AO Roberts (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist who builds worlds resonating with the unruly sounds of the voice, power, disability, and systems of belief. Based in Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg), their work unfolds across sculptural installation, experimental sound, and digital ecosystems. Their projects are spells often cast in collaboration—detuning labor to the subterranean pulses of what our bodies know but cannot prove. As critic Hannah Doucet observes, Roberts forges "unexpected and poetic connections between property, protection, body, care, and control," crafting spaces where sound and matter shed their roles as mere messengers to become thresholds of possibility and contradiction.
Their 2024 release Plants Properties Equipment (PPE), an interactive world developed with Vancouver’s Séance Collective, invites players into a sentient crip landscape, featuring an original soundtrack with contributions from Johanna Hedva, Molly Joyce, Andy Slater, Chisato Minamimura, and Medical Museum. Roberts performs experimental electronics under the alias VOR, whose Ruminant was released by Makade Star in 2022, and is a recent artist-in residence at Dreamsong Gallery (Minneapolis), Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation (Brooklyn), and Oolite Arts (Miami).
