Visual art / Civil rights & activism
Suzy Lake
born 1947 · photographer, performance and video artist
Detroit-born, Toronto-based photographer and performance artist, a pioneer of feminist art whose early work was shaped by 1960s Detroit.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 79- Detroit years
- 1947–1968
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Lake was born in Detroit in 1947 and began her art studies at Wayne State University and Western Michigan University between 1965 and 1968. She lived through the 1967 uprising in Detroit and was active in the civil rights and antiwar movements. In 1968 she left the United States for Montreal, and she later settled in Toronto, becoming one of Canada's most important contemporary artists. Using photography, performance and video, often with herself as the subject, she has explored identity, beauty, gender, aging and the ways women are seen and controlled, and she is regarded as a pioneering feminist artist and a committed political activist. She has said that her early On Stage photographs were influenced by her Detroit experience. Her work, including long-running series that track her own changing body, has been shown in major museums in Canada, the United States and Europe.
Highlights
- Studied at Wayne State University and Western Michigan University (1965–1968)
- Witnessed the 1967 Detroit uprising
- Moved to Montreal in 1968; later based in Toronto
- Pioneer of feminist photography and performance art
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1965–1968
Wayne State University
Where she began her fine art studies.