Joi T. Arcand: ᑳᐃᓯᓈᑿᐦᑭ ᐃᑘᐏᓇ kā-isinākwahki itwēwina: The Shape of Words

Step into a Cree utopian city at Carleton University Art Gallery

Joi T. Arcand, otē nīkān misiwē askīhk / Here on Future Earth: Amber Motors, 2009, digital photograph. Image courtesy of the artist.

Joi T. Arcand: ᑳᐃᓯᓈᑿᐦᑭ ᐃᑘᐏᓇ kā-isinākwahki itwēwina: The Shape of Words

September 29 – December 13, 2026
Opening Reception: October 4, 2026, 2 – 4:30pm ET
Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG), Unceded and Unsurrendered Anishinabeg Algonquin territory in Ottawa, Ontario

ᑳᐃᓯᓈᑿᐦᑭ ᐃᑘᐏᓇ kā-isinākwahki itwēwina: The Shape of Words is Joi T. Arcand’s largest solo exhibition to date.

The exhibition builds on the 2009 series otē nīkān misiwē askīhk / Here on Future Earth, where Arcand digitally revised photos of streetscapes in Cree territories to show ᒐᐦᑭᐯᐦᐃᑲᓇ / cahkipēhikana (Cree syllabics) urban signage instead of English. Amid glowing neon signs and sculptural exhibits are new works, including an immersive mural streetscape and tactile elements.

Smartphone-enabled videos will enable visitors to see and hear the pronunciation of ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ words as they appear in artworks, while an interactive vintage payphone will offer the opportunity for visitors to receive messages spoken in nēhiyawēwin.

Joi T. Arcand, Relics For The End Of The World, 2021, commercial sign. Image by Patrick Lacasse.

Featuring a collaboration with Anishinaabe artist Cedar Eve, Arcand transforms the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) into an urban nēhiyawēwin (Plains Cree) environment.

The exhibition advances Arcand’s exploration of key themes: visibility, untranslatability, reclamation and revitalization. Her work involves extensive research in linguistics, morphology and translation. Arcand reclaims nēhiyawēwin, a language she has been working at learning her whole life, and asserts its intellectual, aesthetic and cultural sovereignty and manifests its power to shape worlds.

About the Artist

Joi T. Arcand is an internationally renowned nēhiyaw (Plains Cree) contemporary artist who was shortlisted for the prestigious Sobey Art Award in 2018. With a practice including installation, photography, and design, the artist’s work is characterized by a visionary and subversive reclamation and Indigenization of public spaces through the use of Cree language and syllabics.

From Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 Territory, the artist now lives in Ottawa. Recent solo exhibitions include MacKenzie Art Gallery and ᐯᐦᐯᔭᐠ ᐆᒥᓯ ᐃᓯ ᐁᐊᑎᐦᑌᑭ ᑕᑿᐦᐃᒥᓈᓇ at Remai Modern (Regina, SK); and Joi T. Arcand – ᑿᔭᐢᐠᐅᑌᐦᑕᒼ at Central Art Garage (Ottawa, ON). 2016-2018 solo exhibitions include kiya itako at MOCA Toronto and Mercer Union (Toronto, ON). International group exhibitions include High Colour at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Singing Mother Earth at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art (South Korea), and In Our Hands: Native Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (USA).

She curated The Travellers (Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden, 2018) when she was Director of SAW Gallery’s Nordic Lab. As a quarter of the art and curatorial collective Wolf Babe, she will also co-curate Luleåbiennalen 2027 in Luleå, Sweden.

Also on View

Faisa Omer, Naag Nool (Living Woman), 2020, digital photograph, feat. Ahlam. Courtesy of the artist.

Faisa Omer: Threading Roots
September 29 – December 13, 2026

Threading Roots considers how identity is continually made and remade through cultural practice and family histories. Somali Canadian artist and mental health counsellor Faisa Omer uses studio portraits, archival photographs and textiles to celebrate the creativity, resilience and cultural continuity that sustains Somali Canadian communities.

About Carleton University Art Gallery

Since 1992, Carleton University Art Gallery in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has served evolving campus and civic communities in a way that’s grounded in inquiry and the open exchange of ideas.

CUAG facilitates spaces of reflection and action around the ideas raised by the artists who anchor both exhibition and public and publication programs. Through a vibrant, inclusive space where art, communities, learning and experimentation converge to challenge the status quo and foster transformative dialogues, CUAG works towards a more just and sustainable society.

CUAG is committed to learning and unlearning processes that take place in the context of an identity as a colonial institution located on the traditional, unceded territory of the Anishinabeg Algonquin Nation, and in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s and the Black Lives Matter movement’s calls for anti-racist action and accountability.

Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG)
St. Patrick’s Building, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6
www.cuag.ca
fiona.wright@carleton.ca
Phone (613) 794-2541

Facebook @carleton.university.art.gallery
Instagram @cuartgallery
TikTok @carleton_u

Accessibility:
CUAG is fully accessible. For more information and parking instructions, visit cuag.ca/visiting.

Image Descriptions:
1. Underneath a blue prairie sky dotted with small clouds, a lone figure in jeans and a leather jacket walks by a barbed-wire, chain-link fence. Behind the fence is an empty lot with a lightbulb-adorned sign in cahkipēhikana (Cree syllabics), atop a metal pole. Next door, a red-painted brick building has a sign in cahkipēhikana, as well.
2. A red sign has white cahkipēhikana (Cree) syllabics. The full sign is visible, and the top of a white post supporting it is visible. Yellow lightbulbs frame a yellow arrow. The whole sign is glowing, and the background is a grey wall.
4. A Black woman leans towards the camera and looks directly out. Her chin rests on her hand and her pinkie nail is posed between her teeth. She wears a white hoodie and her hair is wrapped in a red and black silk scarf.

The Terra Foundation for American Art expands narratives of American art through its grants, collection and initiatives. With offices in Chicago and Paris, the Terra Foundation works with organizations to foster intercultural dialogues and encourage transformative practices, locally and globally.

CUAG also thanks the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of this exhibition.

CUAG is also grateful to the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, SK Arts, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Central Art Garage and Danny Hussey and Bridget Thompson for loaning works to the exhibition. Additionally, the exhibition features an artwork purchased with the support of the Elizabeth L. Gordon Art Program, a program of the Gordon Foundation and administered by the Ontario Arts Foundation.