Ywahentetha’

Rebecca Belmore, Dayna Danger, France Gros-Louis Morin, Shelley Niro, Sylvie Paré, Katherine Takpannie and Tania Willard
Co-Curators: Greg Hill and Julia Caron Guillemette


In collaboration with VU

From May 02nd to June 15th 2025

Opening: May 02nd at 17h

Ywahentetha’. “We put you before others in our spirits.” As curators, we believe our role is to bring artists and their works into dialogue with each other in such a way as to amplify their power, the love that resides in and emanates from them. When we were imagining this exhibition, we started by selecting artists: Rebecca Belmore, Dayna Danger, France Gros-Louis Morin, Shelley Niro, Sylvie Paré, Katherine Takpannie, and Tania Willard. We knew we wanted to work with them because we hold them in high esteem – we love them for what they do. Then, as we were discussing and developing the direction of the exhibition, we decided to root it directly in this idea of love and honour. Based on this desire to hold high these artists that are dear in our hearts and minds, we favoured a curatorial gesture instead of a theme.


In this way, love has come to be at the centre of this project, both through the relationships it has nurtured and the works it brings to light. We’ve explored this love through family, through intergenerational and sometimes imagined relationships, as well as through our relationship with the land. We also acknowledge that, around those relations, there can be grief and pain. Those emotions can be attended to with love and care. With this exhibition, we want to invite you to experience the emotional potency of these works, the power so gently and thoughtfully shared with us by the artists. When you are there with us, viewing, we are all participants, generating the Ywahentetha’ that is so urgent to share.




As part of the Ywahentetha’ exhibition, a booklet containing the text of the co-curators, photographs of the works in the galeries and artists’s and curators’s biographies was printed in VU’s production spaces.
Also available online here. The booklet is french and english bilangual.

                                                                            

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Greg A. Hill is a Kanyen’keháka member of the Six Nations of the Grand River. Currently based in Chelsea, QC, he is a multidisciplinary artist and curator and has presented his work in exhibitions and performances across North America and abroad. His curatorial work spans nearly three decades, including his post at the National Gallery of Canada as the Senior Curator of Indigenous Art where he significantly increased the visibility of Indigenous Art in their exhibitions and collections.

Julia Caron Guillemette is an independent curator, author and art historian based in Quebec City. She has been assistant artistic director for Manif d'art, curator-educator at the Musée d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul and cultural mediator at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. She holds a master's degree in art history from Université Laval and has published in several specialized magazines. She curated L'écho des contes (Jardin d'hiver 4, 2025), and co-curated Ostentation (2022).