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Adrienne Kaye
Adrienne Kaye is a 3rd Year Film Production (BFA) student at the University of Regina. As an Indigenous filmmaker, she aims to bring awareness to the many issues that Indigenous peoples face. Ethical Indigenous representation means the world to her. She enjoys film photography and crochet in her free time.
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Amanda Kindzierski
An Ojibwe, Metis, Polish and Ukrainian filmmaker who identifies as Two-Spirited,
Amanda Kindzierski has written, produced, directed and edited over 20 films that have played in local, regional or international film festivals. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, she also teaches filmmaking to children and adults for schools and community organizations. “Being a Native Canadian and an out lesbian are very important aspects of my life and therefore feature heavily in my work making films and teaching.”
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Amanda Smart
Amanda Smart (Mino-wasi-qi-mook) is Red River Metis Anishinaabe Ancestry from the Sturgeon Clan. Amanda studied Fine Arts in Art History at the University of Manitoba and Film Studies at The National
Screen Institute.As a multidisciplinary commissioned visual artist, Amanda works primarily in Conte, paint, charcoal, ink, metal and over the last two decades, she has worked in live theatre as a Stage Manager, Technical Director, Production Manager and Scenic Artist. Amanda is a Production Coordinator, Assistant Director and most recently, Extras Casting in the motion picture industry on an international level.
Amanda is devoted to healing through traditional Anishinaabe Spirituality including ceremonial fasting, pilgrimages, and the healing power of the natural world. Much of Amanda’s work reflects these journeys as well as Indigenous rights and political freedoms.
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Anju Singh
Anju Singh is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, media artist, and video artist based in Vancouver, BC whose practice is an exploration of texture and contrast through the use of extended/experimental techniques, electronics, musical and non-musical materials, and processing. Anju works with traditional instruments, electronics, found sounds, custom-built instruments, photography, video, serigraphy, and film to create works that explore tension and conflict. As a multidisciplinary artist, her works are often collaborative process-based works that bring contrasting themes and concepts together. A core process in her practice is using methods of deconstruction and reanimation to repurpose and contextualize materials in new compositional environments. Her portfolio includes traditional music composition, performance, electronic music, sound sculptures, film, and audio-visual installation work, as well as custom instrument design and print making.
Anju’s work has been presented across Canada, in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States at festivals, galleries, and events in a variety of spaces including Fylkingen in Stockholm, Sweden; Send + Receive Festival in Winnipeg; Vancouver Jazz Festival, Polygon Gallery; and most recently in Copenhagen, Denmark. Anju will be presenting her work in Japan as part of a tour in April 2024.
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Ashkan Nejadebrahimi
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, and with a BFA in sculpture from the University of Tehran, Ashkan Nejadebrahimi moved to Canada to study MFA at the University of Manitoba.
As a multi-disciplinary artist, he has participated in group exhibitions both in Tehran and Winnipeg and collaborated with filmmakers and other Video artists as a movie and video editor. His current artistic practice is focused on abstract drawing and sculpture.
Subjects of Ashkan’s practice vary on each project including intersections of fantasy and reality, and currently, he is interested in the concept of monsters and how they have been created in each era to define moral and existential challenges faced by societies.
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Azka Ahmed
Azka Ahmed is a South Asian multidisciplinary artist and first-generation immigrant on Treaty 1 territory. Their practice explores concepts of healing, identity and diaspora, and they are currently focusing on creating evocative spoken word poems and lens-based artwork.
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Bawaadan Collective
Bawaadan Collective was formalized in the Spring of 2019, we worked co-operatively together to create the short film Midland Motel Room 77′. Utilizing close friend and familial ties, we quickly began to self-produce our own Indigenous content. Modern, contemporary content. As the scale and scope of each project grew, we continued to explore and expand our membership to incorporate new skills and relationships. Each new member brought on board has been an asset to each of the projects, and continues to support our future work.
We are currently working to further formalize our structure, moving to reflect the more traditional ‘flat’ structures of our communities past. Each member of the collective and has independently had personal successes in the music, visual arts, film, media arts, fashion, craft and theatre arts fields. Additionally, several members have experience with academic and administrative foci and have been able to assist in the on-going coordination of our business practices
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Billy Parrell
Billy Parrell (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist passionate about community-engaged art. She teaches art workshops to youth. Her work tells stories about belonging and is concerned with themes of movement and space. As an exercise in privacy and performance, she sometimes publishes work under the artist name motif. This honours the great motifs of her Métis heritage. By empowering themselves to live creatively they hope to inspire others to dream big.
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Carol Geddes
Born in Teslin, Yukon, of the Inland Tlingit people, Carol Geddes’ first major film, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, won a Silver Medal for Educational Documentary in San Francisco and set her on an award-winning career in the industry. Since then Geddes, a now internationally acclaimed filmmaker and writer, has produced 25 documentary films and television programs. Her second major film, Picturing A People, won an Outstanding Achievement Award and a Gemini nomination for the Best Canadian Documentary in 1997.
Whether writing, producing or directing, her prolific output has highlighted the stories and struggles of Aboriginal life in Canada. Her latest film, the animation Two Winters: Tales From Above the Earth won nine national and international awards. In 2002, Geddes was the recipient of the Queen’s Royal Jubilee Medal for her outstanding contributions to the cultural community. She has served on the Teslin Tlingit Council; The Yukon Heritage Resources Board; the Canadian Council for the Arts; the Yukon Human Rights Commission; the Canadian Conference of the Arts; the National Film Board of Canada; and the Women in Media Foundation.
Geddes is the writer, director, producer of the award-winning series Anash and the Legacy of the Sun-Rock (APTN, ACCESS and SCN Canada), a half-hour children’s quest series that tells the compelling tale of young Anash’s mission as he tries to re-unite all parts of the Sun-Rock in order to fulfill a prophecy to attain peace and protect a fragile land.
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Chanelle Lajoie
Chanelle Lajoie (they/them) is a Queer Red River Métis Futurist and guest on Tiohti:áke Territory studying at McGill Law. Moving-image invites balance in their life by honouring and engaging with the communities to which they belong. Their ties to community are best witnessed in recent projects Métis Femme Bodies (2019) and Lavender Menace (2020).
Chanelle completed MAWA’s Foundation Mentorship Program (2020-21) preparing them for moving- image projects Grand Mother Tongue, with Toronto Queer Film Festival’s DIY Lab Mentorship Program (2020-21) and Bison Hunt, with ImagineNATIVE’s Doc Salon Fellowship as part of the European Film Market (2021).
They attended Harbour Collective’s Meech Lake Residency (August 2021), completing moving-image project Land (Ab)Use. They are looking forward to finalizing Snap Chat Thirza Cuthand as part of Image + Nation Story Lab Mentorship and presenting If Not HereThen Where with Toronto Queer Film Festival’s Queer Futurism Symposium this spring.
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Christine Kirouac
Christine Kirouac is a Winnipeg-based artist/writer whose interdisciplinary projects are a negotiation of (dis)placement, (non)acceptance. She crafts provocative work through a lens of humor, personal intimacy and experience that exposes struggles to translate home. Alluring, absurd, and always open-ended Kirouac prefers the uncomfortable tease to the whole, leaving a trail of impressions and questions to linger.
Along with teaching in Canada and the US, she has participated in multiple residencies at the Banff Centre, Vermont Studio Centre and received numerous grants from Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and National Film Board. From 2013-2015 she was co-owner, Director/Curator of the boutique art fair New Material concurrent with Miami Art Basel, Verge Soho New York NY and Multiples; Critical Craft and Visual Culture Fair out of Chicago IL.
Solo exhibitions include The Same Leaving at the South Eastern Center for Contemporary Arts in NC, Belfast NI Billboard Project NI, Toronto Ireland Park Foundation video commission, Paper Men Project at The Delta Gallery Winston-Salem NC, Siren Fall at Winthrop University Gallery Rock Hill SC, After Winter, Before Spring at Maison Des Artistes Visuals in Winnipeg.
Group shows and screenings include Winnipeg Art Gallery, Museum London ON, INDA Lisbon International Film Festival Portugal, 4th Cairo International Video Festival Egypt, Global House Gwang Ju South Korea, Heritage International Film Program; Berlin, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Presénce Autochtone: First Peoples’ Festival, Montréal, QC and Asheville Art Museum NC and Manifest; Research and Drawing Center in Cincinnati OH USA. Her video Nectarine will premier with Harbour Collective at Docked in SASK 2023.
Kirouac works out of her Winnipeg studio, writing, making and is a member of the Point Douglas Environment Committee spearheading new approaches to challenges of the shelterless and the plight of Red River she lives near.
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Claude Latour
Claude Latour (he/him) was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario with mixed Euro/Anishinabe/Kanyen’kéha descent and through his mother’s bloodline, is a band member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg of the Algonquin Nation, Bear Clan.
Claude obtained his Diploma of Fine Arts from Heritage College in Hull, Quebec. With the present Bill 96, he never would have graduated. In 2001, he received his BFA from the University of Ottawa.
Over the past three decades, Claude has created works of art in various mediums and defines himself as a multidisciplinary artist. Since 2013, he has been working on a self directed body of work entitled, “The Yellow House Series” comprised of thirteen 11”x 14” sketch books employing the act of automatic drawing using black Indian ink on paper. Using photography, the images are abstracted from eleven books thus far created with the goal of honouring the thirteen moons all in good time representing our sacred traditional annual cycle of life.
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Craig Commanda
Craig Commanda is an Anishinaabe multi-disciplinary artist from Kitigan Zibi First Nation, working in film, music, beadwork, poetry, photography, traditional crafts, hide tanning, and digital fabrication. He also holds a BFA in Film Production from Concordia University.
His work has been screened at Imaginative, Wairoa Maori, Maoriland, Switzerland’s Kurtzfilmtage, and more. He is a professional exhibiting beadwork artist, (SAW Gallery, OAG, Pierre François Oullette Contemporary Art Gallery) and most recently has contributed his portraiture photography to an international art project called the Inside Out project. Now he currently bases his practice in Montreal/Mòniyang.
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David Garneau
David Garneau’s (Métis) practice includes painting, curation, and critical writing. His artistic, curatorial, and critical work often concerns Indigenous contemporary identities, and Métis culture. Garneau has recently given keynote talks and co-curated exhibitions in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. His art works are in numerous public and private collections.
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Dayna Danger
Dayna Danger (they/them) is a Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, Métis-Saulteaux-Polish visual artist. Danger was raised in Miiskwaagamiwiziibiing, Treaty 1 territory, or so-called Winnipeg. They are currently based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mōniyāng or so-called Montreal. Through utilizing the processes of photography, sculpture, performance and video, Danger creates works and environments that question the line between empowerment and objectification by claiming the space.
Ongoing works exploring BDSM and beaded leather fetish masks negotiate the complicated dynamics of sexuality, gender, and power in a consensual and feminist manner. Their focus remains on Indigenous and Métis visual and erotic sovereignty. In 2021, they began a doctorate at Concordia University that focuses on hide-tanning stories and bush skills, culture camps, passed on from their Saulteaux great-grandmother, Madeline McLeod (Campbell).
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Dianne Ouellette
Dianne Ouellette (she/her) is a Métis producer, writer, director, multimedia artist and curator. She completed her MFA in Media Production (2020).
Dianne is Chair of the Board of Directors for Sâkêwêwak and a long-time member of the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative. She facilitated online digital media workshops for Listen to Dis’ Community Arts Organization (LTD) members and collaborated with them during the pandemic to create Mine to Have (2021), a digital adaptation of a theatre play, and a music video, Sea of Love (2021). Her current film practice focus’ on lost culture and language. She completed aen loo pawatamihk (wolf dream) (2020) and a short digital production, lii bufloo aen loo kishkishiw (buffalo wolf memory) (2022). She is currently writing her first narrative feature film, ann louise goes to Hollywood, developing a documentary, Stol(l)’en, about her murdered grandmother, and is developing a collaborative film series, Thahyu:ni: akaowa:tsi (wolf blood) with her adopted Oneida Nation family.
Her films have been screened and awarded internationally at festivals including; ImagineNATIVE + Media Arts, Wairoa Māori, Māoriland, Slamdance, Antimatter [media art], Dawson City International, Ann Arbor, OurToba, Asinabka, Gimme Some Truth Documentary, Saskatchewan International Film Awards, Saskatchewan International, Regina International, Female Eye, Images, Splitski Filmski, and many more. Some exhibitions and installations include The Autobiographical Animal, exploration of animality & posthuman narrative – Deluge.ca, Nuit Blanche, and Gallerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris.
Dianne has focused her lens on family, history, and identity for more than 30 years, working in analog and digital media. Sharing through film, video, photography, digital, soundscapes, and writing, fulfills her passion for storytelling. Mentoring others to make creative content that connects and motivates people is valuable in her creative goals.
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Esperanza Sanchez Espitia
Esperanza Sanchez Espitia is a Colombo Canadian photojournalist, a base lenses artist, and a women storyteller filmmaker. Esperanza has been using her cameras to fight against women’s and First Nations People’s discrimination. Esperanza’s artistic work has been exposed on a national and international level.
Esperanza won the 48-hour 2021 RPL Filmmaking Challenge with her film, Our First Apartment. Another film, Whispering to my Soul, was part of the widely celebrated Sâkêwêwak Film Festival. Her film Surgery also received notable attention as an official selection of both the Toronto International Women Festival and the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative.
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Gavin Baird
Gavin Baird is an independent filmmaker based in Saskatoon, SK. He is the writer/director of Four in a Blanket, Begonia, and his latest feature-film The Caring Only Cry at Night.
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Holly Aubichon
Holly Aubichon (she/her) comes from a mixed heritage of Métis, and Cree on her paternal side and Ukrainian, Irish and Scottish on her maternal side (Ogrodnick). Born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, her Indigenous relations come from Green Lake, SK and Lestock, SK. Aubichon’s practice is laboriously reliant on retracing familial memories and connections.
She uses painting as a way to foster personal healing. As an extension of her practice, she has begun a traditional Indigenous tattoo mentorship to acknowledge the memories that bodies hold, support the healing, grieving and the revival of traditional tattoo practices. She has recently graduated from the University of Regina in the Spring of 2021 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts, minoring in Indigenous Art History. Aubichon is the 2021 BMO 1st Art! Regional winner for Saskatchewan.
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Howard Adler
Howard Adler is the co-founder/director/programmer for the Asinabka Festival, an annual Indigenous film and media arts festival in Ottawa. Howard has a bachelor of arts in Indigenous Studies from Trent University, and a master of arts in Canadian Studies from Carleton University. Howard’s film, video and art, have been exhibited in gallery settings, broadcast nationally, shown on airplanes, featured on CBC Gem, and shown extensively at film festivals both in Canada and internationally. His art practice is diverse and includes visual art, meme-making, stained glass, beadwork, VJ’ing, video projection mapping, and experimental and documentary filmmaking. He often works as a freelancer or on a contract basis in various capacities, including film and video production, as a university instructor, a guest speaker, a workshop instructor, or leading art making classes for youth. Howard’s pronouns are he/him, he is Two-Spirit, Jewish and Anishinaabe, and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation in North-Western Ontario.
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Iman Ali
Iman Ali is a second generation Ethiopian – Canadian artist and designer creating in Treaty one territory. Carving out her artistic journey by learning and unlearning her identity while searching for home in her own mind, she finds her practice focuses on the way the spiritual manifests itself in the physical. Often leaning on others to further her case studies of self, she enjoys a documentary style of expression. Studying the expressions of others and crafting her interpretations them she finds herself furthering her own personal story. Exposing her stories through mediums such as photography, paint, and print. She layers words of thought and particularly selected colours to embody the multitudes of her identity taking the intersections of her life and applying them to her art.
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Jamie Whitecrow
JL Whitecrow is an artist and filmmaker based out of Toronto, ON, She is Muskrat clan originally from Seine River First Nation, Treaty #3. JL studied Philosophy and Indigenous Community Development before pursuing an MFA in Film Production at York University. She is a SSHRC recipient for her graduate studies and works as a Producer/Associate Producer for various film and television projects. JL enjoys creating film works in alternative cinema, hybrid fiction, documentary, comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.
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Jason Baerg
Jason Baerg is a registered member of the Métis Nations of Ontario and serves their community as an Indigenous activist, curator, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. Baerg graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University and is enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Monash University. Baerg teaches as the Assistant Professor in Indigenous Practices in Contemporary Painting and Media Art at OCAD University. Exemplifying their commitment to community, they co-founded The Shushkitew Collective and The Métis Artist Collective. Baerg has served as volunteer Chair for such organizations as the Indigenous Curatorial Collective and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition. As a visual artist, they push digital interventions in drawing, painting, and new media installation. Select international solo exhibitions include Canada House in London, UK, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, and the Digital Dome at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. They sat on numerous art juries and won awards through such facilitators as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and The Toronto Arts Council.
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Jesse Green
Jesse Green (Anishinaabe) calls Winnipeg home, with family roots in Kekekoziibii/Shoal Lake #40 First Nation and Sioux Valley Manitoba. He established StrongFront.tv in 1999 and holds over 20 years of experience in the media and film industry. Jesse is an accomplished producer and director who has achieved industry respect, recognition, and awards.
For Jesse, privilege is related to purpose and he is committed to initiatives that will carry Indigenous voices into the future. His specialization is in the layers of Indigenous knowledge that are embedded in community narratives and uniquely reflected in each person’s oral account. Jesse remains passionate about video production.
Jesse has been an instructor with the Adam Beach Film Institute in Winnipeg. Working with youth allows him to apply and share his talents practically with the forthcoming generation of storytellers. Jesse is also a musician and was music director and lead guitarist for the legendary Buffy Sainte-Marie from 2009-2016.
Jesse has produced multi-million-dollar television series from Los Angles to Toronto but the best productions of all time are his children, Liam, Mila and Gina Ellyce.
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Jessie Ray Short
Jessie Ray Short (she/her) is an artist, filmmaker and independent curator of Métis, Ukrainian and German descent. Jessie Ray’s practice involves uncovering connections between a myriad of topics that interest her, including, but not limited to, space and time, Indigenous and settler histories, Métis visual culture, personal narratives, spiritual and scientific belief systems, parallel universes, electricity, aliens and non-human being(s).
Jessie Ray explores these topics using mediums such as film and video, performance art, finger weaving, sewing, writing and curating. She has been invited to show her work nationally and internationally, including at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, at La Chambre Blanche in Québec City, Art Mûr Berlin (a satellite exhibition of the Contemporary Native Art Biennial/BACA) in Germany, and at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in New Zealand. Jessie Ray is deeply grateful to be based in oskana kâ-asastêki or Pile of Bones (also known as Regina) in Treaty 4 territory.
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Karmella Cen Benedito De Barros
Karmella Cen Benedito De Barros (she/her) is an inner-city Indigiqueer with Treaty 6 Mistawasis Nêhiyaw and Afro-Brazilian ancestry. They are a plant loving, community oriented support worker, artist and organizer born and raised in diaspora, as a guest on stolen & unceded Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam territories.
Karmella currently works as the Indigenous Brilliance Community Engagement leader with Room Magazine and the Art Ecosystem. They also work as the CRUW Garden Coordinator at xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and support the Lucid Arts’ Earthseed Youth Book Club. Karmella’s most recent work is featured in Activations Of Solidarity with the Indigenous Curatorial Collective 2021, and Room Magazine issue 44.1 Growing Room.
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Kris Snowbird
Kris Snowbird is a multi-disciplinary artist working in visual and performance art, photography and filmmaking. She grew up on the Pine Creek First Nation and is of Cree and Ojibwe descent. In 2015, she participated in the Foundation Mentorship Program at Mentoring Women for Women’s Art (MAWA), working one on one with curator, Natalia Lebedinskaia. Snowbird created her first short film SWEAT in 2016, which was funded by the Winnipeg Film Group’s Mosaic Women’s Film Fund. In 2019 her first show “Dancing in the Dark” was at the Urban Shaman Gallery: Marvin Frances Media Gallery. In 2019/20 along with partner Theo Pelmus, they were awarded the Media Arts Residency at Video Pool Media Arts Centre.
In 2021 she made her version of a jingle dress using all jingles for the dress producing a dress of armour; with a live video streamed performance at the Urban Shaman Gallery. Since than she has been involved in the arts in various festivals including the 2021 Wall to Wall Mural and Cultural festival. In 2023 she was a part of Video Pool Media Arts Centre Indigenous Incubator.
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Marco Muller
Marco Muller also known as Super-Empee is a Winnipeg-born multimedia artist and emerging Curator, specialised in paintings, murals, photography and printmaking, sharing his vision of what he feels it is to be a Cree artist navigating a colonial world. He finds inspiration from the world around him, heavily influenced by Indigenous activism and socio-political problems Indigenous communities and peoples face. Marco is the son of a Cree mother and residential school survivor from Pukatawagan Cree Nation also known as Mathias Colomb, a remote community located in Northern Manitoba Treaty 6 territory along the Northern rail line No. 99.
Marco has painted murals professionally since 2019 painting for both private commissions and mural festivals including Wall2Wall and #PaintThePavementWPG. Additionally, he has worked alongside internationally known, award-winning artist collective Bruno Smoky and Shalak Attack of the Clandestinos Art. Marco has worked for various artist-run organisations across Canada including Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq, Gallery 44 in Toronto, and remotely for Campbell River Art Gallery in BC. Most recently, Marco has curated the group show In Between Spaces, which was on display in the spring and summer of 2022 in Gallery 44 in Toronto.
Marco is currently completing his third year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts University of Manitoba School of Art while working with the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Quamajuq Indigenous Ways and Equity team.
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Marjorie Beaucage
Marjorie Beaucage is a Two-Spirit Métis Auntie, filmmaker, art-ivist and educator, a land protector and a water walker. Born in Vassar, Manitoba, to a large Métis family, Marjorie’s life’s work has been about creating social change, working to give people the tools for creating possibilities and right relations. She has been a Grandmother for Walking With Our Sisters; the Elder for OUT Saskatoon; and the Elder-In-Residence for the University of Saskatchewan Student Union. As a current Board Member of Chokecherry Studios, she is giving back to future art-ivists as they stand up for themselves and their community through art, songs, writing…creating possibilities of wellness with ceremony and story medicine.
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Mark Dieter
Mark Dieter is a Canadian First Nations playwright, actor, and director with 19 written stage plays to date, 11 of which have been produced. A Path of Ghosts and Warriors takes place in the same community as the previous Equity-produced play RRAP (2005). Mark has also written for radio, and has a screenplay in pre-production development titled Loaded. Currently, Mark is working on thirteen-part 2D motion comic web-series called “Kevin Stone”.
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Naomi Condo
Naomi Condo (she/her) is a Mik’maw writer and director from Gesgapegiag First Nation. In 2018, Condo participated in a Master Class in The Director of Photography with Michel LaVeaux and attended the RIDM’s Talent Lab (Recontres International du Documentaire de Montreal). As a 2020 panelist on IM4, Immersed Matriachs 4Lab, she discussed VR and its place within indigenous storytelling.
The webseries was a part of Vancouver’s International Film Festival and aired on September 29th, at 10 PST. In 2021, she was a participant in the Meech Lake Lab hosted by Harbour Collective from Winnipeg, Manitoba. That same year, she discussed the film I am L’nu, 2021 as an Artist Guest Speaker for Indigenous Day.
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Quinn Hopkins
Quinn Hopkins (he/him) is inspired by new, innovative technologies, connecting them with the land and his roots as an Anishinaabe person. He utilizes techniques such as 3D modelling, digital drawing, editing, creative coding and machine learning; Hopkins collaborates with the computer to research, design and create his artworks. His interests are focused on developing new ways to visualize the spirit of the land to reveal the many truths about humanity’s relationship with the land.
Quinn is not afraid to experiment with new tools and mediums, which has led him to create augmented reality art, virtual reality art and non-fungible token art in the past year; that attracted national attention from the media. Hopkins has appeared on CBC The National and Breakfast Television, as well as been featured in an article on CBC Indigenous. As a student at OCAD University, Hopkins is young and enthusiastic about his art’s ability to inspire action. He is using his resources to build a more equitable space for Indigenous artists in NFT spaces, advocating for Indigenous sovereignty and decolonization.
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Rihkee Strapp
Rihkee Strapp entered the world from a sea of blood, fully grown wearing a gold set of armour. They are an Ayakwew Red River Metis multi-disciplinary artist raised in Northern Ontario by nohkum’s dial-up internet and its dark vistas. Rihkee is an alumni of the Studio [Y] systems leadership fellowship at the MaRS Discovery District. Their highly collaborative work re-appropriates pop-culture, myth and nostalgia, playing with concepts of time and technology often using humour and character to animate their ideas.
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Shawna Farinango
Shawna Farinango (she/her) is a Kichwa Artist based in Haudenosaunee territory also known as Hamilton, Ontario. Her work is inspired by the matriarchs in her family and the celebration and honoring of her identity and la pachamama (Mother Earth).
Through her art she tries to showcase her experiences of what it means to live in a marginalized brown Indigenous body while reimagining our world, strengthening our collective memory, and materializing the connection that we have to the earth through visual art. She creates art to make the existence of indigenous people visible. She hopes to inspire other Indigenous peoples to celebrate and honour their identities with strength and courage.
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Simon Ash-Moccasin
Simon Ash-Moccasin is a proud Nehiyawak (Cree person) from Saulteaux First Nation and an actor, playwright, storyteller, activist, and father.
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Taylor McArthur
Taylor McArthur (Pogé hąská wašté wiyá/Hummingbird Woman) Nakoda of Pheasant Rump Nakota First Nation, Saskatchewan currently residing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is a digital artist working with 3D animation, video game design, and video. Her practice is informed by Indigenous Futurisms and seeks to situate her Indigenous culture within both the modern and a potential future vision. Recipient of the 2022 Emerging Digital Artists Award and the 2022 Winnipeg Arts Council’s RBC On the Rise award. Recent exhibitions include Lights on the Exchange Festival, Stories Carried by Smoke presented by Festival Du Voyageur, REFRAME in/on/out Intermedia Festival presented by Manufacturing Entertainment, Poolside Gallery VideoPool, Group Exhibition Virtual Wonders, Online – MUTEK Montréal, Mackenzie Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and the Canadian Roots Exchange
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Tianna Delorme
Tianna Delorme (She/Her) is nêhiyaw from Cowessess First Nation. Tianna is in her 4th year at University of Regina pursuing a major in Bachelor of Fine Arts. She currently works as an art instructor for mâmawêyatitân centre, teaching art to youth. Her practice consists of works that express emotions and connection to the viewer, while having Indigenous themes. Her goal is to become an established artist and to mentor youth from Cowessess First Nation that aspire to be artists.
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Tim Myles
Tim Myles is a writer, director and actor. He began his career directing music videos for various labels such as Universal Music and Island Records. His debut short film Little Bird, was made in partnership with imagineNATIVE and Netflix Canada, and premiered at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was nominated for an IMDBPro award for best Canadian short film at TIFF. It was named one of ’10 must see Indigenous Films’ during the festival, and Tim was named one of the ‘10 Indigenous Artists in Toronto you should know’ by Blog TO in 2021. His most recent work was second unit directing a spot for Lululemon X Team Canada, which premiered at the 2022 Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing. You can see him in the upcoming Keifer Sutherland crime drama Rabbit Hole, Warner Brothers upcoming biopic series Borje, and the Lifetime thriller Maid to Kill. He is represented by Amanda Rosenthal Talent Agency in Canada.
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Tristin Greyeyes
Tristin Greyeyes is Nehiyaw and Anishinaabe from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation. A lifelong learner, Tristin holds a certificate in Media Arts Production, a diploma in Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking and a bachelor’s degree in motion picture arts at Capilano University . She is interested in intersectional feminism, Land Back and is determined to empower Indigenous voices across Turtle Island through the art of filmmaking.
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Troy Isnana
Troy Isnana is based in Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation, and is a former film student of the University of Regina. Troy is a voracious reader. He is also a fan of Martin Scorsese and Akira Kurosawa.
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Vanda Fleury
Vanda Fleury is a Métis woman from the prairies of western Manitoba and her ancestral homelands extend from Red River throughout the Assiniboine valley. Her roots are in Uno, a section on the railway, where miles of family relationships and a rural upbringing cultivated a pull towards local stories embedded in land and memory. She grounds her cultural identity by walking within these spaces.
The stories of her ancestors and her three children are a motivating force in her creative projects.
Vanda’s storywork approach blends Indigenous experiences and community narratives with object and record literacy. She is a mixed media artist and her work in film and photovoice is through a lens of empowerment. Her photographs of Birtle Residential School appeared in Locale: Bringing Heritage to Life, the magazine of the National Trust for Canada.
Vanda is Executive Director of Mamawi Apikatetan, a non-profit organization centred on braiding oral histories with video production and cultural heritage. She joined the StrongFront.tv team in 2014 where she is a Director, Writer/Researcher, and Archival Producer.
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Winona Bearshield
Winona Bearshield is a Canadian Cree animator originally from Saskatchewan, Regina that’s located on Treaty 4 land. Currently living in Winnipeg now. Winona has been part of the Indigenous Youth Mentorship Program at Video Pool Media Arts Centre since 2016, and through this program has created three animations, with the help of mentors and friends. She has screened this work at Video Pool Media Arts Centre and the Winnipeg Cinematheque. Winona will continue working on animations with a focus on comedy and animal videos, while on the side she also continues to make digital arts, traditional sketching and painting. Always ready to take on new art projects and want to give her hands into all sorts of art formats.