The Sisters of the Celestial Order of Nephology (the study of clouds) is an interdisciplinary performance project by Horizon Factory (Erin Hill and Nina Vroemen). Forming in 2019, during a dance residency at Studio 303 (Montreal), the fictitious, pseudo-sect of two, blue cloaked, atmospheric-nuns were called by the unseizable state of clouds and the ephemeral narratives that form them. These narratives are personal, environmental, futuristic, and potential warning signs.

The Sisters engage across multiple mediums and disciplines, including performance, video, radio, workshops, and writing. In 2024, they printed the prototype for their forthcoming publication Deep Gazing.

They have presented their work at RURART (Cookshire-Eaton, 2020), at the Fonderie Darling (Montreal, 2020), at the Third Space Gallery (Saint John, New Brunswick, 2021), at Artscape Gibraltar (Toronto, 2022), at CCOV (Montreal, 2022), at SummerWorks (Toronto, 2023), at Eastern Bloc (Montreal, 2023), at the Performing Arts Forum (Saint-Erme, France, 2023), and at PIQUE (Ottawa 2024).

Photo: Curtis Perry

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Deep Gazing with The Sisters of the Celestial Order of Nephology

Erin Hill and Nina Vroemen's project is a guide, a tool, an atlas and a companion for individual and communal attunement to the environment.

Meteorology, meaning the art of looking up, began as the study of individual meteors and expanded to the study of all weather. Look up!

Notice the sky above you knowing there is always a sky above you and, with it, the potential to forecast the future and to attune to the subtle, shifting present. It is no coincidence that we speak of the weather when we have nothing left to say. It is a unifier, a divider, a downpour, a drought.