What would it be like for the late artist Joyce Wieland (1930–1998) to experience the first retrospective of her work in almost 40 years?  

This is the question at the centre of a performance series taking place in the exhibition Joyce Wieland: Heart On. Currently on view at the AGO, Heart On, brings together over five decades of Wieland’s work, showcasing how she engaged with ecological devastation, the complexities of nationhood, female sexuality and feminism, among many more topics, across media. 

Commissioned for Heart On, A Fairytale for Joyce is the brainchild of Kristen Thomson, actor and playwright, and Tanja Jacobs, actress and director. In this 20-minute performance, the duo imagines Wieland’s experience visiting her exhibition, drawing from the artist’s relationship to her legacy, her work and herself. The next performances of A Fairytale for Joyce are on Wednesday, November 5, and Sunday, January 4. 

Michel Thomas Henry Lambeth. Joyce Wieland (by window), unknown. Gelatin silver print, 24.5 x 33.7 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift of Av Isaacs, Toronto, 1994. © Estate of Michel Lambeth. 94/453

From the initial announcement of Heart On, Jacobs and Thomson were keen to learn more about Wieland’s life; they attended dedicated study days on Wieland at the AGO and travelled to Montreal for the exhibition’s debut at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). Intimately studying Wieland’s life and art, they were struck by how she maintained her creativity and softness despite the many trials she faced throughout her life.  

“We found ourselves very moved by the amount of loss and hardship in Wieland’s life alongside her vivacious, witty, and passionate output,” Thomson remembered. “She seemed light as a feather while navigating the vicissitudes of many calamities.” 

“Heart On is an epic expression of Wieland’s tenderness, joy, love and radiance,” Jacobs added. “That’s what I feel when I move through the exhibition and what I felt the very first time. It is somehow never fashionable to declare one’s love. Is this because doing so leads us to foolishness? Does it leave us open to ridicule? Despite the losses she endured throughout her life, Wieland never lost her playfulness, capacity for affection, hugely expansive heart, and love for Canada and for all of us.” 

Performance view: Tanja Jacobs and Kristen Thomson, A Fairytale for Joyce, September 26, 2025. Commissioned by Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo © AGO. 

Created through improvisation, Thomson and Jacobs spent countless conversations, improvisation sessions, and spontaneous writing prompts exploring Wieland’s works and personal life for A Fairytale for Joyce. While they explored different characters and angles, eventually they landed on the performance centring on Wieland exploring her own exhibition. They decided to frame the performance around the idea of fairytales after Jacobs created a fantastical notion of Wieland dreaming about having a small fairy daughter that could fit into one of the teacups in the work Cooling Room II (1964), which is on view in Heart On. 

“[Jacob’s] funny notion captured some of Wieland's heartfulness, passion, aspiration, femininity and lightness, and that was when we decided that we would call the piece A Fairytale for Joyce,” Thomson recalled. “The notion of fairytale guided the spirit of what we wanted to create and what we felt in our hearts about Wieland’s work—the approachability of fairytales, the colourful twists of its stories and logic, and their primal connection to the deepest paths through the mystery of life.”  

“So much of Wieland’s work has something in common with the idea of the fairytale. Her works have a ‘doubleness.’ They are objects but also representations of things,” Jacobs explained. “Defend the Earth (1972) has all these levels. It’s a beautiful and dreamy object; it could insulate a family huddled against the cold; it prompts associations with the familiar activity of gazing at the sky, a contemplative action often done in solitude, and imagines Nature herself making this imperative message from clouds to stand on guard for the Earth. The whole notion of standing up for something—for the Earth, the Arctic, for all our languages, our resources, for traditional work made by women’s hands—this reflects Wieland’s ‘twice-ness’ of purpose.” 

Joyce Wieland. Defend the Earth, 1972. Quilted Egyptian cotton, dacron, handstitched, 195 x 719.3 x 12.7 cm. National Research Council Canada, Ottawa ON, commissioned for the National Science Library. © National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

The inaugural performance of A Fairytale for Joyce took place in September. Reflecting on this performance, Thomson was pleasantly surprised at how she and Jacobs created an impactful performance despite working at a shorter length than they are typically used to.   

“The first performance of the piece was very exciting. By the time we presented the piece, we felt excited that we had a genuine offering for people attending the exhibition,” she said. “The challenge was to create something fresh that feels fully expressed and satisfying in 20 minutes. The pleasure of the piece is performing something lighthearted, playful, and short and sweet in the midst of Wieland’s work. It comes alive for us, and hopefully for audiences.” 

For Jacobs, a resounding observation from their first performance of A Fairytale for Joyce is a mutual love between Wieland and her viewers. 

“As we built our show through improvisations, it became stirring to imagine what it might be like for Wieland to have a single chance to walk through the retrospective and see the scope of her work and its prescience,” she said. “We wanted Wieland to feel how people love her work and how the people love her back. That is exactly what we experienced in our first performance in September. Canada loves this artist.” 

Performance view: Tanja Jacobs and Kristen Thomson, A Fairytale for Joyce, September 26, 2025. Commissioned by Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo © AGO. 

Join Kristen Thomson and Tanja Jacobs in paying tribute to Wieland’s art, life, and love by attending the next performance of A Fairytale for Joyce on Wednesday, November 5, on Level 5 of the AGO. The final performance of A Fairytale for Joyce takes place on Sunday, January 4. This performance is free with general admission. The commission of A Fairytale for Joyce was led by Bojana Stancic, Program Curator, Performance and Live, with generous support from the Richard and Beryl Ivey Canadian Art Fund. 

Joyce Wieland: Heart On, currently on view on Level 5 of the AGO. The exhibition is curated by Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the AGO and Anne Grace, Curator of Modern Art at the MMFA. It's co-organized by the AGO and MMFA.   

Supporting Sponsor

Power Corporation of Canada - tier 2

Lead Support

Volunteers of the AGO

Generous Support

Jamie & Patsy Anderson

The Birks Family Foundation

Dr. Ronald M. Haynes

Rosamond Ivey

J.S. McLean Fund

Women’s Art Initiative