not knowing is the most intimate — Shalon T. Webber-Heffernan

This spring (2025), I am curating a performance series for FADO Performance Art Centre’s Emerging Artist Series , exploring themes of collective and personal grief, and the ways in which we might connect through shared vulnerability. Inspired by the Buddhist koan, “not knowing is the most intimate,” the series embraces the uncertainty of our contemporary emotional landscapes, inviting both artists and audiences to move into the discomfort of uncharted waters.

While reading Vanessa Machado de Oliveira's Hospicing Modernity, I was struck by the idea that domination often involves a deliberate denial of relationships and a suppression of the senses. Drawing on Dwayne Donald’s assertion that sensory atrophy is central to this process - disrupting traditional knowledge systems and relational connections—I began to consider how deeply this numbness has seeped into the fabric of modern life. What would it mean to counter this—to resist detachment—through intimacy and attunement? This question sits at the heart of this curatorial series, exploring how performance can reawaken connection through embodied presence and shared vulnerability in times of grief.

Bringing together artists whose work grapples with death, mourning, collective grief, climate anxiety, somatics, and rituals of healing, the series unfolds across live performances, an immersive book installation, a sound bath and guided meditation inspired by the tradition of living funerals. It is an experiment in shedding emotional armour - to feel, to connect, to soften. It is an invitation to let grief become a shared language that unites rather than isolates—guiding us beyond knowing and into the realm of embodied presence and relationship.

Schedule of Events

Saturday, May 10:

630PM: Performance by Sasha-Singer Wilson, What Will I Tell Her? 8PM: Sound Bath with Trish Lanns, Embracing Waves of Grief: A Sound Healing Meditation. **Limited Spots ~ REGISTER HERE

Saturday, May 17:

Performances by Claudia Edwards and Amy Hull. Details coming soon.

Sunday, May 18:
3:30PM: Virtual talk/workshop with Joyce Lee, Somethymes Grief Goes for a Walk.

Featured Artists (L to R):
Trish Lanns; Sasha Singer-Wilson, Amy Hull, Claudia Edwards, and Joyce LeeAnn.