AKA share a recent group chat that centres the collective’s goals, visioning, and future plans.
Felicia Gay
Felicia Gay is muskego inninu iskew and Scottish from Northern Saskatchewan Treaty 5 territory. Gay’s practice as a curator began in 2004, soon after graduating from her BA (Hon) in Art History at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2006 Gay was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Aboriginal Curatorial Residency in partnership with AKA Gallery in Saskatoon, Sk. In 2018 Gay was awarded Saskatchewan Arts Award for Leadership for recognition of her work with curation and advocacy of creating safe and productive spaces with Indigenous artists. Recognized also was her work co-founding (with Joi Arcand) and operating the Red Shift Gallery: an Aboriginal art space until 2010 in Saskatoon. Since 2019, Gay has lived in Regina, Sk, and is the Mackenzie Art Gallery’s first Mitacs Curatorial Fellow in partnership with the Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance Doctoral program.
Fresh off the presses!
Our spring issue celebrates and explores moments of collectivity—sharing spaces, experiences, and knowledge. The issue features writing by Christina Hajjar, Michael Peterson, Cléo Sallis-Parchet, and Cole Thompson as well as artists Diane Borsato, Sean Weisgerber, Leonard Suryajaya, and Preston Pavlis.
“The existence of Indigenous public institutions…creates a red shift within a community’s cultural imaginary.” –Felicia Gay, The Red Shift: A Contemporary Aboriginal Curatorial Praxis, 2011.
As “Stronger Than Stone: (Re)Inventing the Indigenous Monument” opened on the morning of November 21, after a welcome by Siksika Elder, Margaret Water Chief, Jen Budney recalled feeling compelled to understand the reality of her origins and the histories of the peoples of the Americas. Watching the Calgary iterations of the conference online, I realized that I am blind to the reality of where I come from and wondered where my voice fit within the immense subject matter of the symposium.