📅 Exhibition from May 2 to June 15, 2025
Opening on Friday, May 2 at 5pm
Talk at 6:30pm
📅 Public tour with the co-curators: Friday, May 2 at 3:30pm at 650 Côte d’Abraham
“Ywahentetha’. “We put you before others in our spirits.” As curators, we believe our role is to bring artists and their works into dialogue with each other in such a way as to amplify their power, the love that resides in and emanates from them. When we were imagining this exhibition, we started by selecting artists: Rebecca Belmore, Dayna Danger, France Gros-Louis Morin, Shelley Niro, Sylvie Paré, Katherine Takpannie, and Tania Willard. We knew we wanted to work with them because we hold them in high esteem – we love them for what they do. Then, as we were discussing and developing the direction of the exhibition, we decided to root it directly in this idea of love and honour. Based on this desire to hold high these artists that are dear in our hearts and minds, we favoured a curatorial gesture instead of a theme.
In this way, love has come to be at the centre of this project, both through the relationships it has nurtured and the works it brings to light. We’ve explored this love through family, through intergenerational and sometimes imagined relationships, as well as through our relationship with the land. We also acknowledge that, around those relations, there can be grief and pain. Those emotions can be attended to with love and care. With this exhibition, we want to invite you to experience the emotional potency of these works, the power so gently and thoughtfully shared with us by the artists. When you are there with us, viewing, we are all participants, generating the Ywahentetha’ that is so urgent to share.”
– Greg A. Hill and Julia Caron Guillemette