Nina Vroemen is a multidisciplinary artist and educator born in Gatineau, Quebec, and based in Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal), on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka. Their practice spans video, performance, ceramics, and installation. It is grounded in research-driven, experimental methodologies that examine how artistic practice can activate ecological ways of thinking grounded in environmental and social justice. They hold an MFA in Sculpture and Ceramics from Concordia University (2024).
Vroemen’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at L’Ecart (QC, 2025), Agrégat (QC, 2025), and PHI (Montreal, 2025), and in group exhibitions at institutions including NERMA (Australia, 2025), the Critical Media Lab at McGill (2025), the Beall Center for Art + Technology (CA, 2025), the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (QC, 2024), and Centre Clark (QC, 2022). In February 2026, they will present work as part of Briser la glace: La biennale de Québec at MAC Baie-Saint-Paul.
Performance and time-based works have been presented at festivals such as Manifestation JE/US (QC, 2024), Sight and Sound (Eastern Bloc, 2024), Sentient Disobedience (PHI, 2024), Marées: Queer Tides (Gallery Sans Nom, 2023), and Place Publique (Darling Foundry, 2020). Their research-creation has been supported through residencies at PHI (2024), Studio Kura (Japan, 2024), Eastern Bloc (2023), PAF (France, 2023), Watershed Art and Ecology (Chicago, 2023), ARTSCAPE Gibraltar (2022), and RURART (2020). This year (2026), they are the recipient of the DePOT Artist-in-Residence Fellowship and the Woodhaven Artist-Scientist-in-Residence at UBC.
Vroemen’s writing and artistic research have been published in Bodies of Sound (Silver Press), Being a Body of Water (PHI), Engaging the Margins (Brill), and esse: art + opinions, amongst others. Most recently, their collaboration with Erin Hill, Horizon Factory, appears on the cover of Espace: art actuel no. 142 and will participate iin a roundtable at Plural Contemporary Art Fair (2026).
Project statement: Licence to Abandon: Confronting Nuclear Futures and Deep-Time Stewardship
With growing global energy demands and a search for carbon-neutral alternatives, nuclear energy is experiencing a global ‘renaissance’ as a net-zero, clean solution to our climate crisis. In response, countries globally have pledged to triple nuclear production by 2050, however its afterlife remains a profound oversight: nuclear waste. The half-life of Uranium-238— the primary element in high-level waste—is 4.5 billion years, a geological timescale that exceeds human comprehension yet defines the long-term risks of nuclear expansion. Without much public discourse, Canada is pursuing two controversial waste management projects: a Near Surface Disposal Site in Chalk River and a Deep Geological Repository in Wabigoon Ojibway Lake Nation. These projects expose deep social, political, and ethical fissures around what constitutes waste, whose lands and bodies can be ‘abandoned’ and how responsibility can be sustained across vast spans of time. The title of this project comes from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s licensing process for Class I nuclear facilities, which culminates in the ‘Licence to Abandon’. While the dictionary definition of ‘abandon’ is to leave behind, or to stop before completion, nuclear waste remains hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years—demanding responsibility, not abandonment. in nuclear developments unfolding in Canada and beyond.
Website: https://ninavroemen.com/
Instagram: @translucentgrapes
