National Indigenous Peoples Day

Emma is a 19‑year‑old Ojibway woman from the Turtle Clan, originally from Bkejwanong (Walpole Island First Nation). A visual and multimedia artist studying Fine Arts at Durham College, she works primarily in acrylic, watercolour, and oil. Emma’s art is rooted in culture, identity, and lived experience — exploring emotion, community stories, and the realities of both joy and struggle. Her goal is to create work that resonates deeply, allowing viewers to feel seen, heard, and understood, whether they are Indigenous or not.

Tessa is a multidisciplinary Anishinaabe artist from Nipissing First Nation, residing in Toronto. Her artwork’s heartbeat is guided by Anishinaabe teachings, her artistic approach takes inspiration from ethnobotany and our relationships to the water, to the land and to the sky. Her artistic practices explore processes and mediums, with current focus on vector illustration and public art installation. Pushing boundaries of perception in her artwork with the intention to consider her own lens of traditional versus contemporary, and where we fit into the past, present and future. This juxtaposition of the past and the present, of the traditional versus contemporary, led her practice to the concept “traditions of time immemorial through an ultramodern lens”.