This exhibition seeks to imagine a world that provokes the emotions felt by those who live within alternate realities, including their loved ones and caregivers. It creates surprising moments of joy mixed with the unexpected fear and confusion that may interrupt their daily lives. It also examines how attitudes and behaviors can be altered by our associations to everyday objects and the stories they harbor within our psyche. Because the work is rooted in materiality, the cultural associations and history of the materials become a part of the content.

There is an intrinsic tension residing in each installation; natural materials cohabit with the artificial, the tangible lives alongside the virtual realm, and contemporary approaches to artmaking meld with traditional methods. All hint at the passage of time within an imagined existence. Society itself is multiple realities, most of which we overlook when they do not directly affect our personal situations. Considering the value of the other’s reality is central to understanding the two main underlying concepts of this work…empathy and insight.

The work is an investigation regarding the expected inevitability of aging and the complicated experiential and perceptual shifts that occur, affecting the individual and their communities, in other words...all human connections.

Shona Dietz is a prairie based multimedia artist whose practice is based on the everyday and rooted in materiality’s embedded associations, which in part, affect an individual’s perception of reality. Currently she is examining how attitudes and behaviours are altered by the experiential and perceptual shifts that occur as the human mind ages, affecting all social connections. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and the United States.

MFA Thesis Exhibition: Whose Reality is it?

Date: Thursday, August 20 - Saturday, August 29, 2026
Time: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm, Monday - Saturday
Location: Gordon Snelgrove Gallery

Public Reception and Performance

Date: Friday, August 28, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Location: Gordon Snelgrove Gallery
Performance: 8:00 pm 

Join the artist as she moves through the work, becoming the perceptions that may arise from each installation. Your perceptions may challenge hers, as it should be in an alternate reality.