LIVE THROUGH THIS: Michelle Sound

May 20 – July 8, 2023

LIVE THROUGH THIS explores personal and familial narratives with a consideration of Indigenous artistic processes. Michelle Sound’s works explore cultural identities and histories by engaging materials and concepts within a contemporary context. Through utilizing such practices as drum making, caribou hair tufting, beadwork, and photography, her work highlights that acts of care and joy are situated in family and community. She works with traditional and contemporary materials and techniques to explore maternal labour, identity, cultural knowledge, and cultural inheritances.

Michelle Sound is a Cree and Métis artist, educator and mother. She is a member of Wapsewsipi Swan River First Nation in Northern Alberta. Her mother is Cree from Kinuso, Alberta, Treaty 8 territory and her father’s family is Métis from the Buffalo Lake Métis settlement in central Alberta. She was born and raised on the unceded and ancestral home territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University, School for the Contemporary Arts, and a Master of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University Art + Design. Michelle is currently an Indigenous Advisor at Douglas College and has taught workshops as a guest artist at the Richmond Art Gallery and the Contemporary Art Gallery.

Michelle gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council and the City of Edmonton Public Art Program.

Exhibition Reception: Sunday, May 28, 2023 from 2 – 4 p.m.
Artist Talk: Sunday, June 11, 2023 at 2 p.m.
Tufting Demonstration: June 25, 2023 at 2 p.m.

Image credit: Michelle Sound, Sipikiskisiw (Remembers Far Back) (detail), Archival photo and map on paper, embroidery thread, rick rack, vintage beads, bugle beads, glass seed beads, caribou tufting, porcupine quills, 40 x 76 inches, 2022.

Photo credit: Jake Kimble