Destiny Lynn Seymour - MID BA LEED AP

Destiny Seymour is an Anishinaabe interior designer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Destiny graduated with a Master of Interior Design from the University of Manitoba. She worked at Prairie Architects Inc. for over 10 years as lead interior designer before starting her own design business, Indigo Arrows in 2016. After struggling to find materials that she could incorporate into interior design projects, Destiny began designing artisan textiles that respectfully reflect local Manitoban Indigenous communities and their history. Indigo Arrows now offers a range of table linens, pillows, and blankets that showcase patterns from local Indigenous pottery and bone tools that date from 400 to over 3000 years old. For thousands of years, Indigenous people in Manitoba have created beautiful patterns to adorn their pottery and bone tools. Most of these surviving pieces are held in private collections and museums. Using a variety of materials & mediums, Destiny hopes to revive these ancient patterns to provoke thought, bridge gaps, inspire and empower.

Destiny formed Woven Collaborative, an Indigenous led design studio, with fellow designer Mamie Griffith in 2018. Their design practice takes a critical look at the representation of Indigenous cultures within the built environment. Their design mission is to respectfully reflect local Indigenous cultures & identity within architectural forms, interior spaces, furniture, and textiles. Their design process acknowledges community engagement, inclusiveness, and collaboration when creating new works.

Relevant Projects: Makoonsag Intergenerational Learning Centre, University of Winnipeg Students’ Association Day Care, Amber Trails Community School, University of Manitoba Migiizi Agamik Aboriginal Student Centre, Indigenous Digital Media Lab University of Winnipeg.

Mamie Griffith - MArch BEnvD BSc

Mamie is a Dene architectural designer that lives and works in and around the prairies. She holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Manitoba, a Bachelor of Environmental Design from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Science from Queen’s University. Mamie is interested in the representation of Indigenous cultures within space, and aims to respectfully reflect local Indigenous cultures and identity, while creating inclusive and healthy spaces, through community engagement and collaboration in her hybrid architecture, landscape and indigenous design consultation practice. She hopes to someday work on a project in the Northwest Territories, on her ancestral lands, in collaboration with her Dene community.

Relevant Projects: Indigenous Peoples’ Garden at Assiniboine Park, Clan Mother’s Healing Village Lake Winnipeg, Indigenous Digital Media Lab University of Winnipeg, Eagle Wing Daycare Grounds Master Planning, Indigenous Memorial and Transfer of Learning Centre at the Forks (Master of Architecture Thesis)

Casey Koyczan

Culture, technology and the environment are intrinsically linked within the evolution of our society. We live day to day practicing the teachings of our ancestors, while at the same time coexisting with the technological advances that are consistently developed every year. We have adapted to the use of these resources in order to develop a better understanding of where we come from, who we are, and what we will be in the future. Casey Koyczan is a Tlicho Dene interdisciplinary artist from Yellowknife, NT, that works with various mediums to communicate how culture and technology coincide together alongside the political, economic, and environmental challenges in the world. A portion of his large scale installation work utilizes earth materials to evoke the idea of nature reclaiming architectural space. Inspired by sci-fi and the future, Koyczan implements various techniques of interactivity, audio-video, VR/360/XR, and the engagement of the bodily senses within his creations. He is an international artist that has participated in many residencies, exhibits, festivals and collaborations in parts of the world such as Finland, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, The Netherlands, and the UK. He is also a musician, producer, filmmaker, actor, writer, teacher, workshop facilitator, graphic designer, web designer and advocate for future generations of artists and musicians. He has a Multimedia Production diploma from Lethbridge College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Thompson Rivers University, and is in his final year of a Masters of Fine Arts degree at the University of Manitoba.

Glenn Gear

Glenn Gear is a filmmaker, animator and visual artist of mixed Inuit ancestry from Nunatsiavut (Hopedale, Labrador) now based in Montreal. Much of Glenn’s work explores alternative forms of storytelling through research-based creation in addition to personal, tactile, and sensorial knowledge rooted in his Inuit heritage. Primarily focused on animation and moving images, he also uses archives, photographs, drawings, traditional crafts, and objects in his practice. Glenn is passionate about low-budget and experimental animation techniques and shares these through mentoring opportunities that have become an integral part of his practice. His work delves into the relationships between people, animals, and land, rethinking the spaces in which history, hope and Inuit knowledge may thrive.

Dallas Flett-Wapash

Dallas Flett-Wapash is an Ininew/Seaulteax digital artist working with video game design, expanded reality, and other interactive technologies. His practice is an ongoing digital reconstruction of his cultural identity – including cosmology, culture, language, and lifestyle – using video game aesthetics. He has taught digital arts workshops for many arts and educational organizations. Recent exhibitions include In:Site; at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, and DAiR v1: Video Games by Artists at the Mackenzie Art Gallery.

Taylor McArthur

Taylor McArthur (Nakota of Pheasant Rump Nakota First Nation, Saskatchewan) 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. Recent exhibitions include the Mackenzie Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and the Canadian Roots Exchange.

Jean Marshall

Jean Marshall (b. 1976) is of Ahnishnaabe/English descent, born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She is a band member of Kitchenuhmaykoosib, also known as Big Trout Lake, Treaty 9. She currently lives along the shore of Lake Superior.  Jean Marshall has been practicing professionally as a visual artist for the past 20 years. She is primarily known for her work with beads and textiles. As a child, she was surrounded by beadwork. The value of craftsmanship, quality and the importance of using her hands was instilled at a young age. Unknowingly, she absorbed skill, colour, design, pattern and techniques to be used later in life. This lasting admiration grew into her present day practice, becoming a beadwork & leatherworker. She does this full time now and works for herself.  She is an aspiring hide tanner. 

Tsēmā Igharas

Tsēmā is an interdisciplinary artist and member of the Tahltan Nation. She uses Potlatch methodology to create conceptual artwork and teachings influenced by her mentorship in Northwest Coast Formline Design at K’saan (2005/06), her studies in visual culture, and time in the mountains. She has a Bachelor's degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2011) and graduated from the Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design program at OCADu showing her thesis work, LAND|MINE that connects materials to mine sites and bodies to the land. Tsēmā has won the 2018 Emily Award for outstanding ECUAD alumni; is 1/25 2020 Sobey award winners; has shown and performed in various places in Canada and internationally in Sweden, Mexico, USA and Chile.

Scott Benesiinaabandan

Scott Benesiinaabandan is an Anishinabe intermedia artist that works primarily in photography, printmaking and video. Scott has recently completed  international residencies at Parramatta Artist Studios in Australia (2012), Context Gallery in Derry, North of Ireland (2010) and is most recently been awarded the University Lethbridge/Royal Institute of Technology iAIR residency 2013,  along with international collaborative projects in both the U.K and Ireland. He is currently in Montreal, and recently completed a Canada Council New Media Production grant through OBx Labs/Ab-tech and Concordia.

In the past four years, Benesiinaabandan has been awarded multiple grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council and the Winnipeg Arts Council.

Benesiinaabandan has taken part in several group exhibitions across Canada and the United States, most notably in  Harbourfront’s Flatter the Land/Bigger the Ruckus (2006), Subconscious City at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (2008) and with more recent solo exhibitions, unSacred, at Gallery 1C03 ( 2011) and in Sydney,  Mii Omaa Ayaad/Oshiki Inendemowin (2012).In September, 2013 Benesiinaabandan will take part in Ryerson Image Centre’s Ghost Dance exhibition.

Meera Sethi

Meera Sethi is a contemporary Canadian visual artist with an interdisciplinary, intuitive, and research-based practice that moves between painting, drawing, fibre, photography, illustration, performance, and social practice. Her work sits at the intersection of the subjugated body and histories of cloth with a particular focus on South Asia and it’s diasporas. She is interested in the making, wearing, and disposing of cloth; the uses of clothing as a form of self-expression and resistance; and the ways textile is constituted over vast geographies formed through empire, racial capitalism, caste, heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of the Royal Ontario Museum and the Wedge Collection. It has been exhibited nationally and internationally. I am the recipient of multiple awards from the Toronto, Ontario and Canada Arts Councils, the Textile Museum of Canada, University of Toronto, Inter Access, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She lives and works in Tkaronto.

Mark Bennett

Mark Bennett is an Inuk designer from western Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) and currently based out of Tkaronto, Ontario (Toronto). His practice is rooted in graphic design but explores other mediums such as printmaking, code, moving images, and sound. The primary focus of his work is about the exploration of his mixed identity, developed from ongoing questions and conversations with his family and community. Mark has a full-time commercial design practice primarily working with artists, galleries, and cultural organizations, and is a part-time undergraduate architecture student at the University of Toronto.

Mark Igloliorte

Mark Igloliorte (Inuk, Nunatsiavut) is an artist, essayist and educator. He is an associate professor of Frameworks and Interventions in Indigenous Art Practices, Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University.

As a scholar and artist his work investigates relating to indigenous futures through a grounding in the embodied practices and language. Igloliorte's artistic work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across Canada as well as internationally. Including including New Zealand and The Netherlands.

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory

Laakkuluk is a Kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) performance artist, poet, actor, curator, storyteller, filmmaker and writer. She is known for performing uaajeerneq, a Greenlandic mask dance. She performs internationally, collaborates with other artists and is a fierce advocate for Inuit artists. Winner of the 2021 Sobey Prize, Laakkuluk lives with her family in Iqaluit.