Lindsay Dawn Dobbin is a Kanien'kehá:ka–Acadian–Irish–Scottish water protector, sound artist, whale listener, poet, educator and lifelong learner who gratefully lives and creates in Wabanaki along the Bay of Fundy. Born on the Kennebecasis River, a tributary of Wolastoq ("the beautiful river"), they were raised in a wetland estuary where freshwater flowing from the Northern Appalachia meets the saltwater of the world's highest tides.
Dawn’s relational and place-responsive practice is guided by curiosity rather than form—the way of water. They are committed to creative paths that honour the ever-changing thresholds between land and sea, embracing an emergent (and submergent) ethics of improvisation rooted in kinship, living processes, deep listening, play and mutual flourishing. Their participatory art experiences invite re-membrance, shared movement and connection through the wonder of sound.
At the heart of Dawn’s practice is the drum—a vibrational instrument through which their genre-fluid, transdisciplinary work unfolds in relation to bodies, ecologies and temporalities. Their methodology follows tidal and cyclical rhythms as pathways to creative sovereignty—co-weaving connection, care and survival within shapeshifting worlds.
A committed collaborator, facilitator and steward of creative process, Dawn has co-created with artists, scientists, Elders, youth and the more-than-human, primarily where they live within the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik, Mi’kmaq and Peskotomuhkati, as well as across Turtle Island. Attentive to the shared beingness and resilience of meeting waters, their practice focuses on place-based arts initiatives that cultivate kinship with plants, animals and the elemental. Many of the collective efforts they have participated in are rooted in Land Back and Healing Justice lineages, engaging community-based care work, collective memory, storytelling exchange and embodied futurism.
Their collaborative work includes improvising music with constellations of human and more-than-human beings; designing and facilitating sound art and music programs for children, including those with disabilities; creating place- and time-responsive radio transmissions; composing and recording sound for film, dance and interdisciplinary performance; and curating interdisciplinary art projects and exhibitions rooted in land- and water-based pedagogy. They are also conducting sound-based research in partnership with water scientists and traditional, place-based water knowledge holders, exploring ecological and acoustic knowledge systems. Dawn's work has been shared nationally and internationally, and they are the recipient of the Arts Nova Scotia Emerging Artist Recognition Award (2019) and the Robert Fleming Prize (2021), awarded annually by the Canada Council for the Arts to an emerging composer in Canada.
Lindsay Dawn Dobbin gratefully acknowledges the support of:
