On Saturday, May 29 from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm, Lee-Ann Martin, Jenny Western, Steven Loft and Candice Hopkins will participate in a curatorial talk. They will discuss their respective practices and the upcoming Close Encounters: Next 500 Years, an exhibition focusing on the future and past of Aboriginal people in Canada, occurring January 2011. This exhibition will be organized as part of the Winnipeg’s next 2010 Cultural Capital Designation.

This event is free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome.

Lee-Ann Martin

Lee-Ann Martin is the Curator of Contemporary Canadian Aboriginal Art at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec.  She was guest curator for the nationally touring retrospective exhibition, Bob Boyer: His Life’s Work, organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2008).  She was guest curator for the exhibition, Au fil de mes Jours (In My Lifetime) presented at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (2007 – 2008) and organized for the Musee national des beaux-arts du Quebec in Quebec City, Quebec (2005). Martin was Curatorial Fellow with the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Alberta (2001-2004) where she curated the exhibition, Mapping Our Territories, in 2002.  In 2003 at Banff, Martin co-organized the thematic residency for international Indigenous artists on Christianity and Colonialism and the Aboriginal Curatorial Symposium, Making a Noise, whose publication she also edited (2004).

Martin was Head Curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan (1998-2000) and Adjunct Curator, First Nations Art (2000-2004). There, she co-curated two national touring exhibitions, The Powwow: An Art History, with Bob Boyer (2000) and EXPOSED: The Aesthetics of Aboriginal Art, with Morgan Wood(1999).Martin participated in the curatorial collective that organized The Post-Colonial Landscape project (1990-1994) at the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  She curated the travelling exhibition, Alex Janvier: His First Thirty Years, 1960-1990 (1993) for the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay.  Martin was interim curator, Contemporary Indian Art, Canadian Museum of Civilization (1992-1994) where she co-curated, with Gerald McMaster, the internationally travelling exhibition, INDIGENA: Perspectives of Indigenous Peoples on 500 Years (1992). She has written and presented extensively on contemporary Aboriginal art both nationally and internationally.

Jenny Western

Jenny Western is a curator, writer, and educator based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She holds an undergraduate degree in History from the University of Winnipeg and a Masters in Art History and Curatorial Practice from York University in Toronto. While completing her graduate studies, she accepted a position at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon where she was Curator of Contemporary / Aboriginal Art from 2005 – 2007. Jenny has curated exhibitions for Urban Shaman, Ace Art Inc., and the Label Gallery in Winnipeg, and has worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Most recently she has served as a Sessional Instructor in Art History and as Art Collections Coordinator for the University of Manitoba, as well as Adjunct Curator for the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba. Jenny is honoured to be the 2009/10 Aboriginal Curator-in-Residence at Plug In ICA and Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art.

Steven Loft

Steven Loft is a Mohawk of the Six Nations. He is a curator, writer and media artist. In 2008, he became the first Curator-In-Residence, Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada. He was formerly the Director/Curator of the Urban Shaman Gallery (Winnipeg), Aboriginal Curator at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and Artistic Director of the Native Indian/Inuit Photographers’ Association. He has written extensively on Indigenous art and aesthetics for various magazines, catalogues and arts publications. Loft co-editedTransference, Technology, Tradition: Aboriginal Media and New Media Art, published by the Banff Centre Press in 2005. His video works, which include AHistory in Two Parts, 2510037901, TAX THIS! And Out of the Darkness have been screened at festivals and galleries across Canada and internationally.

Candice Hopkins

Candice Hopkins is the Sobey Curatorial Resident, Indigenous Art, at the National Gallery of Canada and is the former director and curator of the exhibitions program at the Western Front, Vancouver. She has a MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture, Bard College, New York, where she was awarded the Ramapo Curatorial Prize for the exhibition Every Stone Tells a Story: The Performance Work of David Hammons and Jimmie Durham (2004). Her writing has been published by MIT Press, BlackDog Publishing, New York University, Catriona Jeffries Gallery, and Banff Centre Press, National Museum of the American Indian among others. She has lectured at venues including Tate Modern, Tate Britain, the Dakar Biennale, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Hopkins was co-curator of the exhibition Jimmie Durham: Knew Urk (2005), which originated at the Reg Vardy Gallery, Sunderland (touring); and Shapeshifters, Timetravellers and Storytellers (2007), organized by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Recent curatorial projects include exhibitions on architecture and disaster, fictional identities, feminism and video, and the revolutionary potential of slowness in relation to new technologies. She is co-editor, with Marisa Jahn and Berin Golonu, of the forthcoming book Recipes for an Encounter, published by the Western Front.