"Inuuhiraaluuk! Iglaqturaaluuk! Piqpagiyaraaluuk!", muskox wool, 2022, Photo by Leif Norman. Courtesy of Jocelyn Piirainen.
Join Griffin Art Projects for a virtual panel discussion between three Indigenous curators as they discuss their methodologies and approaches to curation.
Lorilee Wastasecoot (Legacy Art Gallery), Aliya Boubard (Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art), and Jocelyn Piirainen (National Gallery of Canada) will discuss their approaches to the curation of Indigenous art within a field still largely dominated by colonial values of art, culture, and space. Galleries and museums hold a long history of showcasing Indigenous artworks as detached from their creators, as relics of times past, and held to definitions of ‘art’ and ‘value’ not compatible with Indigenous cultures and value systems. In reality, Indigenous art is still widely practiced in both traditional and innovative ways, and Indigenous artists and curators are reclaiming control over how their art forms are shown to the world. Panelists will provide insight into their past projects, curatorial methodologies, and about the overlap between Indigenous art and the Western fine arts world. The discussion will be facilitated by Griffin’s Young Canada Works Indigenous Public Programming and Marketing Intern, Jordanna George, and followed by a Q+A period.
Lorilee Wastasecoot is an Ininew iskwew. Lorilee's ancestral roots stem from Peguis First Nation, York Factory and the Red River in Winnipeg, MB where she grew up. Lorilee re-located to Victoria, BC in 2010 to pursue her education and holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Victoria (UVIC).
In 2021, Lorilee was given the inaugural title of Curator of Indigenous Art and Engagement at UVIC Legacy Art Gallery. She has curated major exhibitions such as We Carry our Ancestors (2019) and On Beaded Ground (April 2021) and is currently working on a solo exhibition, Walking Thru My Fires (April 2023) with Kwakwaka'wakw artist Francis Dick.
Instagram: @lorileewastasecoot
Aliya Boubard is an Anishinaabekwe artist and emerging curator from Sagkeeng First Nation, located in Treaty 1 Territory in Manitoba. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba in 2020, and most recently completed a Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Indigenous Studies from Simon Fraser University. Aliya is currently working as the Assistant Curator at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art.
Instagram: @arboub and @arboubdeads
Jocelyn Piirainen is an urban Inuk currently living on Treaty 1 territory, in Winnipeg, MB, and is originally from Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay), Nunavut. She is an Associate Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada, in their Indigenous Ways and Decolonization department; and previously worked at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and its new building, Qaumajuq. When not working as a curator, her artistic practice involves analog photography and film, experimenting with Polaroids and Super 8 film — as well as honing her crochet and beading skills, mixing and overlapping textiles with language revitalization.
Instagram: @joccipi
Jordanna George is Griffin Art Projects’ Young Canada Works Indigenous Public Programming and Marketing Intern. They grew up in Sooke, BC, a member of the T’Sou-ke nation on their father’s side and of Ukrainian ancestry on their mother’s side. They are an emerging illustrator as well as a comic artist and writer, with interests in genre fiction with Indigenous and queer influences. They received a BFA from the University of Victoria in 2019, majoring in visual arts with a minor in gender studies. Outside of their artistic work, they are interested in language revitalization, learning the SENĆOŦEN dialect in their spare time.
Instagram: @raebirdart