Mikinaak Migwans
Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and Curator, Art Museum at the University of Toronto
Mikinaak Migwans is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Contemporary Art in Canada in the Department of Art History and a Curator at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.
A multimedia artist by training, Migwans has expanded their work to include research, teaching, curation and community engagement. A member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, Migwans’s work focuses on reclaiming Anishinaabe artistic practices and legacies from the archives of colonial institutions. Exploring Anishinaabe art and crafts in museum collections through the lens of critical theory, Migwans addresses questions of object repatriation, culturally sensitive exhibition and the politics of place-making.
Migwans’s dissertation at Columbia University addressses the natural fibre weaving traditions of the Great Lakes. They have worked with the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts & Culture at Carleton University, the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation in M'Chigeeng First Nation and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.