Seth Arcand & Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet (2024). Image courtesy of the artists.

êpêkiyokêyân (coming to visit)
Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet & Seth Arcand

Curated by Sanaa Humayun
January 24 – March 8, 2025
Opening Reception: January 24, 7-9 pm
Cannon Gallery

êpêkiyokêyân holds visiting at its heart.

Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet is Cree and Métis descending from Michel Band. Seth Arcand is a Cree filmmaker from the kipohtakaw Cree Nation (Alexander). Their communities neighboured on the prairies before the enfranchisement of Michel band in 1958. Not neighbours in the colonial sense of white picket fences and carefully marked yet arbitrary border lines, but neighbours that hold to the nehiyaw law of wahkohtowin, with shared landmarks, and shared understandings of place across generations that don’t hold to the rigidity of colonial borders. In making this work, Kiona and Seth explored the unmarked spots and gravel roads between where they each grew up, understanding the land from the distance between landmarks, from the desire paths that remain, and the roads that cover the ones that existed before.

êpêkiyokêyân exists as an archive of visits. Kiona & Seth’s practices overlap within the archive. As a painter and multidisciplinary artist, Kiona’s practice explores archiving as an ongoing love letter – a documentation of moments from the land she grew up on, with snippets of stories that hold their secrets close. Seth’s work as a filmmaker explores the nehiyaw laws of pimatisiwin and wahkohtowin – of balance, and of kinship, documenting these stories as a way of reclaiming his place between the prairie grass and sky.

Their archive doesn’t hold to the restrictiveness of academia, but instead playfully holds stories: visits to Kiona’s moshom’s farm to pick cranberries, wild mint, and saskatoons, each visit beginning with a mark in the calendar for the next. Stories told while sitting together, wandering around the bush in hi-vis vests, and following the desire paths between. A pocket knife accidentally flung into bushes during harvest, to be found when the snow melts in springtime. Tea made from mint harvested on the farm, in chipped mugs around a kitchen table.

*Desire path: an unplanned route or path (such as one worn into a grassy surface by repeated foot traffic) that is used by pedestrians in preference to or in the absence of a designated alternative (such as a paved pathway).

Seth Arcand is a Cree filmmaker from the kipohtakaw Cree Nation (Alexander) in so called Alberta. His interests lie in exploring Indigenous stories through film and photography. As a filmmaker, he hopes to open up more opportunity for other Indigenous filmmakers interested in the industry. This means creating spaces on the prairies where Indigenous filmmakers are comfortable and supported in taking risks, while challenging what is expected of Indigenous Creatives. Visiting and reciprocity are important aspects of his creative process.

Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist practicing in amiskwaciwâskahikan on Treaty 6 Territory. She grew up West of the city near the hamlet of Calahoo where she lived with her relatives on a quarter section of land her moshom cares for. Her family lines are Cree and Métis descending from Michel Band, as well as Dutch and mixed European. Kiona works in painting, printmaking, drawing and installation, recollecting personal stories of grief and tenderness. Her practice uses a non-linear telling of her memories through narrative work as a form of diaristic archiving.

Sanaa Humayun (she/her) an artist, writer, & curator, living and working in Hamilton, ON. Her practice thinks about non-narrative story telling, secret keeping, gossip, and play and joy as acts of resistance. She is the Artistic Director at Hamilton Artists Inc. Along with Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet, Sanaa co-organizes Making Space – a peer mentorship group for early-career BIPOC artists. You can usually find her laughing a little too loudly with her friends in public places.

Various works, Sahra Soudi, (2024). Mixed Media. Photograph courtesy of Alejandro Collados-Núñez

What Moves us In the Middle
Sahra Soudi

January 24 – March 8, 2025
Opening Reception: January 24, 7-9 pm
James Gallery

Tony Cade Bambara writes that the role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible. To not only decorate the world with our work, but to also illuminate it. Art shouldn’t only entertain us, it must remind us of what’s important. I revere the words of Bambara as a responsibility which calls me to use my artistic practice for envisioning freedom-making futures.

What Moves Us In The Middle is a proposition that encourages artists and viewers alike to explore finding principles in relation to community, principles that can be used as a guide to remind ourselves and each other of what’s important. It is a proposition that requests artists to commit and recommit themselves to mirroring advocacy efforts both locally and globally. By recreating my studio in the gallery, I am inviting artists and community members to convene, collaborate, and do the work of reflecting each other’s processes with a promise to generate meaningful action for when we find ourselves in need of it.

Sahra Soudi is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, educator, and community organizer based in Hamilton, Ontario. They combine their activism and artistic practice to envision better and more just futures for all. Soudi advocates for the inclusion and participation of Black, Indigenous, disabled, and racialized communities in a range of settings, from artist-run centres, and DIY venues, to national galleries. Soudi is an emerging artist and curator, passionate about cross-movement solidarity and disability justice. They honour this framework by empowering and mobilizing their communities to push for radical change.

As an artist-run centre, Hamilton Artists Inc. (the Inc.) empowers artists of all career levels to take risks with their contemporary visual arts practices and present their work in a critical context.

We are open to the public on Wednesday and Thursday 12-5 pm, Friday 12-6 pm and Saturday 12-5 pm.

Accessibility: The Inc. is an accessible venue. Click here for detailed information.

Hamilton Artists Inc.
155 James Street North
Hamilton, ON L8R 2K9
www.theinc.ca | 905.529.3355

Facebook: @HamiltonArtistsInc
Twitter: @HamArtInc
Instagram: @HamiltonArtistsInc

Contact:
Sanaa Humayun, Programming Director
programming@theinc.ca

The Inc. gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council, City of Hamilton, Canada Council for the Arts, Hamilton Community Foundation, Incite Foundation for the Arts, and all of our members, donors, sponsors, and programming partners.