Constructed Identities, a major show of new work by Persimmon Blackbridge, used mixed media wood carving with found objects to question how disability is framed as a fracturing of ordinary life rather than a normal, expected part of it. Her exploration of the figure began in disability, but necessarily complicated itself as our embodied identities intersect and overlap.

Constructed Identities was the opening exhibition of Tangled Art Gallery in 2015 and subsequently toured multiple Ontario cities, including the Canada Council for the Arts in Ottawa.

Blackbridge has worked as a sculptor, writer, curator, performer, fiction editor, cleaning lady and a very bad waitress. In this fully accessible exhibition, she used hand-crafted wood figures, metal and found objects to confront and complicate notions of disability.

Blackbridge has been awarded the Ferro-Grumley Fiction Prize, the VanCity Book Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the VIVA award for visual arts and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design Distinguished Alumni Award. Her art has been shown across Canada and the U.S., as well as in Australia, Europe, and Hong Kong. She lives on Hornby Island in British Columbia.

A short documentary captured both the 2019 exhibition at McMaster University and an interview with the artist in her home studio on Hornby Island, British Columbia.