"739 Cups of Water", 2005 Installation, Millenium Park, Chicago photo by Dimitri Moore

Based in Chicago, Nicole Garneau is an interdisciplinary artist involved in experimental theater, music, dance, visual art, gender performance, and writing.

She earned a BA in Theater from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA in Interdisciplinary Art from Columbia College Chicago. In 1993-94 Nicole worked as an actor in the Theatre of Moscow South-West, performing in Russian. In Chicago, she has built an interdisciplinary performance practice of site-specific, movement-based solo and collaborative performance art that often addresses a political issue; text-based works; percussive music; singing; and gender performance.

For 15 years, she has worked closely with Insight Arts, an arts organization dedicated to increasing access to cultural work that promotes social justice and defends human rights. She is interested in creating performance and visual art work that is directly political, critically conscious, and community building. In 2005 she completed HEAT:05, a year of daily performances marking ten years since the 1995 Chicago heat wave disaster.

Nicole works in the Center for Community Arts Partnerships and is adjunct faculty at Columbia College Chicago.

More of Nicole's work can be seen at www.nicolegarneau.com

One thing about Blue Sky that really helped me grow as an artist was being forced to find ways to be explicit and clear about my process and the ideas that interest me. Without this articulation, there was no way to collaborate on the project. I kept having to confront the things I really care about and find the words to try to help McHenry County youth care about them too. Connecting the project to the visions and concerns of all community members was very rewarding to me and really helped me feel grounded in the community, even as an outsider. Deep and thorough interactions with the other resident artists was so beneficial to me as an artist and as a person. Living and working with supportive and challenging peers was a tremendous benefit of the program.