't sell. After Lloyd lost the family home to bankruptcy in '67, his solution was to take his musical children on tour through the prairies. Lloyd billed it as a 'Centennial Tour', aligning the family band as a wholesome extension of Canada’s colonial project. They didn’t succeed financially and Lloyd never recovered, forcing the family into a period of hidden homelessness. After moving his family from shelter to hotel to short-term rental multiple times over, Lloyd succumbed to alcoholism and died young, leaving his family to make homes for themselves.
This saga indelibly affected each of Lloyd’s thirteen children in various and highly personal ways, the repercussions of which extended to Lloyd’s grandchildren. Bischoff’s relative housing insecurity today stems from the circumstances of contemporary housing and rental markets and not because of their grandfather’s risk-taking entrepreneurialism; despite this, through ‘homesick,’ the artist wonders: what does it mean to be insecurely housed as a settler? How have definitions of ‘home’ changed over time, and what will they be in the future? And what value can be gleaned from unspoken family histories?
Alexandra Bischoff ~ Biography
Alexandra Bischoff (she/they) is a prairie-born performance artist and writer of settler descent. Her art practice is based on durational performance and installation; labour, precarious living, and the intimacy of archives are some of their primary artistic concerns. Bischoff holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and an MFA from Concordia University. Currently, Bischoff is fortunate to live on the ancestral, unceded territories of the Syilx-Okanagan First Nation and is the Long-Term Artist in Residence at the Similkameen Artist Residency (Keremeos, BC).
