Pizandawatc/The One who Listens/Celui qui écoute

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Caroline Monnet, “Ikwe origami (Portage de la Femme),” 2023, maple wood, oil (photo by Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto)

There is a lot to unpack, ponder, and respond to in Caroline Monnet’s mesmeric exhibition, Pizandawatc/The One who Listens/Celui qui écoute, on now through Aug. 24, 2025 at Esker Foundation in Calgary. A visual ode to her Anishinaabe culture, language, and ancestral lands, the featured works include textiles, mixed media sculptures, and immersive videos that explore Indigenous identity, the legacies of colonialism, and cultural survivance.

Central to Monnet’s practice is her innovative use of materials that juxtapose organic materials with industrial ones, which highlight her poetic sensibilities, conceptual interests, and modernist aesthetic. Through processes like carving, stitching, weaving, and layering, Monnet uses pink insulation, Styrofoam, copper, wood, Kevlar, and waterproofing membrane to embed Indigenous identity, language, and history into her fabrications.  

Curated by Mona Filip,  the exhibition was developed for the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Central to the exhibition is a body of work entitled, Pizandowatc. Translated as “the one who listens,” the title pays homage to Monnet’s great grandmother, Mani Pizandawatc, who was the first in her family to have her territory divided into reserves.

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Caroline Monnet, “The Future Itself Has a Future,” 2018, copper plates and copper wire (photo by Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto)

Displayed within a floor-to-ceiling black room, are ten sculptures. Four wooden sculptures use advanced technology to transform spoken Anishinaabemowin phrases into undulating forms that read like topographical maps, abstracted bodies or monumental landforms. Other works include bronze sculptures cast from weathered wood, Kevlar adorned with beads to mimic rugged terrain, and crisscrossing copper wires (sacred to the Anishinaabe); they speak simultaneously to violent colonial extraction and its role in communication, trade, and ornamentation.

Reciprocity between language and land is mirrored elsewhere in Monnet’s work. Nine textile works hang in procession along parallel walls. Mixing formal and material connotations, Monnet manipulates construction materials, imbuing them with beauty and new meaning. Resembling maps, barcodes, or abstracted city grids, the geometric motifs are inspired by Anishnaabe patterns, drawing attention to the environmental impacts and to the deficient living conditions imposed on indigenous communities by the federal government.

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Caroline Monnet, “Pizandawatc Sagahigan (Lac de celui qui écoute),” 2023, cherry wood, oil (photo by Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto)

For example, in No Church in the Wild, shades of lush green are embroidered in a geometric pattern that obstructs the logos printed on the Tyvek and elevates sacred symbolism. Textually, we are reminded that religion is a colonial construct that is far removed from the deep connection that Indigenous cultures have to the land. 

Monnet's practice is shaped by her early experiences helping her family renovate and flip houses in Aylmer, Quebec. Yet, rather than appropriating such capitalist ideals surrounding construction and development, she reclaims and reconfigures these familiar tropes in ways that challenge the narrative. 

In KIWE, for example, the sculpture spells the Anishinaabemowin word “to return home” with pink insulation encased in plexiglass. The work playfully highlights the disconnect between the housing industry and the natural world from which this material is extracted and mass manufactured.

This idea is further explored in Mitik (Tree). Lovingly constructed from lacquered maple, this seemingly humble structure transforms a wooden beam commonly used in colonial buildings into a living memorial. In many Indigenous cultures, trees are seen as relatives, ancestors, or spiritual keepers of knowledge. This quietly elegant sculpture is a reminder that our cities and economic wealth were built through deforestation and the exploitation of trees.

By pairing industrial detritus with traditional forms and techniques, Monnet foregrounds the tensions between Indigenous continuity and the pervasive impacts of colonization and environmental degradation. Multifaceted and quietly provocative, her work invites viewers to embrace an Indigenous worldview that is resilient, ecologically attuned, and deeply rooted in ancestral teachings. ■

Caroline Monnet, Pizandawatc/The One who Listens/Celui qui écoute, is on now through Aug. 24, 2025 at Esker Foundation in Calgary.

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