Trans(per)Forming Nina Arsenault
After sixty surgeries at a cost of almost $200,000 to feminize and beautify her originally male body, transgendered Canadian artist Nina Arsenault has created a body of work emanating from her experiences that includes photographs, videos disseminated online, a website, a blog, several social networking presentation sites, stage plays, print media writing and performance of the body in both celebrity appearances and daily public life. Arsenault was born in rural Ontario in 1974 and until the age of six lived as Rodney in a trailer park with her working-class family. Her father delivered bread.
Judith Rudakoff is professor of theatre at York University in Toronto, Ontario. She is an award-winning dramaturge and coauthor of Between the Lines: The Process of Dramaturgy.