Jess Dobkin

Jess Dobkin (born 1970) is a performance artist based in Toronto, Canada. She is best known for her 2006 work The Lactation Station.

She has a B.A. in Women’s Studies from Oberlin College, and an M.F.A. in Performance Art from Rutgers University. She is a Fellow at the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto.

Career
Dobkin first emerged as a performance artist in 2002. Her work draws on her experience as a lesbian and a mother. Her body often figures prominently in her performances. For example, Fee for Service (2006), was a performance installation where audience members were invited to sharpen a pencil in Dobkin's vagina.

Dobkin is also known as a community organizer and often combines this with her creative work. In May 2015, after a successful crowdfunding campaign, she collaborated with many Toronto artists to create an alternative newsstand in a vacant kiosk at the Chester Subway Station in Toronto for one year. Meant as a "creative exchange" for commuters, the kiosk acted as a space for artists' exhibition and performance, while it still functioned as a newsstand selling newspapers, magazines, and snacks for a "monetary exchange."

Dobkin has collaborated with other performance artists, including Martha Wilson, founder of the Franklin Furnace Archive.

Dobkin was a frequent performer at Montreal's Edgy Women feminist performance festival between the years 2004 and 2010.

Major exhibitions
In 2006, Dobkin exhibited The Lactation Station in Toronto at the Ontario College of Art and Design's Professional Gallery, curated by Paul Couillard of FADO. In this exhibition, Dobkin invited audience members to sample human breast milk. The exhibition, which was partly funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, gained widespread attention and prompted Health Canada to issue a national warning against the online sale of human breast milk. It was remounted in 2012 as part of Montreal's OFFTA Festival in co-presentation with Studio 303 at Usine C.

In 2009, Dobkin performed "Being Green," a video work in which she sings "Being Green" while dressed as Kermit the Frog and being fisted by another actor dressed as Jim Henson.

In 2015, Dobkin created How Many Performance Artists Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb (For Martha Wilson) and performed it at Enoch Turner Schoolhouse in Toronto as part of Images Festival. The work was a response and an ode to one of America’s foremost groundbreaking performance artists, Martha Wilson, offering reflections and humorous observations on the way we see. Dobkin's work was inspired by Martha Wilson’s 2005 video titled A History of Performance Art According to Me. The piece examined the history of performance art by defining its terms and conditions and acknowledging the history and inherent qualities of performance. It had multiple co-presenters, including the University of Toronto, York University, OCAD University, FADO Performance Art Centre, and the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Works

 * MONOMYTHS, 2017
 * The Magic Hour, 2016
 * The Artist-Run Newsstand, 2015 - 2016
 * How Many Performance Artists Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb (For Martha Wilson), 2015
 * The Performance Art Army, 2014
 * Acting/Performing/Audience, 2014 (co-directed with Shannon Cochrane)
 * Performance Artist for Hire, 2013
 * Free Childcare Provided, 2013
 * Affirmations for Artists, 2012
 * Bleeding at the Ball, 2011
 * Everything I've Got, 2010
 * Being Green, 2009
 * Mirror Ball, 2008-2009
 * Clown Car, 2008
 * The Lactation Station, 2006-2012
 * Fee for Service, 2006
 * Emergency Exits, 2006
 * Restored, 2004
 * Attending, 2003-2005
 * The Two Boobs, 2003
 * Composite Body, 2003
 * The Mad Chef, 2000-2003
 * Six Degrees of Lesbian Nation, 2003
 * Magic Trick, 2003
 * An Ontario Bride Seeks American Wives, 2003
 * Talk to Me, 2001

Personal life
Dobkin is Jewish a lesbian, and a mother.