The Body Is a Darkroom
Katie Jung

Katie Jung

The Body Is a Darkroom is an exhibition of large-scale soft ground intaglio prints by artist Katie Jung. Each work was produced using the direct transfer of textures from leather, nylon, mesh, and skin onto copper plates.  

Collaborating with both Katie’s Mormon family of origin and her queer chosen family was central to this project. The Body Is a Darkroom was seeded after being gifted the sacred Mormon undergarments by the women in her family. Katie’s sister and mother, Hannah and Linda Jung, provided the materials that inspired the project; her father, Paul Jung, assisted her in creating the copper plates of the Mormon temple garments; her partner, Gage Roberts, collaborated on the prints of the queer garments and he is co-creator of the work “Niwin Mashkikī Mijiginishkwemikag.”  

“Niwin Mashkikī Mijiginishkwemikag,”included in the exhibition, grew through conversations between Katie and Gage about Mormonism’s anti-trans, anti-Indigenous, homophobic purity doctrine. Together they made a large-scale soft ground intaglio print of Gage’s body on paper made using the four sacred medicines: tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and cedar. “Niwin Mashkikī Mijiginishkwemikag” means “Four Medicines Paper” in Anishinaabemowin. By using the animate plural classification, the title names these papers as living.

Katie Jung is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is material focused and process based. Originally trained in photography, she has also worked extensively with weavings, sculpture, filmmaking, and now printmaking. Her projects are often collaborative and start from found materials (for example, her sister’s old Mormon underwear). She grew up Mormon but left the Church in 2003. She calls Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang home. 

Gage Roberts is a trans artist and writer of mixed Métis, Algonquin ancestry. He has been reconnecting with his family roots in Timiskaming First Nation. Living in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang, his work explores trauma, incarceration, sex work, and survivance (Gerald Vizenor) through writing, film, touch and, in this current project, print.

This exhibition project stems from a research and creation residency carried out at Atelier Circulaire during the 2024–2025 year, as part of the Louis-Pierre-Bougie Emerging Artists Grant, of which Katie Jung is the recipient of the fifth edition.