Wanda Nanibush facts for kids

Wanda Nanibush (born 1976) is an Anishinaabe curator, artist and educator based in Toronto, Ontario. From 2016 to 2023, she held the position of the inaugural curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario: she resigned in 2023.

Nanibush won the 2023 Toronto Book Award for the book Moving the Museum, written in collaboration with her fellow Art Gallery of Ontario curator Georgiana Uhlyarik and was a jurist for the 2023 Sobey Art Award.

Career

Nanibush is a member of the Beausoleil First Nation. She obtained an MA in visual studies from the University of Toronto. She has also served as Curator in Residence at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery.

Nanibush has a long-standing relationship with Anishinaabe multimedia artist Rebecca Belmore and has curated a series of shows featuring her work including KWE: Photography, Sculpture, Video and Performance by Rebecca Belmore (2014) at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, and Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental (2018) a survey of Belmore's 30 year career at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Nanibush has been an active community organizer participating in demonstrations against the Iraq War and uranium processing, and raising awareness about the relationship between racism and lack of education. She has also worked as an organizer for Idle No More Toronto talks and teach-ins to help with education efforts.

Art Gallery of Ontario

Nanibush began work at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2016 as an assistant curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art in the department of Canadian art. Her first curatorial project at the AGO was Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971–1989, for which she included Anishinaabemowin land acknowledgment text alongside English and French as a way of marking Toronto as traditional Indigenous territory. The exhibition was a collections exhibition that turned over after four months including over 120 artists. It had a film festival and performance art series as part of the programming.

In 2017, Nanibush and Georgiana Uhlyarik renamed the department of Canadian Art, the department of Indigenous and Canadian Art, and developed a new nation to nation model of sharing power. As part of the role, Nanibush created a new Indigenous Curator position and co heads the department with Georgiana Uhlyarik, the curator of Canadian Art. Together they have made a series of changes to the exhibition of Indigenous and Canadian art, including renaming the 1929 Emily Carr painting from The Indian Church to Church in Yuquot Village, 73 years after Carr's death, and centering Indigenous art in the renamed McLean Centre for Indigenous and Canadian Art. The centre has texts in Anishinabemowin, Inuktitute and other First Nations languages alongside English and French.

Since becoming the curator of Indigenous Art, Nanibush's influence has led to Indigenous artists representing nearly one third of those featured at the AGO. In a 2018 profile about the changes underway at the Gallery and other institutions featuring Indigenous art, the New York Times noted Nanibush as "one of the most powerful voices for Indigenous culture in the North American art world."

Nanibush parted ways with the AGO in late November 2023 after the IMAAC (Israel Museum and Arts, Canada) sent a complaint to the AGO in mid October. The letter alleges that Nanibush's vocal criticism of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, actions that a UN expert has equated to settler colonialism, as "inflammatory" and "inaccurate". Neither Nanibush nor the AGO has spoken publicly about her departure, with sources close to the AGO telling the Globe and Mail that the letter did not play a role in the decision for her exit, and that her departure was a mutual decision that would allow her to speak more freely without the expectations that come when representing a nationally recognized institution. Nanibush's departure has raised criticism of culture of censorship in the Canadian art world.

Curated exhibitions

• Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental, organized and circulated by the Art Gallery of Ontario (2018), toured to the Remai Modern (2019) and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2019)
• Sovereign Acts II, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery at Concordia University (2017), toured to the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (2018)
• The Fifth World, Mendel Art Gallery (2015) and toured to the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (2016)
• KWE: Photography, Sculpture, Video and Performance by Rebecca Belmore, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (2014)

Awards and honours

• 2023: Toronto Book Award for Moving the Museum