Joi T. Arcand

Joi T. Arcand is an artist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 Territory, currently residing in Ottawa, Ontario. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with Great Distinction from the University of Saskatchewan in 2005. In 2018, Arcand was shortlisted for the prestigious Sobey Art Award. Her practice includes photography, digital collage, and graphic design and is characterized by a visionary and subversive reclamation and indigenization of public spaces through the use of Cree language and syllabics. In her recent work with neon signs, Arcand connects to her complex relationship with the language by making it highly visible to the general public. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Àbadakone at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, ON) and INSURGENCE/RESURGENCE at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Joi T. Arcand
Joi T Arcand, Through That Which is Scene, 2014 (viewfinder reel). Courtesy of the artist

From the Archives

  • 2023 / core / exhibition

    Group Exhibition
    Materialized

    Critical Distance
    Combining portrait photography with elements from adornment arts, textiles, sculpture, and customary Indigenous art practices, Materialized examines themes of intergenerational memory, familial narrative, and decolonization through the work of artists Joi T. Arcand, Celeste Pedri-Spade, Catherine Blackburn, and Nadya Kwandibens. By using their craft to reclaim portraiture as a form of self-expression and self-determination, each artist resists the colonial metanarratives contained in settler-made images of Indigenous subjects.
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