Personal Injury

Описание: ARTs + Change Virtual Conference, February 18 – 22, 2026
Title: Personal Injury
Presenter: Jennifer Laiwint
Date: February 19, 2026

About the Conference:
ARTs + Change is a virtual conference hosted by the University of Rochester’s Institute for the Performing Arts, in partnership with the Office of Engagement & Enrichment, the Paul J. Burgett Intercultural Center, Create a Space Now, the Eastman Institute for Music Leadership, and the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival. This conference provided opportunities for artists of all disciplines, educators, community members, and community organizations to come together for five days of inspiring presentations, dazzling performances, and thought-provoking discussions on the intersection of arts, community, and changemaking.

About the Presenter:
Jennifer Laiwint (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose work spans video, movement, drawing, and performance. Her practice examines the emotional, social, and political dimensions of transformation, concealment, and recovery, often through embodied and research-driven experimentation. Using narrative and documentary strategies, she investigates the cultural and psychosocial forces that shape how we mask, alter, or lose the self. In collaboration with performers, Jennifer often adopts fictional personas such as self-help authors or “manosphere” gurus to explore the tensions between sincerity and self-invention, aspiration and coercion. Recent projects have addressed parasocial relationships, post-injury healing, and the aesthetics of control, using improvisation and physical prompts as generative tools. She has developed work at the Banff Centre, Toronto Dance Theatre, and NARS Foundation, and presented at Western Front, SummerWorks, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and the plumb gallery. She is currently completing her MFA in Film at York University.