Joi Arcand facts for kids

Joi T. Arcand (born 1982) is a Cree photo artist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Besides making art, Joi Arcand also works with publishing, art books, zines, and collage. She also helps make art more available to everyone.

Early Life and Education

Joi Arcand was born in 1982 in Hafford, Saskatchewan. She grew up on the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in central Saskatchewan. During many summers, she worked in the Muskeg Lake Archives. This work helped her discover a love for old photographs and history.

Later, Arcand went to the University of Saskatchewan. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2005. In her second year of studies, she started making art about her own identity. This led her to focus on photography and printmaking. Her first photo projects were inspired by the work of Edward S. Curtis. He was a photographer working in the early 1900s.

Joi Arcand's Art and Work

Joi Arcand has helped lead art groups and galleries. She was a co-founder of the Red Shift Gallery in Saskatoon. This gallery showed modern Indigenous art from 2006 to 2010.

She also started Kimiwan, a special magazine called a 'zine'. Kimiwan was for Indigenous artists and writers. It published eight issues from 2012 to 2014. Arcand worked with her cousin Mika Lafond to create the zine. Their goal was to share visual art and writings inspired by Indigenous cultures. The magazine talked about important topics like healing and family.

In 2017, Joi Arcand was a visiting artist at OCAD University. Her art has been shown in many galleries. These include Gallery 101 in Ottawa and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Exploring Identity and Language

Arcand's art often explores her own experiences as a mixed-race person. She also focuses on bringing back the Cree language. She has studied Cree her whole life. Arcand believes that "Language is culture." She has said that many Indigenous languages are disappearing. Cree is one of the few that still has many speakers.

However, Arcand realized that her own family had lost the language. This made her feel it was urgent to help bring Indigenous languages back. Some of her art shows a world where signs are written in Cree instead of English or French.

Public Art Projects

Joi Arcand also works on public art projects. In 2018, she was the curator for a mural project in Ottawa. The project was called nākatēyimisowin – Taking Care of Oneself. It was launched on National Indigenous Peoples Day.

Four Indigenous artists created murals for this project. The artists were Cedar Eve Peters, Glenn Gear, Michelle Sound, and Tara-Lynn Kozma-Perrin. Their murals are in a pedestrian tunnel in Ottawa. Arcand explained that she wanted the project to show "self-care from an Indigenous perspective." She wanted to explore what happens when people focus on taking care of each other.

Arcand also designs jewelry. Her recent project, called Mad Aunty, features Indigenous languages. She is currently the Director of the Nordic Lab. This is a new space at SAW Gallery in Ottawa for artists from the circumpolar region.

Exhibitions

Joi Arcand's artwork has been shown in many places.

Solo Exhibitions

• oskinikiskwéwak (Young Women), 2012
• Through That Which Is Scene, 2013
• Official Language – Joi Arcand, 2014
• Through That Which Is Scene, 2016
• ᓇᒨᔭ ᓂᑎᑌᐧᐃᐧᓇ ᓂᑕᔮᐣ (I don't have my words), 2017, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre.
• Language of Puncture, 2017

Group Exhibitions

• When Raven Became Spider, 2016–2018 (Touring), organized by Dunlop Art Gallery
• Insurgence/Resurgence, 2018, Winnipeg Art Gallery.
• Àbadakone – Continuous Fire, 2019–2020, National Gallery of Canada.

Awards

• 2018 Sobey Art Award Finalist