Lead artist, Joe Wood, invites you to reflect on her experiences of being treated as a problem. Reports from agencies responsible for her “care” form the core material of this multimedia project, informing visual, video and audio elements. A sculpture of a tree top offers visitors a safe place at the centre of the exhibition. Joe sculpts “justice out of injustice,” conveying the “poetics” of her survivance as a member of South Indian Lake First Nation.
Joe Wood was born in Nelson House MB, is a member of South Indian Lake First Nation, and identifies as Cree and Scottish. Joe is a self-taught visual and media artist who was raised as disabled. Her artistic practice has been a way to release anger, probe the unknown, and to express herself as a two spirit person. Whether painting, drawing with charcoal, or working with digital tools, Joe fearlessly pushes boundaries through her thoughtfully composed, minimalist aesthetic. For three years, Joe has been a core member of Art Fix of Nipissing – a collective of artists with lived experience of mental health and substance use – contributing to project development, the design of our annual zine, and juried exhibition.