Join us on Thursday, April 23, at 2 PM for a talk with Lori Beavis.
Conversations with Indigenous Curators is a new mini-series organized by the IFRC. Grounding curatorial practice as a site of futurity, relationality, and land-based thinking, this series highlights Indigenous curators working in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) who are reshaping how exhibitions are conceived, who they serve, and how knowledge circulates. Through public dialogue, we will explore curatorial practices rooted in community accountability, language, and sovereignty.
Lori Beavis is the Executive Director of daphne, an Indigenous artist-run centre in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal, where she also lives and works as an independent curator, art educator, and art historian. She identifies as Michi Saagiig (Mississauga) Anishinaabe and Irish-Welsh settler, and is a citizen of Hiawatha First Nation at Rice Lake, Ontario.
Her curatorial practice and research centre on narrative, memory, and the intersections of family and cultural histories, with a focus on identity, art education, and self-representation. She has curated solo exhibitions with artists including Shelley Niro, Jobena Petonoquot, and Barry Ace, as well as group exhibitions such as The Rebel Yells, Initawa / to hear or understand her in a certain way, and Ininige / to hold. She co-curated Creation Stories for BACA 2024.
From 2016 to 2023, Beavis collaborated with her Hiawatha First Nation community and co-curator Dr. Laura Peers on an exhibition of quilled birchbark makakoon created by Michi Saagiig women and gifted to the Prince of Wales in 1860. This work culminated in 2023 with the award-winning exhibition Mnaajtood ge Mnaadendaa Miigwewinan Michi Saagiig Kwewag Miinegoowin Gimaans Zhaganaash Aki, 1860 / To Honour and Respect: Gifts from the Michi Saagiig Women to the Prince of Wales, 1860.
Time: Thursday, April 23, 2026, at 2 PM EST
Location: EV 10.705, Indigenous Futures Research Centre HQ, Concordia University
All are welcome.
This event is generously supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Canadian Art.