London's performance space she lived inside an art gallery for six days for a work called Lillex. Here, with UK artist Poppy Jackson, Arsenault performed rituals which explored feminine mythology as well as virtuality, including a trance-like dance which would often continue for six hours at a time. During these dances she was repeatedly burned with cigarettes on her chest, neck, breasts and occasionally above the genitals, and appeared unaffected by pain. Her photographic and video collaborations with artists like Bruce LaBruce, John Greyson, Jordan Tannahill, and Istvan Kantor have been shown across Canada and around the world via film and video festivals, academic and art journals and galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Pleasuredome, FADO and New York University. Arsenault has been a frequent guest speaker at universities in Canada and The United States as well as intellectual conferences like Moses Znaimer's Ideacity. She has also worked as a social activist promoting the rights and dignity of trans people with The Toronto Police Service, Mount Sinai Hospital, Women's College Hospital, The Sherbourne Health Centre, Supporting Our Youth, and The 519 Church Street Community Centre. In 2013, Arsenault joined MAU, a New Zealand company of contemporary performance led by Lemi Ponifasio. Her first work with MAU is called The Crimson House and is scheduled for a world tour in 2014 and beyond. In the same year, she had a supporting role in Greyson's web series Murder in Passing. Arsenault's life and work are the subject of the book Trans(per)forming Nina Arsenault - An Unreasonable Body of Work, edited by Judith Rudakoff, published in April 2012. Personal life Arsenault dated Canadian killer and alleged cannibal Luka Magnotta around 2002 before his notoriety for violent crimes. She says that Magnotta was obsessed with wanting to be famous, and that he made disturbing comments about injuring kittens when they dated. She has said that she believes that the murders he is alleged to have committed were done as a result of, and under the influence of, drugs. References External links Arsenault's first column at Fab Magazine Canadian columnists Canadian transgender writers Living people People from the Regional Municipality of Niagara Actresses from Ontario Journalists from Ontario Writers from Ontario Canadian female prostitutes 1974 births Canadian women journalists Transgender artists Canadian women columnists Canadian stage actresses Canadian web series actresses 21st-century Canadian actresses Transgender actresses 21st-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights Canadian women