Facing Photographs

Lori Blondeau is an influential contemporary artist of Cree, Saulteaux and Métis heritage from Saskatchewan, Treaty Four. Since the 1990s, she has established an interdisciplinary artistic practice encompassing performance, photography, and installation art. Alongside her creative endeavors, Blondeau played a vital role in the Indigenous art community as the co-founder and Executive Director of the Indigenous art collective TRIBE, significantly contributing to the prominence of Indigenous art and knowledge in Canada.

Her notable performances, including We Want to be Like Barbie that Bitch has Everything (1995), Are You My Mother? (2002), States of Grace (2007) and Plains Horizon (2024) reflect her profound engagement with themes of identity and culture, while her photographic works such as COSMOSQUAW (1996), Lonely Surfer Squaw (1997) and Asinîy Iskwew (2016) exhibit a compelling blend of precision, humour, and strength.

Blondeau’s work has been showcased in numerous group and solo exhibitions, earning her recognition as a pivotal figure in contemporary art. In addition to her artistic practice, she has served as an Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba School of Art, Winnipeg since 2018, where she mentors emerging artists. Her contributions to the field were acknowledged when she received the prestigious Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Canada Council (2021) highlighting her significant impact on the art landscape in Canada and beyond.
 

Cassils is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils' art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle, survival, empowerment and systems of care. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils' work excavates historical contexts to examine the present moment.

Cassils has had recent solo exhibitions at SITE Santa Fe; HOME Manchester; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston; Perth Institute for Contemporary Art; Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; and MU Eindhoven.
 
They are the recipient of funding from the Ford Foundation (2023), the National Creation Fund (2022), a 2020 Paul D. Fleck Residency at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist (2020), a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (2019), a United States Artist Fellowship (2018), a Guggenheim Fellowship and a COLA Grant (2017) and a Creative Capital Award (2015). They have received the inaugural ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, California Community Foundation Grant, MOTHA (Museum of Transgender Hirstory) award, and numerous Visual Artist Fellowships from the Canada Council of the Arts. Their work has been featured in New York Times, Boston Globe, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Wired, The Guardian, TDR, Performance Research, Art Journal and was the subject of the monograph Cassils published by MU Eindhoven and the catalog Solutions, published by the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston (2020). Cassils' work was recently acquired by the Victoria Albert Museum, London; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and the Leslie Lohman Museum, New York.

Allyson Clay has a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, an MFA from The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and has exhibited nationally and internationally. She taught in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, from 1988 to 2020. Awards received include Connection Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2017) Senior Artist Grant, Canada Council (2005, 2001) Bellagio Residency, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio (1996).  Her work is in collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, the Banff Centre, and the Art Gallery of Windsor. Over the years Clay has worked in painting, photography, video, artist books, text works, installation, and print media.

Anna Binta Diallo’s (b. 1983, Dakar, lives and works in Winnipeg) practice explores the ways in which memory and nostalgia can coalesce to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. Her work examines themes of migration, displacement, personal mythologies, diaspora, as well as the relationship between language, history, and identity. Diallo holds an MFA from Transart Institute, Berlin, and a BFA from the School of Art, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in exhibitions at such as institutions as MOCA Taipei; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; Centre Clark, Montréal; Contemporary Calgary, and Museum London. In 2022 her work was included in the 13th edition of the African Photography Biennial, Bamako. Most recently, Diallo was the subject of a solo exhibition at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Diallo has been the recipient of multiple grants and honours, notably Research and Creation Grant, The Canada Council for the Arts (2023, 2021, 2019); Travel Grant for Visual Artists, The Conseil des Arts et des lettres du Québec (2019) Visual Arts Project Grant, Francofonds (2018); Barbara Spohr Award, Banff Centre, (2021); and BDC Award of Excellence, Black Designers of Canada (2021). Diallo’s work was selected as a finalist for the Salt Spring National Art Prize, SSNAP Society (2019, 2023) and the artist was named to the longlist for The Sobey Art Award, Sobey Art Foundation (2022). Her works are included in many public and private collections. Diallo currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the School of Art at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, located on Treaty 1 territory on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Ininiwak, Anisininewuk, Dakota Oyate and Dene, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. She is represented in Canada by Towards Gallery, Toronto.

John Edmonds (b. 1989) is an American artist and photographer who first came to public recognition with his intimate portraits of lovers, close friends and strangers.  He earned his MFA in Photography from Yale University, New Haven, and his BFA at the Corcoran School of Arts & Design, Washington D.C. His work explores themes of identity, community, desire and belonging. Noted for his highly formalist photographs in which he focuses on the performative gestures and self-fashioning of young, Black men on the streets of America, his work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Brooklyn Museum; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The Cincinnati Art Museum; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art;  The Rubell Collection, Miami; The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Milwaukee Art Museum; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. In 2019, he was included in 79th Whitney Biennial. Edmonds has taught at Harvard University, Cambridge and the School of Visual Arts, New York. He lives and works in Brooklyn and is currently Visiting Critic in Photography at Yale University, New Haven.  

Artist, teacher and activist, Evergon (AKA Celluloso Evergonni, Eve R. Gonzales, Egon Brut and Big Hellion) is a real cultural icon. Throughout a prestigious career of more than fifty years, he was always recognized to be at the avant-garde of experimentation in the field of photography and similar mediums. Important precursor of the homo-erotic contemporary art and iconic figure of the homosexual communities, his works were at the heart of numerous important exhibitions worldwide. They are part of a large number of private and institutional collections among which those of Musée national des beaux arts du Québec and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Rosalie Favell is a distinguished Métis artist with a creative practice that spans over forty years who has achieved national and international acclaim. Favell has used photography, portraiture, and painting to understand and represent her ancestry and identity in works that have been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. Drawing inspiration from her family history and Red River Métis heritage, she uses a variety of sources, from family albums to popular culture, to present a complex self-portrait of her experiences as a contemporary Indigenous woman.

Favell explores cultural entanglements, the challenges of representation, and themes of empowerment and identity. Her work focuses on her lived experience as a Métis 2SLGBTQ+ woman, merging aspects of Métis identity, gender, heritage, and elements of popular culture. As someone who has influenced generations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, Favell is a leading figure in contemporary Indigenous art and photography. 

Over the course of her long career, Favell has won prestigious awards such as the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award, Ontario Arts Foundation (2017); the Karsh Award, The City of Ottawa (2012); and an Honorary Doctorate from the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto (2022). Numerous institutions have acquired her artwork including the Indigenous Art Centre, Gatineau; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.
 

Logan MacDonald is an artist, curator, writer, educator and activist who focuses on queer, disability and decolonial perspectives. He is of European and Mi’kmaq ancestry, who identifies with both his Indigenous and settler roots. Born in Summerside, PEI, his Mi’kmaq ancestry is connected to Elmastukwek. His artwork has been exhibited across North America, notably with exhibitions at L.A.C.E., Los Angeles; John Connelly Presents, New York; Ace Art Inc., Winnipeg; The Rooms, St. John's; and Articule, Montréal. MacDonald was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award, Sobey Art Foundation (2019) and was honoured with a six-month residency at the International Studio Programme, Künstlerhaus Bethanien (2019). He is currently an Associate Professor in Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo. 

Nadia Myre is a contemporary visual artist whose multi-disciplinary practice delves into themes of resilience, belonging, transformation, and the politics of recognition. As Canadian Art describes, “Nadia Myre’s work weaves together complex histories of Aboriginal identity, nationhood, memory, and handicraft, using beadwork techniques to craft exquisite and laborious works.” Through her evocative creations, Myre explores the structures of power that shape personal and collective narratives, crafting spaces for reflection on memory, ancestral connections, and the shared fragility of the human experience. Her art resonates deeply, sparking dialogues that bridge history, materiality, and the poetics of storytelling.

A graduate of Camosun College, Victoria; Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver; and Concordia University, Montréal where she earned an MFA in Visual Arts in 2002, Myre has built a celebrated career spanning over two decades. Her work has been exhibited extensively in North America and internationally in the UK, France, Italy, Greece, Mexico, Gabon, and China. Her art resides in prestigious collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Smithsonian Institution, New York; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; the Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau; and the Kadist Foundation, Paris as well as in Canadian embassies in New York, London, Paris, and Athens.

Recent solo exhibitions include All This and More (2024), Blouin Division, Toronto; Tous geste est / et politique (2024), Fondation Guido Molinari, Montréal; [in]tangible tangles et autres œuvres (2024), centre Ahkwayaonhkeh, Quebec; Ropes & Lines (2024), Centre international d’art du paysage — Île-de-Vassivière; Want Ads (2024), Macaulay + Co., Vancouver; and After the Fire, and other work (2024), DIANA, New York. Her commissioned project Tell me of your boats and your waters, where do they come from and where do they go? was featured at Edinburgh Printmakers for the 2022 Edinburgh Art Festival.

Myre has also participated in notable group exhibitions, such as Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge / Native Art (2024) Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; Radical Stitch (2024), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Native American Art Now (2023), Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York; and The Vibration of Things (2022), 15th Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach, Germany.

Her contributions to contemporary art have earned her numerous accolades, including the Emily Award, Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2024); Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2023); the Prix Louis-Comtois, Association des galeries d'art contemporain (2021); and the Sobey Art Award, Sobey Art Foundation (2014). Myre was also named a Compagne du Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2019, further cementing her status as a leading voice in Canadian and international art.

Through her evocative practice, Nadia Myre continues to craft spaces for dialogue and reflection, confronting the complexities of belonging, memory, and the intersections of personal and collective histories.
 

Shelley Niro was born in Niagara Falls, New York. She is a member of the Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk Six Nations Grand River Reserve.

Niro is a practicing artist, concentrating on painting, photography and film. She has been awarded a Governor General Award in Visual Art, Canada Council for the Arts (2017); the Reveal Award, The Hnatyshyn Foundation (2017); the Arts and Culture Award, Dreamcatcher Charitable Foundation (2017); the Scotiabank Photography Award (2017); and the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award, Ontario Arts Foundation (2020). She also became an honorary elder in the Indigenous Curatorial Collective. Niro received an Honorary Doctorate from the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto (2019); an Honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Western Ontario, London (2023); and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford (2024).
 

Barbara Spohr (b. 1955, Vancouver, d. 1987, Calgary) was a photographer based in Western Canada whose works are presently in the collection of Banff Centre; Glenbow; the Alberta Foundation for the Arts; the Getty Museum; and the National Gallery of Canada. The artist attended the Alberta College of Art (now Alberta University of the Arts), Calgary, and later Banff Centre. Following her passing at the age of 32, friends and family of the artist created an endowment at Banff Centre to support photographers. At present, the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award is offered annually and provides financial and creative assistance to an artist whose work has made a significant contribution to the field, furthering the development of Canadian contemporary photography.

Jin-me Yoon is a Korea-born, Vancouver-based artist whose work explores the entangled relations of tourism, militarism, and colonialism. Since the early ’90s, she has used photography, video, and performance to situate her personal experience of migration in relation to unfolding historical, political, and ecological conditions. Through experimental cinematography and the performative gestures of family, friends, and community members, Yoon reconnects repressed pasts with damaged presents, creating the conditions for different futures. Staging her work in charged landscapes, Yoon finds specific points of reference across multiple geopolitical contexts. In so doing, she brings worlds together, affirming the value of difference.

Over the last three decades, Yoon’s work has been presented nationally as well as internationally in hundreds of exhibitions, and she has mentored many students over the years while teaching at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, Vancouver. She was elected as a Fellow into the Royal Society of Canada, (2018); and won the prestigious Scotiabank Photography Award, Scotiabank, (2022). Recent monographs include: Jin-me Yoon (SPA/Steidl, Toronto/ Göttingen, 2023); About Time (Vancouver Art Gallery/Hirmer, Munich, 2022); and Jin-me Yoon: Life & Work (Art Canada Institute, Toronto, 2022). Fall 2024 exhibitions include: Imjingak/DMZ, Paju; the Hammer Museum, LA; Secession, Vienna; the Korean Cultural Centre, Vienna; and the facade of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (up until spring 2026).