ALTERNATION. Evolutions. Revolutions. Shifts in a worldwide Indigenous groove occur repeatedly. From time immemorial, Indigenous Nations have accepted the challenges of change with determination, as well as integrity. We forge our worldview forward, at a pace that suits ourselves and our communities who are insiders and outsiders situated on and off the grid of a "4th world". We have witnessed and experienced ravage to the land and as the environmental conditions digress, our cultures become stressed, repressed and our spirits vulnerable. Yet we survive, adapt, shift and revolt. We move and migrate, love and hate, laugh and cry in the places/spaces of rurality or urbanity, and anywhere in between we call our own. Time brings change, however, our past, present and future historical diaspora keeps running parallel with the project of colonialism, exploration and conquest...without surrender. We come in peace, and always have. It is a basic philosophy; a call to consciousness that nurtures our soul, hearts and minds.

— Ryan Rice

Ryan Rice, a Mohawk of Kahnawake, Québec, is an artist and independent curator. Rice received a Master of Arts degree in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and received an Associate of Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New México. He has worked for the past 13 years within the museum/art gallery milieu as an educator, intern, technician, curator (assistant, guest, resident, fellow, independent and Chief) at various centres including the Iroquois Indian Museum, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Indian Art Centre (INAC), Carleton University Art Gallery and the Walter Phillips Art Gallery. Rice is also a co-founder and chair of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective (aboriginalcuratorialcollective.org). In 2009, Rice will tour his exhibitions ANTHEM: Perspectives on Home and Native Land, Oh So Iroquois, Scout's Honour, LORE and open Hochelaga Revisited in Montréal. His artwork has been exhibited widely, most recently in Izhizkawe: To Leave Tracks to a Certain Place. He has published articles in the periodicals Canadian Art, Spirit, Fuse, Muse and Blackflash.

Terrance Houle, Aakaisttsiiksiinaakii: Many Snake Woman: "The Daughters After Me," 2008. Installation view.
Image courtesy of the artist and Glenbow Museum.

Terrance Houle is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary media artist and a member of the Blood Tribe. Involved with Aboriginal communities all his life, he has traveled to reservations throughout Canada and the United States to participate in Powwow dancing and other native ceremonies. Terrance began his art career at the Alberta College of Art & Design in 1995. After a 2-year hiatus, he returned to his studies in 2000. In 2003 he graduated with a BFA in Fibre. He has developed an extensive portfolio that ranges from painting and drawing to video/film, mixed media, performance and installation. His works have been shown extensively across Canada and internationally in Australia and Warwickshire, England.

Hannah Claus, Delestages. Installation view.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Hannah Claus is a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte (Tyendinaga) in Eastern Ontario. She is also of European ancestry. She has exhibited widely throughout Canada and in Mexico since her graduation from Toronto's Ontario College of Art and Design in 1997. She completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Concordia University in Montréal in 2004, and was artistic director of the artist-run centre Axe-Néo-7.

Tom Jones, Bill "Beaverhead" (Potawatami) part of the series Encountering Cultures, 2008, digital archive print.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Tom Jones (Ho Chunk) is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his MFA in Photography and a MA in Museum Studies from Columbia College in Chicago, IL. He was the curator for the show "Dressing Up" for the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Illinois and the traveling show America First People, New People, Forgotten People. He is currently collaborating on a future show of Horace Poolaw's photographs with Dr. Nancy Mithlo. His work is in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian, Polaroid Corporation, Sprint Corporation, The Chazen Museum of Art, The Nerman Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Michigan State University Museum.

Mark Igloliorte
Image courtesy of the artist.

"Through my work I seek a kind of balance between being Inuit and my Newfoundland/Canadian identity. I explore and negotiate that which is innate — being born of mixed heritage — and that which is chosen — being a painter as well as an avid skateboarder and snowboarder."

— Mark Igloliorte

Mark Igloliorte (Inuk) holds a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, a B.Ed from Memorial University, and is currently completing an MFA with a concentration in Painting and Drawing at Concordia University. His work encompasses performance, sculpture, painting, drawing and new media. In 2006, he received a project grant from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council to attend the aboriginal visual arts residency 'Storytelling' at the Banff Centre. He has exhibited in group and solo shows in four provinces and the United States, as well as being a contributor to the artist book The Book Of..., which has been collected by the National Gallery of Canada. His work has been exhibited in Canada and the United States.

George Littlechild is an artist of international reputation and his work is celebrated for its exciting use of colour, its themes from a Plains Cree background and its spirit of playfulness. Littlechild has had a stellar career as a professional artist; his many credits include exhibitions and gallery acquisitions throughout Canada, United States, and in Europe, Australia, and Japan. He received a diploma in art and design from Red Deer College and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax. In addition he is an illustrator and has written several critically acclaimed children's books, including This Land Is My Land, A Man Called Raven, and What Is the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?

Jewel Shaw.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Jewel Shaw (Cree), born in High Prairie, AB, completed her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alberta in 2008. There, she was exposed to world-class facilities and instructors focusing on traditional and new digital technologies in printmaking. More recently she has participated in a thematic residency at the Banff Centre where she continued her artistic research on themes such as identity, memory and loss. Currently, Jewel lives and works in Grande Prairie, Alberta.

Image courtesy of Lapointe Architects.

Keesic Douglas is an Ojibway artist from the Mnjikaning First Nation in central Ontario. He specializes in the mediums of photography and video. His work has been exhibited across Canada and the US. Keesic focuses on issues surround his Native heritage in his photo and video work. His video The Vanishing Trace recently won Best Short Documentary at the 2007 imagineNATIVE Film Festival in Toronto. His video War Pony showed at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2009 in Germany. Some of his photographic works are currently in a group show in Prague, Czech Republic.

Frank Shebageget (Ojibway) is from northwestern Ontario, and currently resides in Ottawa. As an installation artist, his work reflects his continued interest in the geography of the Canadian Shield and the aesthetic qualities of everyday materials. Through the use of repetition, he explores the tense relationships between production, consumption, and the economics of beauty, often by playing with the incongruity of mass production versus the handcrafted object.

Shebageget graduated with his A.O.C.A. from the Ontario College of Art in 1996, and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Victoria in 2000. He has participated in the group exhibitions Making Sense of Things, McMaster Museum, Hamilton/C.N. Gorman Museum, Davis, CA (2006); Kosmos, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa (2006); Au fils de mes jours (In My Lifetime), Musée de Québec, Québec City (2005); Dezhan Ejan, Canadian Embassy, Washington, DC (2004); Remote Access, A Space Gallery, Toronto (2004); 3, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa (2003). Solo exhibitions include: Quantification, Tribe Artist Run Centre, Saskatoon (2003), and Home Made, Gallery 101, Ottawa (2002). His work can be found in the collections of the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Dorothy Hoover Library of the Ontario College of Art, the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, as well as several private collections.