Co-curated by Peter Lebel and Matthew Ryan Smith

In this exhibition, photographs from artist Shelley Niro’s series’ Resting Place Of Our Ancestors and Final Moments Thinking Of You are paired with selected video works to examine the meaning of place, love, and the complex relationships between different communities. It is part of an experimental project developed to foster inclusion, shrink social distances (while retaining physical ones), and make meaningful connections. The exhibition has gathered new meaning after the remains of over one thousand children were located in mass and unmarked graves across Canada this year.

Thinking Of You enacts a site of mourning and calls for justice as we continue to learn about Canada’s Indian Residential School System and the impact of genocide on Indigenous peoples and communities as settler colonialism continues to unfold in Canada. Presented outdoors, on screens facing the Deshkan Ziibi/Thames River at the Centre at the Forks, Museum London, these images reference the Medicine Wheel teachings, the interconnectivity between all things—a source of healing, of medicine that is both spiritual and physical.

Note: Please note that the exhibition will now be screened nightly until its final night of Tuesday, August 31. To confirm whether this projection will be screening during your visit, please call 519-661-0333. While the grounds are under construction, please safely view from the sidewalk to the south of the Museum, behind the Old Court House. 

Window Display at SATELLiTE Project Space featuring Shelley Niro

In constellation with Shelley Niro’s Thinking Of You exhibition at Museum London’s Centre at the Forks, UPwithART has a window display at SATELLiTE Project Space (121 Dundas St. London) running the first two weeks of August. The display features Shelley Niro’s poem DARKNESS and a t-shirt with a screen-printed negative image of her photograph, The Wild Ones And The Colonized. As the guest artist of UPwithART 2021, a limited-edition positive image version of this shirt was originally sold during the April event. This new, limited-edition version can be ordered for $50 throughout the month of August. Shelley Niro has generously directed the proceeds from t-shirt sales to Unity Project for Relief of Homelessness and Museum London. View the t-shirt on display at the Shop at Museum London. 

Biography

Shelley Niro is a Brantford-based multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on Indigenous identity, history, and rights imbued with a deeply feminist perspective and rich humour. Niro is a member of the Six Nations Reserve, Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk. Her work encompasses filmmaking, photography, painting, sculpture, beadwork, and new media. Niro debuted her video The Shirt, at the Venice Biennale in 2003. In 2012, Niro was the inaugural recipient of the Aboriginal Arts Award presented through the Ontario Arts Council. She was the winner of a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts and the Scotiabank Photography Award in 2017. In 2020, Niro received the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award by the Ontario Arts Foundation. She has also directed several acclaimed feature films including Kissed by Lightning (2009) and The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw (2019).

Acknowledgements

In the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation we would like to acknowledge that Museum London operates within the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Attawandaron (Neutral), and Wendat peoples. This territory is covered by the Upper Canada Treaties. This territory is the homeland of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, Oneida Nation of the Thames, and Munsee Delaware Nation. We also recognize the contributions of Métis, Inuit, and other Indigenous peoples, both in shaping and strengthening this community in particular, and our province and country as a whole.

Image: Shelley Niro, Final Moments Thinking Of You, 1998, digital photograph