
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

exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
This work chronicles the artist’s experience of pregnancy amid reports of high maternal mortality rates experienced by Black women in the U.S.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / May 14.2023
The first exhibition to explore pioneering feminist artist Mary Kelly’s long engagement with activist movements.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Connecting aspects of Indigenous cosmology to wider cultural meanings, this exhibition speaks to the idea of seeing through space.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / May 14.2023
This exhibition speaks to the connections between art and social activism and to the visual aesthetics that emerge from protest.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Taking root during pandemic lockdowns, this installation acknowledges loss while offering a space for grief and mourning.

exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
Curated by Middlebrook Prize recipient Erin Szikora, Homecoming engages land, language, and community, offering strategies to rethink our relationships to home.

exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
Examining intersections between botanical explorations and colonization, Anahita Norouzi focuses on the plant colloquially referred to as giant hogweed.

exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
This exhibition of Haudenosaunee souvenir beadworks responds to the history of ethnographic collecting by celebrating personal, economic, and cultural value.