Photo credit: Dave Stobbe

Troy Gronsdahl

Troy Gronsdahl is an artist and curator from Saskatoon. Troy studied at the University of Saskatchewan and holds a master’s degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design where he was the recipient of the Governor General’s Academic Medal. Troy has received a number of awards in the field of visual arts and music, including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and SK Arts. He has applied his leadership and expertise as Board Chair of BlackFlash Magazine, and for five years, he was a stabilizing force, leading the organization through a challenging process of renewal.

Working across diverse media including text, photography, video, and performance, Troy executes his projects with an eloquent use of material and a poetic restraint. His work draws attention to the ways we seek meaning and the slippery nature of truth, exploring the limits of language and the unreliability of interpretation, and the inherent absurdity of this condition. In addition to his visual art practice, Troy is an award-winning musician, creating genre-bending hip hop music under the moniker “soso.” With six solo albums, his creative output has cemented his reputation as one of the most unique voices in alternative hip hop. Best known for songs that explore family and social histories, personal experience and place, he operates at the edges of the hip hop genre, developing a distinctive and personal body of work that helped define the prairie hip hop aesthetic.