Joi Arcand facts for kids

Joi T. Arcand, born in 1982, is a talented artist from the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada. She creates art using photography and lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Besides her photography, Joi also works on publishing, making special art books, and creating collages. She cares a lot about making art easy for everyone to see and enjoy.

Early Life and Learning

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 is where she developed a love for old photographs and history.

Later, Joi went to the University of Saskatchewan. In 2005, she earned a degree called a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Great Distinction. This means she did very well in her studies. In her second year, she started making art about her own identity. She decided to focus on photography and printmaking. Her first photography projects were a response to the work of Edward S. Curtis, a photographer from the early 1900s.

Joi Arcand's Art and Work

Joi Arcand has done many important things in the art world. She was the head of the board of directors for Paved Art and New Media in Saskatoon. She also helped start the Red Shift Gallery with Felicia Gay. This gallery in Saskatoon showed modern Aboriginal art from 2006 to 2010.

Kimiwan Magazine

Joi also started Kimiwan, a special magazine for Indigenous artists and writers. It published eight issues between 2012 and 2014. Joi worked with her cousin, Mika Lafond, to create this magazine. It was a way to show visual art and writings inspired by Aboriginal culture. The magazine focused on important ideas like decolonization, healing, and family. Joi was inspired to create Kimiwan after being part of the R.A.I.N. (radical art in nature) group in Vancouver. Her work has also been featured in BlackFlash Magazine.

Exhibitions and Teaching

From October to November 2017, Joi was a visiting artist at OCAD University. Her art has been shown in many galleries. These include Gallery 101 in Ottawa, York Quay Gallery in Toronto, and Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon. Her work has also been displayed at Grunt gallery in Vancouver.

Exploring Identity and Language

Joi Arcand's art often explores her personal experiences. She also looks at political ideas through her mixed-race identity. A big part of her art is about bringing back the Cree language. She has studied the language her whole life.

Joi believes that "Language is culture." She explained that many Indigenous languages are disappearing. Cree is one of the few that is still spoken by many people. However, she 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 past art shows a world where signs in English and French are replaced with the Cree language.

Community Art Projects

In 2015, Joi appeared as an extra on the TV show Portlandia.

From June 2018 to October 2019, Joi was the curator for a large mural project in Ottawa. It was called nākatēyimisowin – Taking Care of Oneself. This project was supported by Heritage Canada. It started on National Indigenous Peoples Day in 2018. Four Indigenous artists created the murals:

• Cedar Eve Peters (Anishinaabe, Ojibwe) created Shifting of Energies.
• Glenn Gear (Inuk) created Ommatik – Heart.
• Michelle Sound (Swan River First Nation, Red River Métis) created Kahkiyaw acāhkosak – All the Stars.
• Tara-Lynn Kozma-Perrin (Cree) created We Are Resilient.

These murals are located in a tunnel under Wellington Street in Ottawa. Joi explained that she wanted the project to focus on self-care from an Indigenous point of view. She said that Indigenous people often have to resist challenges. She wanted to think about what happens when they focus on taking care of each other instead. Each artist showed their own idea of what this meant. Joi found it interesting that even though the theme was about the self, the self and the community are always connected.

Current Work

Joi also designs jewelry that features Indigenous languages. This project is called Mad Aunty.

Currently, Joi Arcand is the Director of the Nordic Lab. This is a new space at SAW Gallery in Ottawa. It is dedicated to artists from the circumpolar region, which includes areas around the North Pole.

Art Exhibitions

Joi Arcand's art has been shown in many exhibitions, both by herself and with other artists.

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 and Recognition

• In 2018, Joi Arcand was a finalist for the Sobey Art Award. This is a very important award for young Canadian artists.