ARTIST STATEMENT
In a never-ending world of consumption, where mass-produced commodities and highly designed products are naturalized, the creation of hand-made objects (even if imperfect) becomes an overt act of resistance. By using the language of anti-capitalist activism and Indigenous visuality, I make intentionally unrefined objects that, if nothing else, challenge artistic ambiguity by operating within a tradition of political didacticism and egalitarian cooperation. Through the production of print-based installations and socially-engaged collaborations, I employ the art object in an attempt to narrate a particular anti-colonial and anti-capitalist desire. As an artist, I am a storyteller whose practice narrates a uniquely visual account based in an anti-authoritarian tradition. By collaborating with Indigenous and immigrant communities, as well as working in collectives, I remake history and reterritorialize colonized spaces. Conceptually, my practice orbits around minwaajimo, the ability to tell a story well. Accordingly, I am drawn to the powerful words of Louis Riel, the martyred Métis insurrectionist who articulated in the late-nineteenth century that: ‘My people will sleep for 100 years, and when they awake, it will be the artists who give them back their spirit.’ Each project I produce mines our individual and collective past as to excavate new potentialities from our shared spirit.
