Lauren Crazybull
Wish you were here
Opening February 20, 2025
What is at stake when sacred Indigenous sites are commodified and commercialized within a tourism-based economy? What would it mean to access these sites today – both as Indigenous people and settlers – and to bear witness to the history of these lands?
Lauren Crazybull: Wish you were here reflects on our relationship to the ancestral lands that we inhabit, looking at the ways in which these familial and ancient places are transformed into heritage tourism sites that are both an extension and a reflection of the slow violence that is etched into their core.
In the summer of 2024, Crazybull visited a number of sacred sites on Blackfoot territory, including the Majorville Medicine Wheel and the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World heritage site. Though far from being a tourist herself, Crazybull questions what it means to feel – or be treated – like a tourist on the land that her ancestors lived on for millenia. Subverting touristic tropes encountered on her trip – such as information signs, directional signage, and postcard imagery – the works in this exhibition ask us to rethink our relationship to these ancient sites, and to think of all of Blackfoot territory, including the land on which Contemporary Calgary is located, as equally sacred.
It is often said that Turtle Island is a haunted place – haunted by the loss, grief, and erasures that plague it as a result of settler colonial violence. In this new body of work, Crazybull attempts to grapple with this sense of loss, particularly the loss of ancestral knowledge, forging new connections to these sites – as well as her own family and relatives – by dismantling colonial frameworks of wayfinding, and replacing them with visual information that disrupts and challenges our understanding of what information is considered to be valuable; how this value is determined; and by whom.
In this exhibition, Crazybull reflects on what the land remembers; the ways in which these memories come to the surface; and the role that our bodies play in summoning these memories.
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About the Artist
Lauren Crazybull
Lauren Crazybull is a Niitsítapi (Member of Kainai First Nation), Dené artist currently living in Vancouver, BC. In her work, Lauren considers Indigenous presence and multiplicity through paintings, creating worlds where honest portrayals trespass onto romantic representations of Indigeneity. Working primarily in portraiture, a long-standing genre that is often embedded with an imbalance of power between the artist/viewer and sitter, Crazybull seeks to examine the relationship between herself as an artist and the individuals she paints. Through this ongoing work, Lauren uses her practice as a way to assert her own humanity, and advocate, in diverse and subtle ways, for the innate intellectual, spiritual, creative and political fortitude of Indigenous peoples.
About Ksahkomiitapiiks (Earth Beings)
Ksahkomiitapiiks is an annual residency of dynamic public programs and responsive art works that interrogate and nurture our relationships with the land.
Ksahkomiitapiiks, interpreted in English as “Earth Beings,” is an inclusive term serving as both a noun and a verb; embodying who we are and what we create as guests on this earth. An invocation for a blessing whenever spoken – a call for prayer, witness and inspiration, we are Ksahkomiitapiiks. This series is an introspection on our ever-evolving languages and ordnance of how we choose to honour the land we occupy, as well as our ancestral custodians.
Ksahkomiitapiiks is developed in consultation with an Advisory Committee of Indigenous Community Members and Elders. This year’s Advisory Committee consisted of Faye HeavyShield, Clarence Wolfleg Sr., and Adrian Stimson, and Star Crop Eared Wolf.
Faye HeavyShield was the mentor of this year’s edition of the residency.
About the Mentor
Faye HeavyShield
Faye HeavyShield, of the Kainai (Blood) Nation, was born and raised on the Blood Reserve in Southern Alberta, and is a fluent speaker of her first language, Blackfoot.
Heavyshield studied at the Alberta College of Art in 1980-85 and focused her art on images of memory, environment, body and language in a minimalist sense with land and rivers as significant influences.
About the Advisory Committee
Clarence Wolfleg Miiksika’am: Warrior, Leader & Teacher
Clarence Wolfleg is a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation. Elder Miiksika'am holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Mount Royal University; his exemplary leadership in Calgary, Alberta and Canada is recognized around the city. Born in 1948 in the Siksika Nation, Broken Knife, as he was called as a child, was barely seven years old when he was taken to live at the Old Sun Indian Residential school for five years. It was there he was named Clarence Wolfleg. Miiksika'am went on to attend public school, graduating from Crescent Heights High School in Calgary in 1966. At 17 years old, like his father had done before him, he joined the military, serving in the Canadian Regular Forces with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery where he would earn three medals. After serving in the United Nations' peacekeeping initiatives in Cypress and NATO Forces Continental Europe missions during the Cold War, his military service came to an end and soon after he became a police officer with the Blackfoot Tribal Police, which he eventually headed. His other roles included directing outpatient services at Siksika Alcohol Services and serving ten terms on the Siksika Nation Council. He was also recognized with a headdress, given the name Miiksika'am, initiated into the Crazy Dog Society, and was bestowed a sacred bundle and warrior pipe from the Horn Society.
Elder Miiksika’am now speaks to younger generations about restorative justice, residential schools, and stories from his past. He is also a spiritual advisor for multiple groups and organizations and played a major role in facilitating the creation of the Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park.
Adrian A. Stimson
Adrian A. Stimson is a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation. He has a BFA from the Alberta University for the Arts and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. Adrian is an interdisciplinary artist who exhibits nationally and internationally. His paintings are primarily monochromatic, often depicting bison in imagined landscapes. Melancholic, memorializing, and sometimes whimsical, they evoke ideas of cultural fragility, resilience, and nostalgia. Stimson is renowned for his performance art, particularly his persona, Buffalo Boy, whom he embodies to consider the hybridization of the Indian, the cowboy, the shaman and Two Spirit being. His installation work predominantly examines the residential school experience; he attended three residential schools in his life and has used the material culture from Old Sun Residential School on his Nation to create works that speak to genocide, loss, and resilience. Stimson was awarded the Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts in 2018, Reveal Indigenous Arts Award – Hnatyshyn Foundation in 2017, Blackfoot Visual Arts Award in 2009, Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005, and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003.
Star Crop Eared Wolf
Star Crop Eared Wolf is a Niitsiitapi multidisciplinary artist and member of the Kainai Nation. She graduated from The University of Lethbridge with a BFA in Native Art and Museum Studies. Working across painting, sculpture, photography, video, and beading, her practice explores themes centred around land, culture, and ongoing sociopolitical issues impacting Indigenous peoples. Star Crop Eared Wolf was the inaugural Ksahkomiitapiiks resident.
