Welcome to our community! Here, you will find information on ACC membership, as well as profiles of individual artists and curators. The ACC community is vast and diverse. It includes artists, curators, art historians and cultural workers who nurture and sustain a presence for contemporary and traditional Aboriginal Arts. Members are institutionally supported or independently driven, emerging or established. By contributing a unique perspective to the discourse of Indigenous art, each member’s participation is key to enhancing a dynamic and attainable path for Aboriginal curatorial practice to prosper.

ABOUT... BARRY ACE

Barry Ace, Anishinaabe (Odawa), is a band member of the M’Chigeeng First Nation, Manitoulin Island, Ontario. He has a Master of Arts from Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario (1996) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario (1991).

Prior to moving to Ottawa, Barry taught for two years in the Native Studies Program at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. While Chief Curator and Acting Chief of the Indian and Inuit Art Centres at the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Ottawa) from 1994-2001, he curated numerous exhibitions of Indian and Inuit art that have toured both nationally and internationally.

As a practicing artist, his multi-disciplinary work has been included in numerous shows in Canada since 1996; his 1998 solo exhibition Modern Indians Standing Around at the Post was presented at Gallery 101 in Ottawa and his multi-media work was included in Emergence from the Shadows: First Peoples Photographic Perspectives at the Canadian Musuem of Civilization.

Recently his work was included in The Dress Show: La mode dans tous ses états at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montréal, Quebec, and his most recent solo exhibition Super Phat Nish curated by Cathy Mattes for the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon, Manitoba was presented in the spring of 2005. His most recent critical writing was included in the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s publication Rosalie Favell - Searching Many Worlds in 2004. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... NADEMA AGARD

Nadema Agard Winyan Luta/ Red Woman is a Cherokee-Lakota-Powhatan artist, curator, educator, published author, museum professional and consultant in Repatriation and Multicultural/Native American arts and cultures, with an M.A. in Art and Education from Teacher's College, Columbia University. She is currently the Director of Red Earth Studio Consulting / Productions in New York City.

Nadema was born and raised in New York City and later returned to her maternal ancestral homelands in the Carolinas and her paternal grandmother’s homeland in Virginia after she received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship to write the SOUTHEASTERN NATIVE ARTS Directory. Almost a decade later as the Repatriation Director of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, she was again re-united with her paternal grandfather’s Lakota relatives in the Dakotas who had, five years earlier, arranged for her to receive her Lakota name Winyan Luta during a naming ceremony officiated at by a traditional elder. (Although translated as Red Woman, the name Winyan Luta refers to a holy red and so the true meaning of the name is not totally translated).

With her Cherokee name translated as Red Earth, she illustrated and authored a children’s book, Selu & Kanaâ: Cherokee Corn Mother and Lucky Hunter released by Mondo Publishing. She also paid tribute to her Algonquin (Powhatan) ancestry with another children’s book which she wrote and illustrated, entitled, SHANE, published by Educational Publishing Service. Another publication, VOICES OF COLOR: ART AND SOCIETY IN THE AMERICAS by Farris-Dufrene, includes her essay entitled Art as a Vehicle for Empowerment, while her work as an artist has been published in Patricia J. Broder's, EARTH SONGS, MOON DREAMS: PAINTlNGS BY AMERICAN INDIAN WOMEN.

Her recent accomplishments include being a recipient of the Ingrid Washinawatok Award for Community Activism, her role as the Symposium Coordinator and recipient of a Native Arts Program 2005 Community Arts Symposium award from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian for We’ll Take Manhattan: Native Arts Symposium 2005 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as Guest Curator of An Artistic Perspective: Lady Liberty as a Native American Icon at Ellis Island Immigration Museum and as Guest Curator of From Manhattan to Menatay at the Gallery of the American Indian Community House.

Contact Information:
Nadema Agard, Director
RED EARTH STUDIO
Consulting/Productions
redearthstudio@aol.com BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... KATHLEEN ASH-MILBY

Kathleen Ash-Milby is a researcher, writer and curator of contemporary Native American art. She currently works for the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), Smithsonian Institution in New York City. She earned her MA in Native American art history from the University of New Mexico in 1994 and is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation.

She first joined the curatorial department of the NMAI in 1993 where she worked until 1999, contributing to exhibitions and research, including Woven by the Grandmothers: 19th Century Navajo Wearing Blankets. As the curator and co-director of the American Indian Community House (AICH) Gallery in New York City (2001-2005), she developed numerous exhibitions such as Downtown Dine: Navajo Artists in New York City, and AlieNation: Mario Martinez and Greg A. Hill.

Ash-Milby assisted with acquisitions and exhibition development at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, New York and was a New York State Council on the Arts panelist and auditor. She was Vice-President of the Native American Art Studies Association (NAASA) where she has served on the board since 1997. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... MARK AXHORN

Mark Axhorn is a visual artist/curator/administrator. He is currently at The Banff Centre as the Aboriginal Visual Arts Administration Work-study. Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. He has recently moved back to Alberta having spent the previous five years in Nova Scotia. He holds a BA in Anthropology from St. Francis Xavier University. Mark is working predominantly in ceramic-based sculpture, which focuses on personal and cultural false memories, urban decay and consumption. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... JASON BAERG

Much Music saved Jason Baerg's life! Born to a strong Cree Métis mother and a father with a PHD and two Master's degrees, learning is a passionate pursuit for Jason. Concordia University marked his right of creative passage through a BFA. As a Visual Artist, Jason has presented at such institutions as the Banff Centre of the Arts, the Indian Art Centre in Gatineau, and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Baerg has sat on numerous national art juries, for such governing bodies as the Canada Council for the Arts and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Graduate Studies in New Digital Media opened doors to grooming interactive architecture skills in Manhattan.

As an Aboriginal CFTPA intern to prolific Debbie Nightingale, the founding Executive Director of Hot Docs, his media perspectives exploded! Under the wings of the Nightingale Company, Jason supported 12 projects (TV, interactive and feature length film) in various stages of development. Today he is working on his largest commission to date, including a public digital print work scaling 25'x50'. Jason has most recently won the SunTV fellowship to attend the nextMEDIA and Banff World Television Festival to promote and further develop The Metroscope Project, a multi-platform project. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... Morgan Baillargeon, PhD

Morgan Baillargeon is Metis from Southwestern Ontario. He completed his BA in 1978 with a concentration in Canadian Literature and Religious Studies, while studying at the University of Wetern Ontario and the University of Ottawa. Upon completion of his degree he lived in Fort Albany, Ontario for a few months before moving to Hobbema, Alberta. In 1984 he obtained his BEd in Edmonton at the University of Alberta, with a concentration in ESL, Leterature, Native Studies and Adult education. From 1984 to 1989 he taught traditional Native art in Metis and Cree communities in Northern Alberta. In the fall of 1989 he returned to the University of Western Ontario and completed a year of graduate work in Anthropology with a concentration in traditional Native art and in 1990 moved to Ottawa to complete his MA (1991) at Carleton University studying traditional Native art through the Art History Department and Canadian Studies Department. His research focused on the treatment of the umbilical cord and placenta and the use and decoration of umbilical cord amulets among North American Aboriginal cultures.

In 1992 Morgan became Curator of Plains Ethnology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Exhibitions and Web Sites include MOCCASINS (1995), Legends of Our Times: Native Rodeo and Ranching Life on the Plains and Plateau (1998) Publication Legends of Our Times: Native Cowboy Life (1998), Metis (FPH 2001) Sports, Religious and Social Gathering (FPH 2001). Morgan completed his PhD in Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa (2004) specializing in Great Lakes and Plains Aboriginal spirituality. His research focused on Plains Cree beliefs about death and the afterlife and their traditions of feeding and feasting with the dead. He is currently completing a manuscript on North American Aboriginal methods and technology in hide tanning, Blackfoot protocol working closely with an elders and ceremonialists from the Peigan, Kainai and Siksika Reserves in southern Alberta, and a small exhibition on Blackfoot child rearing pholosophy. His major research at this time is in the area of urban issues effecting Urban Native and Inuit people living in 11 cities across Canada as well as in NYC.

Morgan's personal interstes are also in photography. He has had a number of his photographs published, and has had 3 photography exhibitions at the University of Ottawa (2003, 2004, 2005). He is also still involved in the creation of traditional art and has a number of his creations in museum and private collections in Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Denmark. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... MARJORIE BEAUCAGE

Marjorie Beaucage is a filmmaker, cultural worker, and community-based video activist. Her work as an artist, begun at age 40, builds on skills developed over 25 years as an adult educator and community organizer creating a powerful sense of art making as communal practice. Culture is a collective agreement. Being Métis, I am also committed to building cultural bridges between worlds. In 2005, Beaucage created a Medicine Wheel for the Indian Act as a tool for de-colonisation and restoring relations between cultures.

My life work has been about creating social change, working to give people the tools for creating possibilities and right relations. Whether in the classroom, community organizations or the arts, her goal has been to pass on the stories, knowledge and skills that will make a difference for the future. Currently in development is a multi-media installation of talking masks and memorial altars to help people understand the multi-generational impacts of the residential school experience. And coordinating an HIV/AIDS Art project to heal and save lives. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... LORI BLONDEAU

As a Cree/Saulteaux artist, Lori Blondeau ‘s artistic practice continues to explore the influence of popular media and culture (contemporary and historical) on Aboriginal self-identity,
self-image, and self-definition. Lori has been culturally producing as an artist, instructor, curator for the last 20 years. She is currently exploring the impact of the colonization of traditional and contemporary roles and lifestyles of Aboriginal women by strategically deconstructing the popular images of the Indian Princess and the Squaw. Blondeau uses humour as a performative storytelling strategy to reconstruct these stereotypes, reveal their absurdity, and reinsert them into the mainstream. The performance personas she creates, like Belle Sauvage, refer to the damage of colonialism and to the ironic pleasures of displacement and resistance.

Lori Blondeau is currently completing her Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She is also a co-founder and the current director of one of Canada’s most innovative Aboriginal arts organizations, TRIBE. Blondeau’s collaborations and apprenticeships with other internationally renowned artists including Bradlee Larocque and James Luna have produced works such as The Ballad of the Shameman and Betty Daybird (2000). BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... MARCIA CROSBY

Marcia Crosby is a writer and historian of Tsimshian and Haida ancestry. She graduated in 1992 with an MA in Art History, from the University of British Columbia, and began teaching in the Native Studies Department, Malaspina University, Nanaimo, B.C. in 1996. She currently commutes to Malaspina to teach English, and is active in the arts community in Vancouver where she resides. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... MICHAEL CYWINK

Michael Cywink has been actively involved in community development of First Nations cultural arts. His education in the Indigenous Creative Process began in his early teens. This interest drew him to various locations around North America to study symbolic interpretation. His versatility in a variety of art techniques and design development has allowed him to utilize art in a therapeutic manner with children and adults within the cultural mosaic. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... VIRGINIA EICHHORN

Virginia Eichorn has worked within the field of visual arts for almost twenty years. A graduate of the Queen's University Art History programme, she continued her studies at the University of Toronto in Art History and Museum Studies. As an independent curator, Ms Eichhorn has presented exhibitions at numerous prestigious venues including the XII Biennial of Art at Vila Nova de Cerveira in Portugal. She has worked extensively with artists from across Canada and abroad developing exhibitions for high profile Canadian public galleries. In addition to curating, Ms. Eichhorn has written numerous catalogue essays and has contributed to prominent Canadian magazines including Artichoke, Border Crossings, Canadian Art and ESPACE Sculpture. As a community leader, Ms. Eichhorn is past Chair of the City of Kitchener's Public Art Working group and the national festival, CAFKA (Contemporary Artists Forum Kitchener and Area). She is also a board member for Visual Arts Ontario and the Association of Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts. Since August 2004 she has been employed as the Curator of the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario where she has presented exhibitions including "It's All Relative: Carl, Ann and Anong Migwans Beam" and "From the Earth: Contemporary First Nations Clay of the Kahniakehaka (Mohawk) Peoples". She lives in Kitchener with her husband and three sons. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... LARA EVANS

Lara Evans was recently awarded a Ph.D. in Art History. Her specialization is contemporary Native American and First Nations art. Evans accepted a faculty position at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington in Fall 2005, where she is teaching studio art and art history, and will guest curate exhibitions from time to time. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... SKAWENNATI TRICIA FRAGNITO

Skawennati is an artist, writer and independent curator whose projects have included CyberPowWow (www.CyberPowWow.net), a virtual gallery and chat space; Imagining Indians in the 25th Century (www.ImaginingIndians.net), a web-based paper doll/time-travel journal; and her current obsession, 80 Minutes, 80 Movies, 80s Music, a digital video extravaganza.

After graduating from Concordia University with a BFA in 1992, she went on to complete a graduate Diploma in Institutional Administration (Arts Specialization). Her first job in the arts was at Oboro where she eventually also served on the board. In 1994, Skawennati co-founded Nation to Nation, a First Nations artist collective whose exhibitions include TattooNation and Native Love. As Curatorial Resident at the Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre for the Arts she mounted Blanket Statements, an exhibition of art quilts, and The People’s Plastic Princess, a survey of more than thirty years of Barbie art. During her two-year stay in San Francisco, Skawennati produced Arts Alliance Laboratory’s monthly CRIT (Critical Reviews of Interactive Technology) and co-curated New Fangle for GenArtSF.

Her articles have appeared in Fuse, Horizon Zero, and Mix Magazine. Her artwork has been shown across Canada and the United States, and is in the collection of the Art Bank of Canada. Learn even more about her projects at www.skawennati.net. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT …JENNY FRASER

Jenny works at the nexus of art, filmmaking and new technologies. Her work is exhibited both nationally and internationally, including 'cultural copy' at the Fowler Museum in San Francisco and Interactiva 01 and Interactiva 03: biennales at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico. Because of the diverse creative mediums Jenny uses, much of her work defies categorisation. More recently her work takes iconic and everyday symbols of Australian life and places them in a context that questions the values they represent. With a laconic sense of humour she picks away at the fabric of our society, exposing contradictions, absurdities, and denial.
She was the co-ordinator for the new media component of 'Spirit & Vision' a triennale at the Sammlung Essl in Vienna, and also part of the curatorial working group for 'conVerge - where art and science meet', the 2002 Adelaide Biennial, which was a major survey of Australian new media artworks. Jenny founded and curates cyberTribe, an Indigenous Online Gallery run through FineArt Forum Cybertribe aims to encourage the production and exhibition of Indigenous Art with a focus on the digital.

Her commitment to spreading the word about new media arts and its potential as an expressive medium for Indigenous artists is reflected in the development of the website Blackout, that showcases and promotes the work of participants to the world. Jenny's work on this site has seen it evolve into an important resource for people interested in Indigenous new media practitioners in Australia.

Her practice is also partly defined through a strong commitment to collaboration with others, which in turn leads to involvement in a new wave of exciting artists networks, such as the proppaNow Artists Collective in Brisbane and the Indigenous New Media Arts Collective: a national body of artists/film-makers/designers.

Jenny has worked collaboratively through artist-in-residence programs and to date she has created works with local communities of the Hermannsburg Potters of the Northern Territory, the Kaurna Plains School in South Australia, and the Coen Community in Cape York. She has also participated in the first International Indigenous Art Residency at the Banff Art Centre in Canada, and was a NEWflames program awardee in the Campfire Group Studios in Brisbane.

Jenny is currently undertaking a creative fellowship to produce a body of work that celebrates the lives of Yugambeh family members that were moved from their traditional homelands to work on properties in the Gulf of Carpentaria and explores the artforms of immersive installation. She has served a 3 year term as a member of the Australia Council's New Media Arts Board. Mob: Yugambeh, Bundjalung Website: http://www.anat.org.au/nisna/blackout. Then click on Jenny Fraser. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... DAVID GARNEAU

David Garneau is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Regina. He has a BFA in Painting and Drawing and an MA in American Literature, from the University of Calgary. David was born and raised in Alberta and has been living in Regina for the past six years.

David Garneau's practice includes painting, drawing, critical writing about the visual arts, and curation. His solo exhibition, "Cowboys and Indians (and Métis?)" is currently touring Canada. Garneau's work often engages issues of nature, perception, history, masculinities, and the negotiation of White, Aboriginal and Métis identities. He has curated two large group exhibitions in Calgary, "The End of the World (as weknow it)" and "Picture Windows: New Abstraction," and two in Regina, "Transcendent Squares" (Rosemont Art Gallery) and "Making it Like a Man," a national exhibition and conference for the Mackenzie Art Gallery. He is currently exploring the Carleton Trail as a landscape and historical subject and has curated two exhibitions for 2005 at the Art Gallery of Regina: "Sophisticated Folk," and "Contested Histories," produced by the Sâk?w?wak Artists' Collective. Website: www.davidgarneau.com BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... HEATHER IGLOLIORTE

Heather Igloiorte is an Inuk artist and writer from Labrador. After graduating from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University with a BFA in painting and a minor in art history, she moved to Ottawa to pursue an MA in Canadian Art History, specializing in Inuit art. While in the MA program she completed a yearlong internship as a curatorial assistant at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, became involved with the ACC, and was hired by the Carleton University Art Gallery to be the Curator of Inuit Art for the 2005-2006 academic year. She has recently completed a residency at the Banff Centre and her artwork has been shown and sold all over the East coast, and is in several public and private collections.

Heather is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Cultural Mediations at Carleton University, with the Institute for Comparative Studies in Language, Arts, and Culture. Her research centers on mid-twentieth century modernist primitivism, Native North American art, and issues of nationhood and hybridity. BACK TO TOP

ABOUT... WILLIAM KINGFISHER

In 1994, William Kingfisher completed a Master's degree in Anthropology at Carleton University. His thesis focused on how contemporary art by First Nations artists can be 'read' as contributing to the construction of a distinct social (or discursive) 'space' for Aboriginal Canadians. He identifies this distinct Aboriginal space as one that is deliberately constructed and is a product of specific historical, social, cultural, and political conditions. His thesis analyzed how these artists 'paint against' the construction of Aboriginal art by the larger Canadian society under the various forms of authenticity and primitivism. Kingfisher is continuing this research along with concurrent exhibitions in his work for a Ph.D in Native Studies at Trent University that began in Sept 2005. He has also worked as a researcher and assistant curator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the contemporary Aboriginal art section under contract from 1998 to 2002. He presently lives in his home community of Mnjikaning First Nation. BACK TO TOP

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