One Otipemisiw dreams of the past, present, and future, to sit in a circle, tell stories, remember who we are and learn who we can be.

Otipemisiwak Fantasy is an exploration of contemporary Métis culture through an Indigiqueer and twospirited perspective. It is a love letter to my culture, a way of thanking my relatives who worked so hard to maintain our connection to our culture and land, and allowed me to dream and imagine Indigiqueer futures, Métis spirituality, and the role of the twospirited Otipemisiw. Through historic and contemporary ways of making, Otipemisiwak Fantasy takes the form of a boudoir setting, a sort of dressing room for the artistic personas Otipemisiwak Fantasy Husband and Wife, Indigiqueer representations of Métis gender roles.

The exhibition asks the questions that linger on the lips of the public as they perceive and interact with Indiqueerness and the Michif culture as it exists in history and a contemporary context, revealing the discomfort in invasive conversations regarding native, trans bodies. In implicating the viewers, members of the general public who will pass by and possibly enter The New Gallery and engage with the work in their daily lives. I invite the public to sit with the discomfort of both the unapologetic displays of queerness and the heavy history of my people, reminding the audience that we did not end in 1885, we continue to own ourselves.

---

I descend maternally from Métis families from the historic Red River Settlement and Batoche, notably my Berthelet ancestors were community leaders in Pointe à Grouette and my Caron ancestors fought in the Northwest Resistance of 1885. I was born in Amiskwaciywâskahikan, Edmonton, Treaty 6 territory and have been residing in Mohkinstsis, Calgary, Alberta since 2020. I introduce myself in this way, the traditional way of the Métis to contextualise my knowledge and experiences and situate myself on this land.

With mechanisms of survivance I oppose those of colonialism, by referencing historical aesthetics of the Hudson’s Bay Company and its bloody legacy, the public art and monuments installed throughout Calgary, the suburban Cowboys that come out of hiding on the outskirts of the city, riding steel steeds, raised trucks at the summer Stampede. Survivance is “more than survival, more than endurance, or mere response; [they] are the creases of sovereignty,” (Gerald Vizenor).

My recent body of work explores and honours my Métis two-spirited, transsexual personhood and challenges settler-colonial understandings of these intersecting identities through a sculptural practice engaging with themes of site specificity, local history, and past and present ways people engage with the land around them by revealing overlooked or hidden histories. I open conversations and opportunities for critiquing power structures using humour, performance and performative objects, orientation devices and material culture in the form of queer kink objects and wearables, writing, and traditional Métis material culture and ways of making. At the heart of my practice are notions of queer empowerment, survivance, Indigiqueer Futurisms, and the circular cycle of teaching and learning.