Jason Baerg, photo courtesy of The High Commission of Canada to the UK; Liz Barron, David Garneau, and Daphne Boyer, photos courtesy of the artists.
Join our celebrated Kapishkum: Métis Gathering faculty for a conversation on contemporary Métis art in Canada.
Kapishkum, meaning “to transcend” in Michif, brings together a cohort of Métis artists to practice their personal crafts as well as collaborate and share with peers. The residency program celebrates creative forms, methods, and ways of being that are unique to the Métis, a culture still lesser known in the broader art world.
Speakers include Jason Baerg, an Indigenous activist, curator, educator, and interdisciplinary artist; Daphne Boyer, whose work combines natural materials and high resolution digital tools to create art that celebrates her Indigenous heritage; Liz Barron, a founding member of the Harbour Collective, which supports Indigenous filmmakers and visual artists; and David Garneau, a painter, curator, and critical art writer who engages with contemporary Indigenous ways of being.
Visual Arts is supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.
Related People
Jason Baerg
Raised Red River in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Jason Baerg is now a registered member of the Métis Nations of Ontario. He serves his community as an Indigenous activist, curator, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. Baerg graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University. Baerg teaches as the Assistant Professor in Indigenous Practices in Contemporary Painting and Media Art at OCAD University. Exemplifying their commitment to community, they co-founded The Shushkitew Collective and The Métis Artist Collective. Baerg has served as volunteer chair for organizations such as the Indigenous Curatorial Collective and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition.
As a visual artist, they push digital interventions in drawing, painting, and new media installation. Select international solo exhibitions include Canada House in London, UK, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, and the Digital Dome at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. They sat on numerous art juries and won awards through such facilitators as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and The Toronto Arts Council. For more information about their practice, please visit JasonBaerg.ca.
Liz Barron
Liz Barron is a founding member of the Harbour Collective (harbourcollective.ca). Working within the Indigenous media and visual arts, Harbour Collective engages in research activities, artistic programming and service delivery for Indigenous filmmakers, media artists and visual artists. Harbour Collective has hosted four LAB series and is currently working on Indigenous artist rights working in artificial intelligence, along with commissioning five Indigenous artists to create augmented reality stories based on their traditional moon stories with a launch in Vienna in November 2024.
Barron has been in the arts for the last 30 years. She started her cultural career at Plug In ICA as their digital producer. During her time with Plug IN ICA, she met Louise Ogemah and Debra Prince who invited her to join them to create Urban Shaman, a contemporary Indigenous artist run centre, in Winnipeg.
Barron’s connection to place is the homeland of the Metis. Her mother is from St. Francois Xavier, Manitoba and her father is from St. Francois Xavier/ Pigeon Lake, Manitoba. Her maternal grandparents are from St. Charles, Manitoba (Peltier / Pelletier) and Harperville, Manitoba (Miller). Her paternal grandparents are from St. Francois Xavier (Barron / Chalifoux). The Chalifoux were identified as Cree on the Canadian Census and claimed scrip.
Barron is a member of the Manitoba Metis Federation and a member of the Catfish Local, Winnipeg.
Daphne Boyer
Daphne Boyer is a Canadian visual artist of Métis descent. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, long-time resident of Québec, Daphne currently lives and works on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples of Victoria BC, where she is an active member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia.
A graduate of McGill University (Plant Science), Daphne’s work lies at the intersection of art and science. Daphne combines plant material, porcupine quills, women’s traditional handwork and high-resolution digital tools to create art that celebrates her Indigenous heritage and honours plants and animals as kin.
Daphne recently invented two innovative photo-based digital techniques that mirror the spectacular beading and quillwork her ancestors used to embellish clothing and gear. Like traditional Métis art forms, her techniques are meticulous, technically demanding and time-consuming art practices.
Daphne has used these practices to create a large body of work that has been exhibited at numerous solo and group shows, including at the Remai Modern (Saskatoon), MAI (Montréal), Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina), Legacy Art Gallery (Victoria) and Art Windsor-Essex (Windsor). Her art is held in various public and private collections across the country. Daphne is passionate about community engagement; educational tours and art-making workshops form an integral part of her exhibitions
David Garneau
David Garneau (Métis Nation of Saskatchewan) is a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Regina. He is a descendant of Laurent and Eleanor Garneau (River Lot #7, Edmonton).
He is a painter, curator and critical art writer who engages creative expressions of Indigenous contemporary ways of being. In 2023, he was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art: Outstanding Achievement and was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada. Garneau curated Kahwatsiretátie: The Contemporary Native Art Biennial (Montreal, 2020) with assistance from Faye Mullen and rudi aker; He co-curated, with Kathleen Ash Milby, Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound, National Museum of the American Indian, New York (2017). With Tess Allas, he co-curated With Secrecy and Despatch, for the Campbelltown Art Centre, Sydney, Australia (2016). He and Michelle Lavallee curated and Moving Forward, Never Forgetting at the Mackenzie Art Gallery (2015).
Garneau has given keynotes on mis/appropriation; re/conciliation; public art; museum displays; and Indigenous contemporary art. He presented, Dear John, a performance featuring the spirit of Louis Riel meeting with John A. Macdonald statues in Regina, Kingston, and Ottawa. David recently installed a large public artwork, the Tawatina Bridge paintings, in Edmonton. His still life paintings, Dark Chapters, curated by Arin Fay, will tour Canada in 2025