Join the AGO's Wanda Nanibush in conversation with artists Darlene Naponse and Thirza Cuthand.

Darlene Naponse is an Anishinaabe from Atikameksheng Anishnawbek - Northern Ontario, Canada. She was born and raised in her community and now works out of her studio located in Atikameksheng Anishnawbek. She is a writer, film director, and video artist. Her film work has been viewed nationally and internationally. Darlene has a Hon. BA 2001 from Laurentian University and recently completed a Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). She was a 2017 Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize Finalist for She Is Water published in The Malahat Review. Her latest feature film Falls Around Her world premiered at TIFF – Toronto International Film Festival 2018. As a storyteller, Darlene is in search of imaginative images giving truth through word, film, art and song.

Thirza Jean Cuthand has been making short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity since 1995. Her works have screened in festivals internationally, including the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity in Sao Paolo, ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, Frameline in San Francisco, Outfest in Los Angeles, and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. Her work has also exhibited at galleries including the Mendel in Saskatoon, The National Gallery in Ottawa, and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. She completed her BFA majoring in Film and Video at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2005, and her Masters of Arts in Media Production at Ryerson University in 2015. In 2017 she won the Hnatyshyn Foundation’s REVEAL Indigenous Art Award. She is a Whitney Biennial 2019 artist. She is a non-binary Butch boy who uses She/Her pronouns. She is of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a member of Little Pine First Nation, and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.

Wanda Nanibush is Curator, Indigenous Art at the AGO. Selected AGO exhibitions include Karoo Ashevak (2019), Rebecca Belmore Facing the Monumental (2018), JS McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art (2018), Rita Letendre: Fire & Light (2017), Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 (2016).