Three Way Mirror: Daniel Barrow, Glenn Gear, Paige Gratland
Summer Residency
3 July – 7 August 2026
Open Studio events
Saturday, July 18, 2026, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm
Saturday, August 1, 2026, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm
Paper Doll Poems workshop with Daniel Barrow
Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at 6:00pmFree to attend, Registration required
Performance
Winnipeg Babysitter (2005-2023)
Daniel Barrow
Saturday, August 1, 2026, at 7:00pm
90 minutes, multi-media presentation
Free to attend
Oxygen Art Centre is currently hosting the artist collective, Three Way Mirror, from July 3, 2026, to August 7, 2026. Three Way Mirror is composed of artists Daniel Barrow (QC), Glenn Gear (QC), and Paige Gratland (BC).
The artists visit Nelson from Montréal and Vancouver for a six-week residency where they develop their textile practices individually and collectively in what they call a craft ‘triangle’.
During their residency, the artist-run centre will open to the public for a series of public events, including two open studio events, a workshop and a performance.
The public are invited to attend two informal open studio events during the residency period to engage with the artists and encounter works-in-progress. Open studio events are scheduled for Saturday, July 18, 2026, and Saturday, August 1, 2026, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. Admission is free. Everyone welcome to attend.
Artist Daniel Barrow hosts a paper doll poem workshop on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at 6:00pm. This workshop is free to attend; however, registration is required and spaces limited. Participants will work with paper collaging techniques developed by the artist through their “paper doll poems” practice, which combines Barrow’s interests in the traditions of folk poetry and limericks, butterfly collections, emoji chains and pictographic languages.
Barrow’s collaged pictographic poems have evolved over the past two years to explore symmetry in palindromic language, incorporating many precepts of floriography––the cryptological system of communication through the exchange of bouquets of flowers. Participants can expect to spend time with the artist making and learning techniques together in collage and composition. To attend, please complete the online registration form available via Oxygen’s website.
In addition to their workshop, Barrow presents a multi-media performance entitled Winnipeg Babysitter (2005-2023) on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at 7:00pm. The performance draws on their decades-long research and independent archive of Winnipeg’s public access television from the late 1970s and 80s presented as a 90-minute hybrid storytelling performance.
Presented at venues such as The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, La Maison Rouge (Paris) and Light Industry (Brooklyn), Winnipeg Babysitter (2005-2023) features a live commentary by the artist from an overhead projector over excerpts of archival television.
Barrow’s performance is not exclusively an exercise in nostalgia—it is also a critical gesture with deep relevance to our contemporary media landscape. Winnipeg Babysitter (2005-2023) foregrounds the politics of visibility and the value of infrastructures that support creativity without commodification. This performance offers audiences with a suggestion that the future of media art may benefit from looking back at a moment when the signal was open, and the screen truly belonged to the public.
The public are invited to attend Daniel Barrow’s Winnipeg Babysitter (2005-2023) performance on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at 7:00pm at Oxygen Art Centre. This event is free to attend. Everyone welcome.
In addition to these public events, artists Glenn Gear and Paige Gratland make connections within the craft and textile community in Nelson to explore techniques in wet felting and colour composition in weaving. While these events will be private for select artists, the public will be invited to engage in their creative practices through the open studio events.
The overarching residency considers how traditional crafts can convey queer stories and community, and how queer signifiers and strategies can express intersectional identities through conceptual craft-based practices. For each artist this has been a natural progression, resulting in the production of woven queer colourways (Gratland), glitter-bombs sealskins (Gear) and paper-doll poems (Barrow).
The artist collective Three Way Mirror will be in residence at Oxygen Art Centre from July 3, 2026, to August 7, 2026. The gallery will be open to the public for two Open Studio events on Saturday, July 18, 2026, and Saturday, August 1, 2026, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.
Join Daniel Barrow in their Paper Doll Poem workshop on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at 6:00pm. Registration is required. Spaces are limited. All materials and tools provided.
Daniel Barrow’s performance Winnipeg Baby (2005-2023) will be presented on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at 7:00pm.
Oxygen Art Centre is located at #3-320 Vernon Street along the alleyway behind Baker Street in Nelson, British Columbia. More information about how to access the facility can be found on Oxygen’s website or by contacting info@oxygenartcentre.org. Admission to all events is free.
This program is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, the Vancouver Foundation, and the Regional District of Central Kootenay ReDi program. Special thanks to Dara van der Meulen for their support as Residency Coordinator (Canada Summer Jobs) and Kenton Doupe for their support as Gallery Preparator and Photographer.
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Image Credit (above): Daniel Barrow, “Paper doll poem,” Hand-dyed and cut paper dolls pinned to screen-printed matboard, 102 x 81 cm; Courtesy the Artist
Image Credit (below): Daniel Barrow, “Natalie Kiss” (video still) from Winnipeg Babysitter (2005-2023), Performance; Courtesy the Artist
Press Contact:
Julia Prudhomme
Executive Director
Oxygen Art Centre
Artist Biographies:
Daniel Barrow is a genderfluid, Tiohtià:ke / Montreal-based storyteller/artist/filmmaker who has employed parallel strategies in their approach to the tradition of paper dolls – inventing “narrative architectures” and “paper doll poems” that grapple with the dollhouse/paper doll.
Glenn Gear is an Indigiqueer filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist of mixed Inuit heritage currently living in Montréal. He is originally from Corner Brook Newfoundland and has family throughout Nunatsiavut. His practice is grounded in research creation shaped by Inuit and Indigenous ways of knowing – often employing the use of animation, photo archives, painting, beading, and work with traditional materials such as sealskin.
Paige Gratland is a visual artist and filmmaker producing projects and objects that engage with social history, design and craft practices. She learned to weave in 2019 at the Richmond Weavers and Spinners Guild and is currently completing the Master Weaver Program at Olds College. She is also 1/3 of the artist group Three Way Mirror with Daniel Barrow and Glenn Gear.