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Description

yāhkaskwan mīhkiwap (aka light tipi) (2014-ongoing) is a performance-based artwork and event by celebrated multidisciplinary artist and singer/songwriter, Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish). The work gathers artists and storytellers, participants and audience around a virtual tipi generated by beams of light cast into the night sky and made visible through the drifting smoke of burning sage bundles.

We welcome all to join to experience knowledge sharing in the form of storytelling and song, and an invitation to both learn and embody tipi pole teachings in this participatory event. An ongoing work by L’Hirondelle that has taken place in different cities and communities since 2014, yāhkaskwan mīhkiwap (aka light tipi) will be co-hosted with performer Anders Hunter (Îyârhe Nakoda) and invite participation from artists in residence and faculty in Banff Centre’s Toga da wôhnagabi: Music Creation Residency 2026.

yāhkaskwan mīhkiwap (aka light tipi) is free and all are welcome. As the event will take place outdoors, please note it will be weather-dependent and warm clothing and suitable footwear are encouraged. At its conclusion, please join us for warm drinks and conversation at Îethka Mâkochî Ahogi Chi Pa Bi Ti: Îethka Territory House of Respect.

yāhkaskwan mīhkiwap (aka light tipi) is presented by Walter Phillips Gallery and Indigenous Arts at Banff Centre in conjunction with the exhibition, Cheryl L’Hirondelle: where the voice touches (((acts, utterances, transmissions for freedom))) at Walter Phillips Gallery, co-curated by Tarah Hogue and Jacqueline Bell, and the Toga da wôhnagabi: Music Creation Residency 2026, organized by Janine Windolph.
 

Image of a performance based artwork
Page Summary
In this performance-based artwork by Cheryl L’Hirondelle, join around a virtual tipi to experience knowledge sharing in the form of storytelling and song.
Exhibition
No
Free
Yes
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Licensed
Off
Performance Date
Date
Extra Description

6:15 PM - 7:30 PM

Event and duration are weather dependent; followed by warm drinks and conversation at Îethka Mâkochî Ahogi Chi Pa Bi Ti: Îethka Territory House of Respect

Location: Campus access road in front of Amphitheatre
 

Expandable Content
Artist Biographies

Cheryl L'Hirondelle

Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish) is an interdisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter and critical thinker whose family roots are from Papaschase First Nation / amiskwaciy wāskahikan (Edmonton) and Kikino Metis Settlement, Alberta. Her work investigates and articulates a dynamism of nēhiyawin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place to create immersive environments towards radical inclusion and decolonisation. As a songwriter, L’Hirondelle focuses on sharing nēhiyawēwin (Cree language) and Indigenous and contemporary hybrid song forms and Indigenous language sound shapes and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies toward survivance. L'Hirondelle has performed, presented and exhibited nationally and internationally. L’Hirondelle was awarded two imagineNATIVE New Media Awards (2005 & 2006) and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006 & 2007). L'Hirondelle also received the 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art. In 2025, she was bestowed an Honorary Doctorate from Queen’s University and the King’s Coronation Medal from the Indigenous Curatorial Collective. Her latest album released in October 2025 is Why the Caged Bird Sings, a collection of songs co-written with incarcerated women, men and detained youth from across the land now known as Canada and is available on all platforms.

https://www.cheryllhirondelle.com/

Anders Hunter

Anders Hunter is from the Stoney Nakoda Nation of Mînî Thnî, Alberta. Anders has experience in being a multi-faceted performer and with over thirty years as a traditional singer and as a song composer. He has also incorporated his father’s drum group, Eya Hey Nakoda, into many collaborative projects. Anders is especially proud of his theatrical project ‘Making Treaty 7’ on which he led his group as a music ensemble and as well as the co-musical Artistic Director.

Anders acted in a grade school educational project that depicted how the making of Treaty 7 came to be, called ‘We are all Treaty People’. The traditional lifestyle Anders was brought up in helped him maintain his cultural identity as a Nakoda. Anders still attends ceremonial events such as the sun dance, sweat lodges, and any pipe ceremony. 

Anders' artistic goal is to break musical barriers and open up doors to more collaborative work between First Nations and non-First Nations peoples.
 

Computed Sort Date
1771031700

Submitted by Dolson Rhona on
English
Headshot of Michel Savoie

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Michel Savoie has been a stage costume cutter for almost 35 years. Having worked for all the performing arts, in cinema, television and circus he’s as passionate about historical costumes as for performance and fantasy costumes but his greatest joy is to collaborate artistically with different designers from all over the world. For a few years now he has devoted a part of his time at teaching students in the university programs of Theater and Fashion at UQAM but he’s still fully active at making beautiful costumes for many productions.

Dolson Rhona

Submitted by Dolson Rhona on
English
Headshot of Laura Elliot

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Laura Elliott is a longtime teacher, choreographer, producer, and activist within the Winnipeg community. She is the executive director of the Fat Babes Dance Collective, a co-producer of Skylines Dance and Film Series, and works full-time in the wardrobe department at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Within her role at the RWB she has had the deep privilege of creating and developing costumes for dancers of all levels, ages, abilities, and shapes. She has worked on classical projects such as Coppelia, Swan Lake, Etudes, and Don Quixote, and more contemporary works supporting artists such as Cameron Fraser Monroe, Gabriela Rehak, Sahel Pascual, Meredith Rainey, Yosuke Mino, Rachel Cooper, and Philippe Alexandre Jacques. She is deeply passionate about creating costuming that both suits the choreographic vision, and the artist who wears it.

Dolson Rhona
Description

Visit the studios of the Early Career Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) 2026 participants and see how they pushed creative boundaries during their five weeks at Banff Centre.

Early Career BAiR is a transformative five-week residency that provides mentorship, critical feedback, and studio time to visual artists in the early stages of their careers.

Open to visual artists working across mediums, BAiR combines the artistic freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as having the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of a community of artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.

This is an exciting opportunity for the artists to share their work, and for the public to ask them about their processes. Artists, art appreciators, and curious first-time viewers alike are encouraged to attend.

Visual Arts is supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

An artist is sitting in front of two large tapestries
Page Summary
Visit the studios of participants and see how they pushed creative boundaries during their five-week residency.
Exhibition
No
Free
Yes
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Licensed
Off
Event Tags
Performance Date
Date
Extra Description

4-7 PM
Cash Bar in Glyde Hall

Location
Computed Sort Date
1775080800
Description

Visit the studios of the Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) Winter 2026 participants and see how they pushed creative boundaries during their five weeks at Banff Centre.

BAiR is a transformative five-week residency that provides mentorship, critical feedback, and studio time to visual artists at any stage in their careers.

Open to visual artists working across mediums, BAiR combines the artistic freedom of a self-directed residency with the supportive benefits of an organized program. As well as having the space to create, research, and experiment, participants are part of a community of artists committed to developing and expanding their practice.

This is an exciting opportunity for the artists to share their work, and for the public to ask them about their processes. Artists, art appreciators, and curious first-time viewers alike are encouraged to attend.

Visual Arts is supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Spring BAIR 2024 participant Anahita Akhavan. Photo by Rita Taylor.
Page Summary
Visit the studios of participants and see how they pushed creative boundaries during their five-week residency.
Exhibition
No
Free
Yes
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Licensed
Off
Event Tags
Performance Date
Date
Extra Description

4-7 PM
Cash Bar in Glyde Hall

Location
Computed Sort Date
1770850800
Description

Join us for an afternoon presentation with Independent Curator Andria Hickey.

In this talk, Hickey reflects on her ongoing curatorial inquiry into the formal language of artworks emerging from research-based practices. She examines how contemporary artists use minimalist and abstract vocabularies to distill complex social, political, and material conditions into objects of revelation and resistance.

Through examples from two past exhibitions, Hickey will explore how formal reduction can amplify conceptual complexity, and how opacity can function as a strategy for critical engagement. From a curatorial perspective, the talk considers exhibition-making and artistic research as parallel processes, each operating as both method and material.

This presentation offers insight into contemporary curatorial thinking and considers how abstraction can serve as a tool for inquiry, resistance, and meaning-making for artists, curators, and audiences.

Hickey is a faculty member for the Winter 2026 Banff Artist in Residence program, a transformative five-week residency that provides mentorship, critical feedback, and studio time to visual artists and curators at any stage of their career.

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Andria Hickey
Page Summary
Curator Andria Hickey explores how artists use abstraction and minimalism as a form of research to engage with social, political, and material conditions.
Exhibition
No
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Licensed
Off
Performance Date
Date
Extra Description

4-5:30 PM

Computed Sort Date
1768604400
Event Subtitle
When Research Becomes Form: Infrastructural Aesthetics and Research-Based Practice
Description

Join us for an afternoon talk with visual artist Jordan Bennett. Bennett is L’nu (Mi’kmaq), from Stephenville Crossing, Newfoundland (Ktaqmkuk), and is based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, NS). His talk will focus on how exploration, collaboration, sharing, and mentorship have become central pillars of his artistic and community-based work. Reflecting on play, family, and ancestral community belongings, Bennett will discuss how land is at the root of his non-disciplinary practice.

Bennett is a faculty member for the Winter 2026 Banff Artist in Residence program, a transformative five-week residency that provides mentorship, critical feedback, and studio time to visual artists at any stage of their career.

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

Jordan Bennett
Page Summary
L’nu (Mi’kmaq) visual artist Jordan Bennett discusses how collaboration, mentorship, family, and land shape his non-disciplinary, community-based practice.
Exhibition
No
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Licensed
Off
Performance Date
Date
Extra Description

4-5:30 PM

Computed Sort Date
1769468400
Event Subtitle
Land: Blocks: Colour: Quill
Description

Join us for an afternoon talk with Amy Malbeuf, a Métis visual artist from Rich Lake, Alberta (Treaty 6 territory). 

In this presentation, Malbeuf discusses her performance work, wearable artworks, and other aspects of her artistic practice as they relate to ideas of the body. She also reflects on her return to Banff Centre, where she began to delve deeply into performance practice in 2011. Revisiting the same lands and questions that informed her early work, Malbeuf considers the ongoing interrelatedness of Indigenous feminism, identity, ecology, and embodied performance.

Malbeuf is a faculty member for the Winter 2026 Banff Artist in Residence program, a transformative five-week residency that provides mentorship, critical feedback, and studio time to visual artists and curators at any stage of their career.

This event is part of the Visual Arts Open Lecture Series, which presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Visual Arts is supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

A photo of Amy Malbeuf.
Page Summary
Métis visual artist Amy Malbeuf discusses performance, wearable artworks, and how ideas of the body inform her practice, identity, and ecology.
Exhibition
No
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Licensed
Off
Performance Date
Date
Extra Description

4-5:30 PM

Computed Sort Date
1769554800
Event Subtitle
unbodied rebirth/embodied performance
Description

Join us for the Opening Reception of the exhibition, Cheryl L’Hirondelle: where the voice touches (((acts, utterances, transmissions for freedom))), co-curated by Tarah Hogue and Jacqueline Bell. 

The exhibition is the first career survey organized on the celebrated multidisciplinary artist and singer/songwriter’s expansive multi-decade practice, foregrounding ideas of echolocation and nēhiyawin (Cree worldview) understanding of freedom, where one’s self-responsibility moves in tandem with self-determination.

 

The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Government of Canada and Government of Alberta.

Walter Phillips Gallery is grateful to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (AGNES) and Vulnerable Media Lab at Queen’s University, who as part of the Emulator Library for Media Art (ELMA) project have revived three works by Cheryl L’Hirondelle in the exhibition. AGNES recognizes the Canada Council for the Arts for funding the ELMA project. Walter Phillips Gallery also acknowledges Vulnerable Media Lab’s restoration of the work, nikamon ohci askiy (songs because of the land), 2008 with support from the artist's nephew, Callum Beckford, funded by Queen's University and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 
 


Supported by

Emulator Library for Media Art (ELMA) logo Agnes logo Vulnerable Media Lab (VML) logo
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) logo

Figure in a tent
Page Summary
Join us for the Opening Reception of the first career survey organized on multidisciplinary singer/songwriter Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s multi-decade practice.
Exhibition
No
Free
Yes
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Licensed
Off
Performance Date
Date
Extra Description

5 PM - 8 PM

Computed Sort Date
1770940800
Description

Cheryl L'Hirondelle: where the voice touches
(((acts, utterances, transmissions for freedom)))

February 13 - June 21, 2026

Co-curated by Tarah Hogue and Jacqueline Bell

Opening Reception 
February 12, 2026, 5PM - 8PM

yāhkaskwan mīhkiwap (aka light tipi)
February 13, 2026, 6:15 PM - 7:30 PM 

Exhibition Tour 
April 1, 2026, 5:30 PM - 6 PM

Cheryl L’Hirondelle: where the voice touches (((acts, utterances, transmissions for freedom))) is the first career survey organized on the celebrated multidisciplinary artist and singer/songwriter’s expansive multi-decade practice. The exhibition’s title references L’Hirondelle’s persistent interest in ideas of echolocation as a means of listening to place and responding, while also reflecting how her use of sound and song has deeply informed her visual art practice. Often prioritizing modes of reception that run counter to the constraints of the white cube, the artist’s works in net.art, socially engaged practice, and performance underscore L’Hirondelle’s commitment to both her own artistic freedom and to a nēhiyawin (Cree worldview) understanding of freedom, where one’s self-responsibility moves in tandem with self-determination.

 

The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Government of Canada and Government of Alberta.

Walter Phillips Gallery is grateful to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (AGNES) and Vulnerable Media Lab at Queen’s University, who as part of the Emulator Library for Media Art (ELMA) project have revived three works by Cheryl L’Hirondelle in the exhibition. AGNES recognizes the Canada Council for the Arts for funding the ELMA project. Walter Phillips Gallery also acknowledges Vulnerable Media Lab’s restoration of the work, nikamon ohci askiy (songs because of the land), 2008 with support from the artist's nephew, Callum Beckford, funded by Queen's University and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.


Supported by

Emulator Library for Media Art (ELMA) logo Agnes logo Vulnerable Media Lab (VML) logo
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) logo

Image of person wearing red hat and scarf
Page Summary
From February 13 to June 21, experience the first career survey organized on multidisciplinary singer/songwriter Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s multi-decade practice.
Exhibition
Yes
Free
Yes
Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only
Off
Exhibition Dates
-
Licensed
Off
Expandable Content
About the Artist

Cheryl L'Hirondelle

Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish) is an interdisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter and critical thinker whose family roots are from Papaschase First Nation / amiskwaciy wāskahikan (Edmonton) and Kikino Metis Settlement, Alberta. Her work investigates and articulates a dynamism of nēhiyawin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place to create immersive environments towards radical inclusion and decolonisation. As a songwriter, L’Hirondelle focuses on sharing nēhiyawēwin (Cree language) and Indigenous and contemporary hybrid song forms and Indigenous language sound shapes and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies toward survivance. L'Hirondelle has performed, presented and exhibited nationally and internationally. L’Hirondelle was awarded two imagineNATIVE New Media Awards (2005 & 2006) and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006 & 2007). L'Hirondelle also received the 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art. In 2025, she was bestowed an Honorary Doctorate from Queen’s University and the King’s Coronation Medal from the Indigenous Curatorial Collective. Her latest album released in October 2025 is Why the Caged Bird Sings, a collection of songs co-written with incarcerated women, men and detained youth from across the land now known as Canada and is available on all platforms.

https://www.cheryllhirondelle.com/

About the Curators

Tarah Hogue

Tarah Hogue is a curator, writer, and cultural worker based in Treaty 6 and 7 territories and the Métis homeland. Her practice is grounded in relational geographies, attending to how people and artworks shape and are shaped by the territories they belong to and move through. She approaches curating as a form of generative inquiry and connection, where otherwise ways of knowing and being can emerge through encounters between artworks, spaces, and publics.

Hogue is currently Adjunct Curator (Indigenous Art) at Remai Modern and has curated independently since 2009 across a range of venues and collaborations. Her recent projects include Carried by rivers, held by lands (Remai Modern), co-curated with Aileen Burns, Johan Lundh, and Maria Lind—a multi-year initiative that brings together artists from across the northern hemisphere to think with place, build solidarities across distance, and pursue collaborative forms of cultural and environmental restitution. She is also co-curator, with Siri Engberg, of Dyani White Hawk: Love Language (Walker Art Center; Remai Modern), a major survey of fifteen years of the Sičáŋǧu Lakota artist’s practice.

Of Michif and Euro-Canadian ancestry, Hogue is a citizen of the Otipemisiwak Métis Government within Alberta.

Jacqueline Bell

Jacqueline Bell (she/her) is an Alberta-based curator and writer whose work engages contemporary artistic practices that foreground the politics of relationality. She currently serves as Director, Walter Phillips Gallery and Collections at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. At Banff Centre she has organized exhibitions, projects and events including Elliptical Lineages (2025); Dawn Chorus, Evensong (Bow River Valley) by Lou Sheppard (2024); Listening Devices (2024–ongoing); Cassils: Movement (2024), co-curated with Carol Stakenas; darkness is as deep as the darkness is by Rita McKeough (2020); A materialist history of contagion by Candice Lin (2019); Guidelines by Carmen Papalia with Heather Kai Smith (2019); THE CAVE by Young Joon Kwak with Marvin Astorga, Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Adrian Stimson and Kim Ye (2018); If the river ran upwards (2018); and Everything I Say is True by Kite (2017). Her writing, reviews or interviews have been published by C Magazine, FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Criticism, PUBLIC and X-TRA: Contemporary Art Quarterly. In 2021, her interview, Thinking through the River: A Conversation with Carolina Caycedo and Genevieve Robertson was published in Outdoor School: Contemporary Environmental Art, edited by Amish Morrell and Diane Borsato (Douglas & McIntyre). 

Exhibition Location
Computed Sort Date
1771027199
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