Date: 2023
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Heather Shillinglaw is an Indigenous artist in Edmonton who supports herself and her family through her art, some of which has been exhibited across Canada and in Europe. Her art employs animal hides, pieces of clothing, and other articles to convey a ‘Metis Ecological Arts Message.’ She views colonial forms of exploitation as having a continuing deleterious impact upon the traditional lands of Indigenous people, and the plants and animals with which Indigenous people have always had a close physical and spiritual relationship. Shillinglaw’s development as an artist began when she was in school and faced racism from her classmates. Artwork soothed the trauma she experienced and she still finds that it has a calming effect on her. She credits much of the knowledge and inspiration for her art to her mother as well as other elders and Indigenous women who transmitted to her the traditional knowledge and stories that appear in her art.
Keywords: Alberta College of Art and Design; Cooking Lake; Environment; Indigenous art; Metis Ecological Arts Message; Muriel Stanley-Venne; Primrose Bombing Range; Traditional lands.
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See also: Indigenous Labour in Alberta; Systemic Racism in Alberta; Women and Work in Alberta