Kaila Bhullar (She/They) is a second generation Indo-Chilean-Canadian experimental filmmaker + multimedia artist based in the stolen traditional territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwəta/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) tribes.
Largely informed by digitally-based art forms, Bhullar uses art-making as an introspective tool that explores various internal dispositions concerning identity and perception, including contemplations around the existential and political implications of images. As a queer and biracial individual, they are interested in analyzing cultural binaries and norms, where they use moving images and sound as a means to express the abstractions and tensions within these themes. Their inquiries often manifest as collages of varying forms, audiovisual works, and multimedia installations.
Recent exhibition and screening history includes Centre A, 2024; Gallery Gachet, 2024; What Lab, 2024; The James Black Gallery, 2023; XINEMA, 2023; Audain Gallery, 2023; The Polygon Gallery, 2022; Massy Arts Gallery, 2022; UNIT/PITT, 2022; Surrey Art Gallery, 2022; and The Small File Media Festival, 2020. Bhullar holds a BFA in Visual Art with a Minor in Psychology from the SCA at Simon Fraser University, and upon graduating in 2023 was recipient of the CAG Prize and the Dr. Tashakkor Undergraduate Award in Contemporary Arts.
Current projects include video work on display with Gallery Gachet’s BIPOC New Media Screen, and a hybrid digital-physical work for an upcoming exhibition with Dirty Dishes Collective at Whippersnapper Gallery, Toronto, ON, in 2025.
CURRENT & UPCOMING
Lacunae: The Spaces That Could Be, Centre A, July 11-27 2024; opening party July 11 2024
Queer Arts Festival Community Art Show, The James Black Gallery, June 17-29 2024; opening event June 17 7-10pm (free event)
To Map Alongside Belonging -- BIPOC New Media Screen, Gallery Gachet, June 10 2024; launch event on June 9 at 7pm with VIFF + XINEMA
Comfort Zone -- Dirty Dishes Collective (Hybrid Physical + Digital Exhibition), Whippersnapper Gallery, March 2025
MAC Sound Artist in Residence, Media Arts Committee [sound art residency; Dream Safely], 2023
Listen to Get a Plant?!
SCREENINGS
F-O-R-M Festival Public Screens [A Sequence of Moving Pixels, 06:57],
Mount Pleasant Grunt Gallery Screen, 2023
The Framing of Perception [A Sequence of Moving Pixels, 06:57], XINEMA, 2023Mount Pleasant Grunt Gallery Screen, 2023
Cosmic Queerities: Cinema Under the Stars Community Screening [Experiments in Super 8, 03:08], XINEMA + EPFC North, 2023
Small File Media Festival [The Great Emptiness in the Sky, 04:12], SFU, 2020
PAST
CAG Prize Residency, The Contemporary Art Gallery, 2024
Dream Safely, Audain Gallery, 2023
DissFunction of FUNKtion (POD Residency), The James Black Gallery [group residency + exhibition], 2023
Digital Interventions [Part 1: Heterotopias], Massy Arts Gallery, 2022
Everyone is Happening Always, Audain Gallery, 2022
Wrong Wave Festival: The Liquidation World Guide to Maximizing
Your Autonomy [festival], UNIT/PITT, 2022
Your Autonomy [festival], UNIT/PITT, 2022
ARTS 2022 / Category 5 Transformation, Surrey Art Gallery & Arts Council of Surrey, 2022
LINKS / PUBLICATIONS / SELECTED PRESS
Unsent Letters: to Whom It May Concern (dir. Vanessa Lefan), What Lab, 2023; Closing Night Performance Documentation by Claine Lamb
SOFT TONGUES: A BIOACOUSTIC OPERA (Dir. Jami Reimer), Simon Fraser University, 2022 Contact at a Distance // Mediating Vessels at Massy Arts, REISSUE, 2022
Massy Interviews / The Materiality of the Digital, Massy Arts Society, 2022
SCA Berlin Field School, 2022
Insider Series: Karin Jones, Burrard Arts Foundation, 2021
The Peak, 2019-2021
KPU Fine Arts exchange program, 2017