Improvisation, Intuition, and the Orchestrated Accident with Kourtney Roy

Santa Fe Workshops collection of free online events, Creativity Continues, features a special Saturday event in July with Canadian artist Kourtney Roy, whose work explores improvisation, performance, and the transformation of everyday environments into cinematic, fictional scenes.

Working across photography, cinema, and performance, Kourtney builds staged realities that sit between humor and unease, fiction and autobiography. In this artist talk, she introduces her method of the “orchestrated accident,” a way of working that embraces spontaneity and chance within a loose framework, allowing images to emerge through direct response to place using props, costumes, and self-performance. She turns ordinary or overlooked spaces into improvised film sets, working intuitively in transitional environments that feel temporary or in-between, often performing as characters she constructs for the camera.

She shares a selection of projects, moving through them in a loose chronological order. She speaks informally about how the work is made on the ground, including how scenes are constructed, and how chance and decision-making shape each image and situation.

Kourtney Roy is a Canadian artist originally from northern Ontario and now based in Paris. Her practice merges photography, cinema, and performance to create fictional, staged worlds that blur reality and imagination. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Musée de l’Élysée, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Paris Photo, and the Rencontres d’Arles, and is held in public and private collections.

The program concludes as Kourtney engages in a live Q&A with the webinar audience. For those unable to attend live, a recording is available to all registered participants.

Creativity Continues is a program that collectively develops creative voices by offering connection and encouraging expression. Because the goal is to engage all within our creative community, we encourage you to extend invitations and share Santa Fe Workshops Creativity Continues events with anyone who expresses an interest.