About
Justyna Werbel was born in Szczecin, Poland near the Baltic Sea. She received her BDes in Industrial Design and studied toward her MFA at OCADU, Toronto. Werbel’s practice explores sonic awareness by transcribing audio recordings of sonic masses in motion, into large and small-scale drawings to create a new way of investigating her drawing practice. She is exploring this practice through inhabiting and becoming sonically aware of her invisible topography, focusing on the body in a space that receives and produces sounds. Werbel transcribes minimally edited mono recordings made using a mobile phone, which documents the everyday experiences of the recordist. The transcriptions are made with tools and materials she has acquired and developed over several years of research and studio-based practice.
She has both exhibited and presented in Poland, Germany, Israel the Czech Republic, Uruguay, Brazil, India, and Canada. Werbel has been the recipient of numerous grants, including support from the Adama Mickiewicz Institute, the Polish Institute in New Delhi, the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv, as well as, the outstanding scholastic achievement grant from the Polonia Centre in Canada.