Jessica Houston journeys from pole to pole, employing oral narratives, photography, objects, painting and video as mediums. Her work centers on climate justice issues, with a particular focus on the deep time of ice and collaborative relationships with nature. Through her research-based practice, Houston collaborates with poets, penguins, scientists, and philosophers to uncover and highlight geographies of resistance in the Canadian Arctic, Antarctica and Iceland.
Selected solo and group exhibitions include …no footprints, even. at Vanderbilt University Museum of Art, TN, USA (2025); Beyond Her Horizons at The Royal Canadian Geographical Society in Ottawa (2024); Territoires sous observation at Museo de Artes de Querétaro in Mexico (2023); Terra Nova at CREA Gallery in Venice, Italy (2022); Ecologies: A Song For Our Planet at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts in Montréal, Canada (2021); Dear Future… at University of Northern Colorado Gallery in Greely, CO, USA (2020); I Beseech You: Women, Art, Politics and Power at Schmucker Art Gallery, Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA, USA (2020); and The Call of Things at the Arktikum Museum, University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland (2019). Her works are funded by The Canada Council for the Arts, National Geographic, Parks Canada, and are in the collections of Prêt d’oeuvres d’art, Musée National Des Beaux-Arts du Quebec; Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), Montréal, Québec; Bank of Montréal, Toronto; The Canada Council Art Bank; and the Consulate General of Monaco.
Over the edge
The Call
This Mountain
Horizon felt