Indigenous Arts Thematic: Story Sharing Residency

Janine Windolph (Atikamekw/Woodland Cree) is a Saskatchewan-based filmmaker, video editor, educator, fine-craft artist, and storyteller. She is the Director of Indigenous Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Prior, Janine was the Curator of Community Engagement at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan. She has her Master of Fine Arts: Interdisciplinary in Indigenous Fine Art and Media Production.

Janine was a co-producer for RIIS Media Project Inc wherein she co-directed RIIS from Amnesia: Recovering the Lost Legacies (feature-length documentary) that features the history of the Regina Indian Industrial School (RIIS). 

Janine’s filmography includes roles as producer, director, narrator, writer and/or editor.  She directed Stories Are In Our Bones, Lifegivers: Honoring Our Elders and Children, The Land of Rock and Gold, Ayapiyâhk ôma niyanân “Only us, we are here at home,”

Janine is working with Buffalo Mountain Banff; a community group to Buffalo Mountain, and providing production support to the Buffalo Mountain Video Project that is part of her sons’ homeschooling.

January Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River. She was born in Vancouver British Columbia in 1963 and raised in southern Ontario. She traveled throughout 2017-2019 doing back to back residencies in Vancouver BC, Santa Fe NM and Edmonton AB. January lives on Six Nations of the Grand River territory where she owns and operates Ojistoh Publishing and Productions. She works in page poetry, spoken word, performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poetry with music. She is a radio broadcaster, media producer and sound artist. 

Her literary titles include; Splitting the Heart, Ekstasis Editions 2007, Red Erotic, Ojistah Publishing 2010, Unearthed, Leaf Press 2011 “Peace in Duress” Talonbooks 2014 and Totem Poles and Railroads ARP Books 2016, “As Long As the Sun Shines” (English edition), Bookland Press 2018 with a Mohawk language edition released in 2019 and French translation released in 2021. “Ego of a Nation” is Janet’s 7th poetry title which she independently produced on the Ojistoh Publishing label 2020.

January has produced and written media for gallery and broadcast with 2Ro Media since 2015. She won the American Indian Film Festival BEST MUSIC VIDEO 2020 with Ego of a Nation and the imagineNATIVE Media BEST EXPERIMENTAL SOUND PRIZE 2021 for her sound piece, The Struggle Within. She wrote produced and directed a 10 episode comedy web series NDNs on the Airwaves and wrote a play Blood Sport which received two Ontario Arts Council Theatre Recommender Grants for development in 2023. 
 

Bomgiizhik (Isaac Murdoch) is from Serpent River First Nation. He is of the Fish Clan and is Ojibwe and currently lives in the forest at Nimkii Aazhibikoong, a indigenous community that focuses on indigenous language, art, and land based activities. Being blessed with the opportunity, Bomgiizhik grew up in the traditional setting of hunting and gathering on the land. Having spent many years learning from Elders, he spends a lot of his time as a Story Teller. Many of these stories become his visual art pieces which have become recognized world wide. Bomgiizhik is also a Singer Song Writer who loves to make music when ever he gets a chance. You will often find him on the land looking at his favorite plants or gazing into the beautiful night sky.

Tékeniyáhsen Ohkwá:ri (Jackson 2bears) is a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) multimedia installation/performance artist and cultural theorist from Six Nations and Tyendinaga, currently based in Lethbridge, Alberta—Treaty 7, Blackfoot Territory. 2bears’ research-creation activities focus on Indigenous land-based histories and embodied cultural knowledge, wherein they explore the creative use of digital Games (Cowichan, BC); and the Futur-en-Seine Festival (Paris, France).

2bears is a co-director of 2RO MEDIA, with Mohawk poet and producer January Rogers, and Mohawk curator Ryan Rice. 2RO Media is an artist/curatorial collective based in Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River. Active since 2015, 2RO MEDIA produces events, experimental documentaries, art installations, media works, and performances with a mandate to support Indigenous projects, productions, cultural activities, and language revitalization through community engagement, programming, and other creative initiatives. In the Fall of 2023, they launched a new media arts festival in Six Nations, which featured art installations, film & video, audio projects, performance, spoken word and artists panels/ talks with additional community gatherings, workshops, outreach, and other activities occurring throughout the year.

Please check back regularly for additions to the faculty list.