Wabanaki works of art: Fredericton gallery celebrating Indigenous History Month

Fredericton’s Gallery on Queen art gallery is celebrating Indigenous History Month with an all-Indigenous exhibit.

"The exhibition came after a long discussion with the late master carver Ned Bear,” said Nadia Khoury, director and curator for Gallery on Queen. “About how we can elevate and showcase east coast Indigenous art in the Maritimes.”

Sixteen artists from across Wabanaki, or Atlantic Canada, are featured in the exhibition.

Chantal Polchies is an artist participating from Woodstock First Nation.

"It feels very important to be a part of the cultural conversation for me and to showcase our people through art,” Polchies said.

Despite different mediums and practices, one message resonates for the artists.

"We are still very much here, we're still a strong culture,” Polchies said. “We're just growing and coming back and recovering from all the generational trauma we experienced as a community.”

"We are still here, we are still making art, and we aren't going away any time soon,” said Audrey Arsenault, an artist from Listuguj First Nation.

The artists also say it’s been a profound way to reconnect with their roots.

"It feels like I've come full-circle,” Arsenault said. “In my adult life, I am trying to reconnect to my culture. I wasn't always participating in it, but now I want to do research, I want to learn more, and it was really good to connect that with my art.”

Celebrating Indigenous History Month through an exhibit has become a tradition for the gallery.

"It's important to have all mediums together,” Khoury said. “So we have paintings, we have woodworking, we have metal work, and beading, and all the mediums work extremely well as a show.”

The Wabanaki exhibition will continue until the end of next week at Gallery on Queen before heading to exhibit in Toronto in early July.