About

Ociciwan is an inanimate Plains Cree noun relating to current or river, translated to mean the current comes from there. The name references the North Saskatchewan River that has brought many people over time to the region. It conveys an energy of engagement with Indigenous contemporary culture, linking present with the past and the future.

Halie Finney
Halie Finney is a multidisciplinary artist who understands her Metis heritage through her family's experiences and memories of the Lesser Slave Lake region, which is where generations of her family have resided in. To mourn a person is also to mourn the landscape that shaped them.Through a cast of characters Halie explores feelings of grief, comfort, and other emotions that come with loss and change. She pulls from her and her family’s memories and stories of their home and forms disjointed narratives with the purpose of showing the liminality between generations and the constant but ever changing landscape that they all share.She tells these stories through drawings, paintings, installations, performances, and other objects.They are fluid and loose like a memory and result in a fantasy-like copy of her family’s home.Halie received a BFA from the Alberta University of Art and Design in 2017. She is a core member of Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective and has shown at galleries such as Latitude 53 (2019) and the ArtGallery of Alberta (2020) and has taught at MacEwan University (2020). Currently,Halie lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

Cheyenne Rain LeGrande
Cheyenne Rain LeGrande ᑭᒥᐊᐧᐣ is a Nehiyaw Isko artist, from Bigstone Cree Nation. She currently resides in Amiskwaciy Waskahikan also known as Edmonton, Alberta. Cheyenne graduated from Emily Carr University with her BFA in Visual Arts in 2019. Her work often explores history, knowledge and traditional practices. Through the use of her body and language, she speaks to the past, present and future. Cheyenne’s work is rooted in the strength to feel, express and heal. Bringing her ancestors with her, she moves through installation, photography, video, sound, and performance art.

Dan Cardinal McCartney Dan Cardinal McCartney (hey/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and emerging curator who holds a degree from AUArts (2016) in Drawing. Most importantly, they are a full-time caregiver for their sister, Karri. Dan is of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations with family ties of Mikisew Cree, Metis, and mixed settler lines from Treaty 8 territory, specifically Fort Chipewyan. He is a foster care survivor raised in the northern boreal region of Fort McMurray.

As a Two Spirit transgender artist, Dan sifts through patterns of intergenerational trauma. He relates his personal, ongoing reconnection with his family to his yearning for gender euphoria through storytelling. Dan focuses on mixed media collage, painting, moving images, and performance. He is interested in the genre of horror through a contemporary, Indigenous lens.

Currently, Dan is a Co-Artistic Director at Stride Gallery in so-called Calgary, AB.

Tiffany Shaw
Tiffany is a public art artist, independent curator, and a registered architect with Reimagine Architects. Her work gathers notions of craft, memory and atmosphere. Her practice is often guided by communal interventions as a way to engage a lifted understanding of place. Shaw was born in Calgary and raised in Edmonton, Alberta with Métis descent from Fort McMurray, Alberta.

Alberta Rose W./ Ingniq
Alberta obtained her BFA with distinction from the Alberta University of the Arts (formerly ACAD) and completed an Indigenous Preparatorial practicum at The Banff Centre. Alberta is of mixed settler/Inuvialuit heritage, and often creates work that reflects both aspects of her cultural identity, as well as broader social issues related to Indigenous people today. She has completed residencies at the Banff Centre, Contemporary Calgary, and participated in Memory Keepers ll in Charlottetown, PEI. Her work has been shown in Banff, Toronto, Charlottetown, and Calgary.