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150 Acts: A Selection
Building on 40 years of creative collaborations with Indigenous artists, communities, and organizations, the Art Gallery of Guelph launched 150 Acts: Art, Activism, Impact in the fall of 2017, an exhibition that provided a platform for diverse Indigenous narratives that imagine new social futures. 150 Acts coincided with Canada’s sesquicentennial, an essential moment of national reflection and an opportunity to query the relationship of nationhood itself to Indigeneity in Canada.
Throughout, the exhibition recognized art practices as simultaneously personal, conceptual, cultural, political, and social acts – and as meaningful responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. From installation, film, new media, and performance to practices framed by traditional beadwork, textile, sculpture, drawing, and painting, the artworks explored both socio-cultural and physical terrain while mapping wholly new geographies through language, storytelling, and the land itself.
This is a selection of the foundational pieces from the AGG’s Indigenous collections and new art practices from across Canada that were included in 150 Acts: Art, Activism, Impact.
Image detail: Maureen Gruben, Message, 2017, Polar bear guard hair, cotton thread, black interface
Artists
KC Adams
Mary Anne Barkhouse
Rebecca Belmore
Maureen Gruben
Anique Jordan
Ken Maracle
Michael Massie
Norval Morrisseau
Shelley Niro
Victor Reece
Arthur Renwick
Don Russell
Jeff Thomas
Wayne Young
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
View More Exhibitions
![a black and white photo of a woman applying lip liner with a compact mirror](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/dyrl-web-header-300x169.png)
exhibition
September 12.2024 / December 15.2024
Juxtaposing Susan Mogul’s 1997 video with a collection of quillboxes, this exhibition unifies both forms of expression through themes of women’s identity, family, relationships, and the quest for home.
![a collage showing a coniferous tree in a hilly landscape, with an outline of an airplane in the blue sky, a red drawing of a tree attached to the tree trunk, and a framed painting of a farm in a valley in the bottom left corner](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/nadeau-1x-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
Paul Nadeau
July 18.2024 / August 25.2024
Paul Nadeau’s paintings explore Canadian eco-tourism and resource extraction that contributes to the settler-colonial view of Canadian wilderness.
![a painting in the Woodlands style of a flying loon decorated with geometric patterns, connected by wavy black lines to an orange circle](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Untitled-design-7-min-300x169.png)
exhibition
Richard Bedwash
June 8.2024 / August 25.2024
Explore the vivid, symbol-rich images of Anishinaabe artist Richard Bedwash that connects his work, his life, and the cultural landscapes of Guelph.
![layered smoothed rocks in earthy tones, some of which have a single gold line painted on it](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Untitled-design-47-Copy-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
May 30.2024 / July 10.2024
The work of Catherine Chan delves into human entanglements with the more-than-human using rocks and other materials of geology to explore the intersection of deep time with more fleeting experiences.
![children's toys and clothes arranged in a horizontal line along the ground in the desert](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/what-remains-1x-300x169.png)
exhibition
May 2.2024 / August 30.2024
What Remains provides windows, peering into and out from an ongoing global humanitarian crisis, assembled into a multimedia and multidisciplinary experience.
![](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Kinngait-5MB-1-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
Tim Pitsiulak
January 18.2024 / May 19.2024
Tim Pitsiulak’s work offers profound insight into not just life in the North, but the ever-evolving impacts of colonization, particularly the effects of climate change and environmental exploitation.
![an embroidered rainbow and gold stars on a blue fabric background](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/JD-Pluecker_The-Unsettlements_for-web-1-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
January 18.2024 / April 21.2024
The Unsettlements is a series of projects initiated by JD Pluecker in 2018 that delve into sites of memory, silence, and ancestry, particularly in Houston and across what is now called Texas
![an abstract landscape consisting of soft blurred streaks of blue, yellow, orange, and brown](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/McKay-Odyssey-to-a-Mallard-Drake-2-300x169.jpg)
exhibition
December 23.2023 / April 21.2024
Drawing from the Art Gallery of Guelph’s permanent collection, this exhibition explores the use of abstraction by artists in their depictions of the natural world.