Opening Reception and Artists' Talk

Join us for a conversation with Brii LaPlante and guests.

This event will happen in-person at Dunlop Art Gallery, Central Library and livestream on Dunlop Art Gallery’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

The Indigenous curatorial mentorship program is a partnership between Sâkêwêwak First Nations Artists' Collective Inc and Dunlop Art Gallery. Recognizing the need for more Indigenous curators living and working on Treaty 4, the program aims to create a unique mentorship opportunity for an emerging Indigenous curator and provide a generative space for study, discussion, and critique.

Brianna LaPlante is this year’s mentee curator, who was mentored and guided by Alyssa Fearon and Holly Aubichon. The mentee selected artwork from Dunlop’s permanent collection for this exhibition.

Brianna LaPlante is a Fine Artist from Fishing Lake First Nation. LaPlante’s larger scale commissions have been sought out to elevate Treaty 4 spaces as an artist from the land. Artwork is an act of lifelong learning and resilience for her as an Anishinaabe/nehiyaw/ Michif creator. Her work is rooted within the elevation of Indigenous knowledge systems informed by the intersections of her life experiences. Underlying tones of her road to reclamation of both language and culture are present within all that she puts out into the world. This narrative is further explored through the multifaceted artworks dialing in on the evolution of culture and the dualities of existing in the two worlds of ceremony and urban life. Her artworks engage mind, body, and spirit.

David Garneau is a Métis painter, curator, and critical art writer interested in creative expressions of Indigenous contemporary ways of being. He is Head of the Visual Arts Department at the University of Regina. Garneau recently curated Kahwatsiretátie: The Contemporary Native Art Biennial (Montréal, 2020) with assistance from Faye Mullen and rudi aker, and co-curated Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound, at the National Museum of the American Indian, New York City (2017), with Kathleen Ash Milby. Garneau has given keynotes in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and throughout Canada on issues such as misappropriation, reconciliation, public art, museum displays and Indigenous contemporary art. His paintings are in numerous public and private collections. David Garneau lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Image: David Garneau, Displacement, Indigenous Scholarship, acrylic on canvas, 2019. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Upcoming events