For What It's Worth (2023) Commissioned by the
Wellcome Collection, London, UK. ''For What It's Worth
It was also covered in Hyperallergic
[, The Grocer
, ARTnews
, and The Polyphony''.
Wetrospective (2021) Wetrospective was Dobkin's first solo retrospective exhibition curated by Emelie Chhangur at the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) (Toronto, Canada), occupying four gallery rooms and featuring a custom-built digital finding guide with augmented reality (AR) components, computational art elements, live performances, and public programming. The exhibition was created with support and collaboration of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology at
York University, Hemispheric Encounters, the AMPD Makerspace, FADO Performance Art Centre, York University faculty and students, D/deaf artist collaborators and ASL interpreters, and local DJs. The exhibition received in-depth coverage in
Hyperallergic,
C Magazine and
Galleries West. A book related to the exhibition,
Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective: Constellating performance archives edited by Laura Levin, was published by Intellect Books and AGYU (UK, Canada 2024). The publication has been accompanied by performance events in Toronto at
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, New York City at Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, London at
Live Art Development Agency, and Montreal at Festival TransAmériques.
The Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar The Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar (Toronto 2006, Montreal 2012, Edmonton 2016) is a participatory performance in which audiences are invited to taste samples of human breast milk donated by new mothers, designed to provoke dialogue about intimacy, taste, risk, culture, and taboo. During a 2016 interview about the exhibition, Dobkin mentioned that she brought her daughter with her during its presentation in Edmonton, noting the practical realties of performing while parenting. The performance was recognized as "Best Performance Art" by
Xtra Magazine in 2006. The project has received ongoing media and scholarly attention, and sparked conversation with a wider public, with numerous articles exploring its critical engagement with cultural norms, taboos, and the history of breastfeeding, intimacy, and social risk. Documentation from the project was exhibited at the
Art Gallery of Ontario (8 October 2022 – 23 April 2023) as part of
Her Flesh curated by Renata Azevedo Moreira.
The Magic Hour (2017) From 2014 to 2016, Dobkin was Artist-in-Residence at Theatre Centre (Toronto, Canada) where she created
The Magic Hour, a 75-minute solo performance created with a team of theatre designers and collaborators. The performance engages directly with questions of how traumatic experiences are narrated. In a conversation with Laura Levin, Dobkin reflected on the political and dramaturgical pressures placed on testimony, asking how personal experiences of sexual violence or identity formation become framed as linear "stories" and what is lost in that framing. Writing on the performance, Levin argues that Dobkin "queers hierarchies of mattering" by drawing attention to the production apparatus that shape its creation, treating elements such as lighting, sound, and backstage labour as integral to its meaning.
The Magic Hour was developed in collaboration with director Stephen Lawson, lighting designers Michelle Ramsay and
Jennifer Tipton, and sound designer Richard Feren. The show received a
Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Lighting Design.
The Artist-Run Newsstand (2015–2016) For one year Dobkin created and operated
The Artist-Run Newsstand, a newsstand kiosk located in
Chester Station, a Toronto subway station. The kiosk served as a site for performances, installations, screenings, artist talks, and the sale of zines and artist multiples, while also functioning as a magazine and sundries shop.
The Artists' Soup Kitchen (2012) In 2012, Dobkin organized ''The Artist's Soup Kitchen'' with collaborators Stephanie Springgay and Catherine Clarke, a curatorial and community-engaged project that offered free weekly hot lunches to artists during the Toronto winter. Each week a different artist led the lunch, bringing their own creative approach to the Artist's Soup Kitchen, which, according to the organizers, served over 500 people during the project. == Teaching and curatorial work ==