Meet Meaghan, Our New Digital Learning Assistant!

Hi everyone! My name is Meaghan Sweeney, my pronouns are She/They. I am a local Windsor-Essex artist. I work with mixed media and found objects to create my work. My favourite materials to work with are ink, watercolour paint, and collage. My art explores my values, identity, and mental health experience. I am passionate about mental health advocacy and using art to build community.

I received my BFA with honours in Fine Arts at the University of Windsor in 2021 and a certificate in Beaux-Arts from Collège Boréal in 2016. I am the President of ACWR’s Vanguard Youth Arts Collective and an Adult Mentor to the Youth Advisory Committee at the YWHO Windsor-Essex branch.

In October 2022, I held my first solo art exhibition called An Invitation to Exist at the Artspeak Gallery, ACWR, in Windsor. The work in this exhibition focused on the complexity of living with mental illness and its impact on navigating life. In my installation Keeping it Together, I used jars and flowers to create a visual representing my experience living with OCD. The glass jars were a symbol of relentless obsession using the visual convention of repetition, and the flowers were a symbol of the things I care about. I manipulated the glass jars and flowers together in an attempt to preserve the flowers through drying or oil processes. The exhibition was an opportunity to invite my experience to exist without shame and hopefully encourage others to take up space without judging their struggles. Within my mental health advocacy and art practice, it has become increasingly important to me to discuss my experience publicly. The goal is to address shame as a boundary to care and treatment and actively create conversations to dismantle it socially.

When I am not making art or involved in the community, I enjoy attending different art events, poetry readings, plays, and music shows. One of my favourite places to be is in a library. I also love relaxing on my patio with a nice cup of tea and spending time with my dogs and bunnies.

I am now working as the Digital Learning Assistant at AWE. I am excited about this opportunity. In this role, I look forward to using art as a tool for learning, making digital resources more accessible, and having meaningful interactions with the public. I hope to develop my leadership skills, improve my public speaking, and gain more knowledge. I find it amazing that I attended summer camps at the gallery as a kid, and now I get to work here!