Joi T. Arcand’s Cree syllabic neon sign, ᐁᑳᐃᔹ ᓀᐯᐃᓸ (ēkāwiya nēpēwisi, which translates to “don’t be shy”), starts the temporal occupation, visually and conceptually commanding attention, overcoming the intense architectural elements of the space.

Johnson’s installation at the Sobey Art Award exhibition at U of T’s Art Museum is Moose Fence, based on fencing used to prevent animals from straying into traffic. NOW spoke with Johnson about the piece and her wider practice.

The continued work of Black women curators in Canada shapes a distinct conversation responsive to settler-colonial histories and the unique experiences of the Black diaspora.

Reading this piece requires active engagement, and like traditional wampum, insists on a responsibility in that interaction.

Ursula Johnson, winner of the 2017 Sobey Art Award is interviewed by Helen Mann of CBC’s As it Happens. Johnson is a performance artists who uses traditional practices like weaving. Much of her work focuses on colonialism and her Indigenous heritage. Johnson discusses how her great-grandmother, a queen of Mi'kmaq basketry, influenced her art practice.

Ursula Johnson is a performance and installation artist of Mi’kmaw First Nation ancestry and winner of the 2017 Sobey Art Award. Johnson explores various mediums including performance art, sculpture, music and printmaking, while utilizing delegated performers as well as collaborative processes in the making of new works. Central Art Garage Gallery News.

Four distant sites. One glacial history. That’s the context for Ontario-based artist Michael Belmore’s Coalescence, a multi-part sculptural project. Carving and inlaying copper on 16 granite and bedrock boulders sourced from around Churchill, Manitoba, Belmore will create hearth-like arrays that appear to radiate heat. Central Art Garage Gallery news.

Ursula Johnson, a performance and installation artist of Mi’kmaw First Nation ancestry, has been shortlisted for the 2017 Sobey Art Award. Johnson is interested in topics of identity, not only Indigenous identity but also queer identity, and the idea of stereotypes or stereotype perpetuation. The award ceremony will take place at the National Gallery of Canada. Central Art Garage News.

This two-person exhibition at the Museum London brings into dialogue the work of the Australian Aboriginal artist Yhonnie Scarce (Kokatha and Nukunu peoples) and the Canadian First Nations artist Michael Belmore (Ojibway).

Wanted takes newspaper ads placed by Canadian slave owners claiming their runaway slaves and recreates them as beguiling, defiant photographs.

Hamilton Spectator review of the AGO’s Every: Now: Then: Reframing Nationhood.

Michael Belmore, an Anishinaabe artist, offers Rumble, a blackened copper sandwich of Trans-Am hoods, with effigies of spiritually significant creatures - a Thunderbird on one side, water panthers on the other - glowing from within.

Nearby looms Bell part of a slickly stylized photo-portrait project by Camal Pirbhai and Camille Turner, which was drawn from a shocking source: 19th-century Canadian classified ads placed by owners in search of their runaway slaves.

Here on Future Earth is a series of photographs in which Arcand manipulated signs and replaced their slogans and names with Cree syllabics. Arcand wants us to think about these photographs as documents of “an alternative present,” of a future that is within arm’s reach.

It’s Complicated, an exhibition by 10 local Aboriginal artists responding to celebrations marking Canada’s 150th birthday. The exhibition is part of the National Arts Centre’s Canada Scene.

Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Artists Michael Belmore, Robert Houle and Camille Turner are featured.

Frank Shebageget receives the REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards launched by the Hnatyshyn Foundation to honour Indigenous Canadian artists working in all artistic disciplines.

Ursula Johnson receives the REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards launched by the Hnatyshyn Foundation to honour Indigenous Canadian artists working in all artistic disciplines.

Michael Belmore receives the REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards launched by the Hnatyshyn Foundation to honour Indigenous Canadian artists working in all artistic disciplines.

Artist Michael Belmore's Coalescence will be installed permanently at four locations, after travelling from Cape Merry, Churchill (MB)

Michael Belmore, Ursula Johnson and Frank Shebageget are among the 150 artists selected to receive an award. Laureates were selected by a national jury of peers led by Victoria Henry, chair of the Hnatyshyn Foundation.

Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Camille Turner’s individual practices are each concerned with walking, touring, questioning archives and uncovering alternative histories, particularly in regards to black and Cree worldviews. For LandMarks2017 the artists will host tour through National Parks “for more stories to be heard, and more voices to be reflected.”