It’s your last chance to check out four exhibitions at Arts Commons featured in the visual art galleries throughout the building including the Truth and Reconciliation Exhibition in the +15 Galleries. Showcasing the work of 12 Indigenous artists, these paintings, beadwork, photography, sculpture, and hide pieces serve to reflect on each individual artists’ relationship with the subject and ongoing conversation of Truth and Reconciliation.

“We wanted to share with you the great diversity of ways that Indigenous artists express beauty, culture, and spirituality whether it’s through 2D, 3D or media artworks,” says Diane Frost, curator of the Truth and Reconciliation Exhibition. “Each of the works is a depiction of their culture and their contribution to Truth and Reconciliation. The beautiful thing about art is that it makes difficult things much easier to grasp and much easier to look at and it provides a window into the soul of the artist who made that piece.”

“It helps us all on our journey towards learning about the history, learning about what’s currently happening and developing appreciation for the beauty of Indigenous culture,” said Frost. “And I think all of that helps with bringing us closer to reconciliation.”

To learn more about the artists views on their individual works, please visit artscommons.ca. The Truth and Reconciliation Exhibition in a collaboration between Arts Commons and the CIF Reconciliation Society.

Lightbox Studio will be wrapping up a four-month residency this month with artist Morgan Possberg’s pîsâkopayowin ᐲᓵᑯᐸᔪᐃᐧᐣ. A mixed media artist who specializes in textiles and fashion, Morgan’s exhibition features wearable pieces that explore a world of “what ifs” drawing on fractured traditional Indigenous craft knowledge and lineages. Morgan’s imaginative, illustrative objects are inspired by interviews conducted with young Cree people, seeking to share stories without the use of words.

“I focus on creating objects which have agency and are a part of an Indigenous based worldview and oral history,” says Morgan. “What matters is not whether the objects accurately recreate the lost past, but rather to capture an inner truth and a possible alternative reality of the object through a modern interpretation.”

These free exhibitions, along with 宴 | Found in Translation by Mao Projects in the Ledge Gallery and The Places We've Been by Claudia Esperanza Sanchez Daza, Dissonance by Kuhlein Migue, SAYAW NG MUNDO (DANCE OF THE WORLD) by Day Pajarillo, and Constricted by Josee Palacio are available for viewing until January 22, 2023. To learn more, visit artscommons.ca/galleries today!

Special thanks to RBC Bank Group for their support of the RBC Emerging Visual Artists Program.

Featured artworks above: Jeanien Cooper Bell, Thea Thomas, Morgan Possberg, and Dale Swampy.