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Honorary Degree Recipient: Christi Belcourt
Presented on Oct. 13, 9:30 a.m.
Christi Belcourt (apihtâwikosisâniskwêw / mânitow sâkahikanihk) is a visual artist, designer, community organizer, environmentalist, social justice advocate, and avid land-based arts and language learner.
Christi is a visual artist with a deep respect for the traditions and knowledge of her people. Like generations of Indigenous artists before her, she celebrates the beauty of natural world while exploring nature’s symbolic properties. Following the tradition of Métis floral beadwork, Belcourt paints in dots and uses the subject matter as metaphors for human existence to relay a variety of meanings which include concerns for the environment, biodiversity, spirituality and awareness of Métis culture.
Her paintings are found within many public and permanent collections across North America including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Gabriel Dumont Museum, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, the Minneapolis Institute of Art among others. She was named Aboriginal Arts Laureate for 2014 by the Ontario Arts Council. In 2016 she received both the Premiers Arts Award and a Governor General’s Award for Innovation.
Christi has also organized several large national community-based projects of note including Walking With Our Sisters (2012-2021) which was a national touring commemoration in honour of Murdered and Missing Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people, the Willisville Mountain Project (2010-2013) a community arts project which resulted in Vale Mining agreeing to not quarry the mountain. For the last 5 years, Christi and Isaac Murdoch (within their group Onaman Collective) have created artworks and worked on a long list of community organizing around environmentalism and Indigenous languages and cultural revitalization. They, with others, formed Nimkii Aazhibikong.
Christi donates the proceeds from her collaborations and awards to Nimkii Aazhibikong, the year-round Indigenous language and traditional arts camp started in 2017. The camp is committed to the revitalization of Anishinaabemowin language, the arts and sustainable living practices based on foundational cultural knowledge.