Cheryl L’Hirondelle is a multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Toronto. Her practice is an investigation of the intersection of Cree worldview (nêhiyawin) and the inter/multidisciplinarity of creative expression inherent in other indigenous, world and youth cultures. As part of this investigation, L’Hirondelle develops performative physical endurances, infiltrations and interventions, site-specific installations, interactive net.art projects and keeps singing, making rhythm, songs, dancing and telling stories whenever and wherever she can.
Suzanne Morrissette is an artist, curator, and writer from Winnipeg. Suzanne has a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art & Design (2009) and an MFA from OCAD University (2011). Suzanne is currently based out of Toronto where she studies at York University towards a PhD in Social and Political Thought.
Jason Ryle is the Executive Director at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. Jason oversees all aspects of the organization including programming, operations, finance, and the annual Festival. He sits on the Board of Directors for Vtape, an independent video distributor, and is a script reader for The Harold Greenberg Fund, which provides financial aid to Canadian filmmakers. As an award-winning writer, Jason has written for the Smithsonian Institution and numerous publications throughout North America. He made his first short film in 2005 and has been programming alongside imagineNATIVE’s Programming Team since 2002.
Kevin Lee Burton (Swampy Cree) is an award-winning filmmaker, programmer and freelance editor. One of the main areas in which Kevin has focused his artistic endeavours is to explore how “traditional” concepts can be coherently iterated within technological contexts. Specifically, Kevin has designed a niche by working in his ancestral tongue, Cree. Kevin received his film training at the Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking Program in North Vancouver, British Columbia, and has worked as program assistant for the Native and Indigenous Initiatives at the Sundance Institute in Beverly Hills, California. He was raised in the remote area of God’s Lake Narrows, MB, but now lives and works in Winnipeg.
Janet Marie Rogers
Victoria Poet Laureate 2012-2015
UNBC Writer-in-Residence Sept. 2015-Feb. 2016
Janet is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in southern Ontario. She was born in Vancouver British Columbia and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people (Victoria, British Columbia) since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poetry with music and script writing. Janet is a radio broadcaster, documentary producer and sound artist. Her literary titles include; “Splitting the Heart,” Ekstasis Editions 2007, “Red Erotic,” Ojistah Publishing 2010,”Unearthed,” Leaf Press 2011 and “Peace in Duress,” Talonbooks 2014. Her poetry CDs “Firewater” 2009, “Got Your Back” 2012 and “6 Directions” 2013 all received nominations for Best Spoken Word Recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards and the Native American Music Awards. You can hear Janet on the radio as she hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV fm. Her radio documentaries “Bring Your Drum” (50 years of indigenous protest music) and “Resonating Reconciliation” won Best Radio at the imagaineNATIVE Film and Media festival 2011 and 2013. Janet Rogers and Ahkwesase Mohawk poet Alex Jacobs make up the poetry collective Ikkwenyes which produced the poetry CD “Got Your Back” and won the Loft Literary Fellowship prize 2014. 2Ro Media is the newly incorporated production company she and Mohawk media artist Jackson Twobears own and operate. They are producing NDNs on the Airwaves a short documentary on CKRZ fm Six Nations radio. Janet is currently producing a 6-part radio documentary series titled NDNs on the Airwaves focused on the current history of native radio in Canada, due for release in February 2016.
Victoria Poet Laureate 2012-2015
UNBC Writer-in-Residence Sept. 2015-Feb. 2016
Janet is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in southern Ontario. She was born in Vancouver British Columbia and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people (Victoria, British Columbia) since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poetry with music and script writing. Janet is a radio broadcaster, documentary producer and sound artist. Her literary titles include; “Splitting the Heart,” Ekstasis Editions 2007, “Red Erotic,” Ojistah Publishing 2010,”Unearthed,” Leaf Press 2011 and “Peace in Duress,” Talonbooks 2014. Her poetry CDs “Firewater” 2009, “Got Your Back” 2012 and “6 Directions” 2013 all received nominations for Best Spoken Word Recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards and the Native American Music Awards. You can hear Janet on the radio as she hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV fm. Her radio documentaries “Bring Your Drum” (50 years of indigenous protest music) and “Resonating Reconciliation” won Best Radio at the imagaineNATIVE Film and Media festival 2011 and 2013. Janet Rogers and Ahkwesase Mohawk poet Alex Jacobs make up the poetry collective Ikkwenyes which produced the poetry CD “Got Your Back” and won the Loft Literary Fellowship prize 2014. 2Ro Media is the newly incorporated production company she and Mohawk media artist Jackson Twobears own and operate. They are producing NDNs on the Airwaves a short documentary on CKRZ fm Six Nations radio. Janet is currently producing a 6-part radio documentary series titled NDNs on the Airwaves focused on the current history of native radio in Canada, due for release in February 2016.