Contemporary Calgary’s Ksahkomiitapiiks 2024-2025 Resident Artist Lauren Crazybull Reflects on Land, Memory and Sacred Connection in Her New Project Titled: Wish you were here
Lauren Crazybull. are we made of this place?, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Contemporary Calgary’s Ksahkomiitapiiks 2024-2025 Resident Artist Lauren Crazybull Reflects on Land, Memory and Sacred Connection in Her New Project Titled: Wish you were here
Calgary, Alta., (February 17, 2025) - Contemporary Calgary proudly presents Lauren Crazybull: Wish you were here, opening Thursday, February 20, 2025, from 6 to 9 p.m. The project which runs until November 2, 2025, looks at the ways in which these Indigenous lands are transformed into heritage tourism sites that are both an extension and a reflection of the slow violence that is etched into their core. Media are invited to attend an exclusive opening reception on February 20, 2025, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Contemporary Calgary (701 11 Street Southwest). RSVP by emailing ellen@parkerpr.ca or nikita@parkerpr.ca. Interviews are available upon request with the artist, Lauren Crazybull, David Leinster: CEO of Contemporary Calgary and Kanika Anand: Senior Curator of Contemporary Calgary.
In the summer of 2024, Crazybull visited sacred Blackfoot sites, including the Majorville Medicine Wheel and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site. Though not a tourist herself, she critically examines what it means to feel—or be treated—like one on lands her ancestors have inhabited for millennia. By subverting touristic tropes like informational signs, directional markers, and postcard imagery, Crazybull prompts us to reconsider how we engage with these places and recognize all of Blackfoot territory, including the land Contemporary Calgary occupies, as sacred.
The project is interspersed throughout the building, with the aesthetic of wayfinding signage as a way to dismantle their colonial frameworks, replacing them with visual narratives that challenge our assumptions about what knowledge holds value, who defines it, and why. Turtle Island is often described as haunted—by the loss, grief, and erasures rooted in settler colonial violence. In this body of work, Crazybull grapples with that haunting, particularly the loss of ancestral knowledge.
“It has been such a pleasure to be the Ksahkomiitapiiks artist in residence,” artist Lauren Crazybull shares. “The experience will be one that I'll always take with me. The work I have made is an honest reflection of my own honest relationship to this land.”
“It has been a pleasure to witness Lauren's vision on the Ksahkomiitapiiks project. It reflects the artist's recognition, respect, and affinity for Ksahkom. Lauren's art translates Ksahkomiitapiiks—Earth Beings—and takes it further: to being Earth,” says mentor Faye HeavyShield.
This exhibition is part of Ksahkomiitapiiks (Earth Beings), an annual residency of dynamic public programs and responsive artworks that interrogate and nurture our relationships with the land. Ksahkomiitapiiks embodies who we are and what we create as guests on this earth—a call for prayer, witness, and inspiration. Crazybull is the second artist to participate in the residency, mentored by Faye HeavyShield. This year’s program was developed in consultation with an Advisory Committee of Indigenous community members and Elders, which included Faye HeavyShield, Clarence Wolfleg Sr., Adrian Stimson, and Star Crop Eared Wolf.
Please contact ellen@parkerpr.ca or nikita@parkerpr.ca to receive images for the press, book interviews with spokespeople or for information. Learn more about the exhibition, here.