bodies of art, bodies of labour

Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour by Kate Beaton, award-winning author of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, explores connections between class, literature, and art from Cape Breton Island. She addresses the fact that people from poor or working-class backgrounds face significant barriers entering the Canadian arts scene and shows that if they do not write themselves into stories, others will, often with damaging results. Beaton thoughtfully examines personal and working-class legacies, celebrating the authenticity and power of truly seeing ourselves and each other in the art that we create.

Kate Beaton is a cartoonist and graphic novelist from Nova Scotia. While studying history at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Beaton began writing comics for the student newspaper. Her comics, which combined literature, history, and off-beat humour, became immensely popular online, leading to the publication of two acclaimed comic volumes: Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops!, as well as children’s picture books The Princess and the Pony and King Baby. Beaton’s first graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, received wide acclaim. In addition to being the first graphic narrative to win Canada Reads, Ducks received the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Memoir and praise from Quill and Quire, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and President Barack Obama. Beaton currently resides in Nova Scotia / Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People, with her husband and two children.