Niigaan Sinclair: Why Indigenous Art and the Art Gallery Aren’t Friends

IshKaabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabateg Department of Visual Art Speaker Series presents Niigan Sinclair: Why Indiginous Art and the Art Gallery Aren’t Friends.

Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe from Peguis First Nation. He is an award-winning writer, editor and professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba who was named by Maclean’s magazine in 2022 as one of the most influential people in Canada. Niigaan is a multiple nominee of Canadian columnist of the year (winning in 2018) and his commentary appears weekly on multiple platforms across Canada — from the pages of The Winnipeg Free Press to TV shows on CBC and APTN as well as on his co-hosted podcast Niigaan and the Lone Ranger.

His first book Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an IndigenousCentre (McClelland & Stewart, 2024) was a national bestseller that won the 2024 Governor General Award for Non-fiction. He is a former secondary school teacher who won the 2019 Peace Educator of the Year from the Peace and Justice Studies Association based at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.