Kris Snowbird: Dancing in the Dark

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Kris Snowbird, "Dancing in the Dark," 2019

Opening Reception: Friday, April 5 at 8 pm (open to the public First Friday at 5pm)

Artist Talk on Wednesday, April 3, 7pm at The Output at Video Pool Media Arts Centre, 2nd flr - 100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, MB

Artist Statement

My process of work can be described as a continuous questioning and understanding of the way in which my tradition as a First Nations woman influences the way I conceptualize art. One pivotal aspect of the work I am creating is the traditional labor of beading and how it can be applied to different mediums of art. I am researching these approaches though film, photography, and performance. I am interested in art as a process of making a difference in the understanding of the culture I come from, with its stories, traditions, and the historical and personal trauma.

Biography

Kris Snowbird is a mainly self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist working in visual and performance art, photography and filmmaking. She is from Pine Creek First Nation and of Cree and Ojibwe descent. In 2015, she participated in the Foundation Mentorship Program at Mentoring Women for Women’s Art (MAWA) working with curator, Natalia Lebedinskaia.

Snowbird created her first short film SWEAT in 2016, which was funded by the Winnipeg Film Group’s Mosaic Women’s Film Fund. Since 2016, SWEAT is currently being presented on the digital media art platform, VUCAVU and touring around the world at film festivals like that of the 2016 Gimli Film Festival (Gimli, MB) and Native Spirit Film Festival (London, England); in 2017, VIMAF (Vancouver, BC), Hot Docs, (Toronto, ON), Asinabka Film & Media Arts Festival (Ottawa, ON), St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival (St. John’s, NL); in 2018, ReFrame Film Festival (Peterborough, ON), FAVA FEST (Edmonton, AB), Grande rencontre des arts médiatiques en Gaspésie (Percé, QC); and in 2019 Cinéma Oblò, (Lausanne, Switzerland), Cinéma Spoutnik, (Geneva, Switzerland) and the Canadian Film Institute (Ottawa, ON).

Snowbird frequently performs and exhibits with her collaborator and partner, Theo Pelmus, they performed at each of the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Winnipeg Nuit Blanche events; their first collaborative international exhibition was at the Pātaka Art + Museum (Porirua, New Zealand) in 2017; performed at the 2017 LIVE Biennale of Performance Art (Vancouver, BC), and at the 2018 Cluster: New Music and Integrated Arts Festival (Winnipeg, MB).

Special thanks for our friends at Video Pool Media Arts Centre/ the Output, for hosting the artists talk.