Join us as we celebrate the opening of three exciting installations at the gallery with guided tours, musical performances, and refreshments. Artists and curators will be in attendance.
Inside, we’re pleased to present Olivia Whetung: inawendiwok, a solo exhibition touring from The Art Gallery of Mississauga. In The Backyard, we’re excited to launch two public art projects: Scott Rogers: Mutualism (Fixed Assets), an ambitious temporary public art installation, and the permanent installation of Couzyn van Heuvelen’s Arctic Char Steaks (2021-2023), which were featured in Couzyn van Heuvelen: CAMP at the RMG.
Come celebrate these amazing artists with us!
1:30pm – Formal remarks with artists and curators and a musical performance by Missy Knott
Missy Knott, an Anishinaabe woman from Curve Lake First Nation, is a talented award-winning singer-songwriter. Performing under the name Singing Wild Rice Girl, her music and artistic voice are deeply rooted in her Indigenous culture. Her passion for supporting fellow Indigenous artists led her to found Wild Rice Records, an independent record label based in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough). Through her label, Missy collaborates with community members to help artists at every step of their creative path, from building a strong foundation to developing their unique sound. In addition to her work as a musician and label founder, Missy has used her voice to amplify others. She previously hosted the afternoon drive program on ELMNT FM and even hosted her own pre-recorded show, Pass the Mic. This program highlighted the work and voices of Indigenous community members and artists from across Turtle Island. She is also a board member for the Ontario Arts Council. Beyond her musical endeavors, Missy is a dedicated mother, ricer, educational assistant, and philanthropist who remains an active and proud member of her community.
2:15pm – Join Olivia Whetung (artist) and Mona Filip (curator) in the gallery for a tour of inawendiwok
A member of Curve Lake First Nation and citizen of the Nishnaabeg Nation, artist Olivia Whetung draws upon her experience working on and with the land to create artworks that speak of the interdependence and relationality within our ecosystem. Researching land-based and food de-commodifying movements, Anishinaabe knowledge, and the ecology of her home territory, Whetung presents a series of sculptural installations, digital prints, and three-dimensional beadworks that articulate the vital connectivity between woodland, wetland, and garden environments.
Olivia Whetung: inawendiwok installation at AGM, 2024.
Mutualism 07, discarded Perspex display, metal components, steel rope, nylon
line, bird seed, 2021, 60cm x 18.5cm x 10cm, photo: courtesy of the artist
3:00pm – Join Scott Rogers (artist) and Leila Timmins (curator) in The Backyard for a tour of Mutualism (Fixed Assets)
Mutualism (Fixed Assets) is a new temporary public artwork for the backyard at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery. This ambitious new installation builds on Rogers’ interest in human- built infrastructures for the care and support of non-human beings. Taking the form of a site-responsive bird feeding station, the work is assembled from broken automobile parts scavenged from roads and highways. This reuse of discarded materials connects with the industrial history of Oshawa, while proposing possibilities of ecological renewal out of the wreckage.
In Arctic Char Steaks, Couzyn van Heuvelen renders a staple of Inuit cuisine at an exaggerated scale, creating thick slices of Arctic char from solid steel. The rusted surface coloration mimics the rich orange of the fish’s flesh, while the patina of the metal suggests both preservation and the passage of time.
Beneath the char steaks, the cardboard references the makeshift seating used at summer hunt camps on sea ice—where cardboard offers insulation and a clean surface for processing food. This gesture evokes moments of community, shared labour, and nourishment central to Inuit life on the land.
By combining industrial materials with culturally significant imagery, van Heuvelen blurs boundaries between contemporary sculpture and traditional practices. The work honours food as a site of connection and memory, recontextualizing an everyday necessity within a sculptural language that is both reverent and inventive.
Installation of Couzyn van Heuvelen, Arctic Char Steaks, 2021-2023, steel and cardboard at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Hannah at [email protected].
