Shelby Gagnon

Shelby is a 2-spirit Anishinaabe/Cree artist from Aroland First Nation of the wolf clan. She is a graduate of the fine arts program at Lakehead University where she explored the reclamation of Indigenous traditions, identity and land. She is an arts educator, hide tanner, muralist, and advocate for the lands and waters. Through involvement with community-engaged organizations and projects, she uses multi-disciplinary mediums to express and share her holistic feelings focused on land, water and all the spirits that call it their home.

Since graduating university Shelby has worked with many youth, BIPOC and LGBTQ organizations and groups in and around Thunder Bay. An organization she connected with was The Indigenous Food Circle where she worked on a project called Understanding our Food Systems in Partnership with Lakehead University, The Thunder Bay District Health Unit and 13 First Nations Communities that surround Lake Superior and Lake Nipigon in Northern Ontario. During the time working on this project Shelby supported communities and their visions that focused on developing food security and sovereignty plans that suited there landscapes and passions. Some projects included community gardens, building community kitchens and butcher shops as well as preserving, trapping and wilderness safety workshops.

She has traveled to further her skills with a focus on Indigenous land-based practices, she has been working to get her certificate through The Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning which is an Indigenous land-based initiative delivering accredited post-secondary education and research experiences in the North. She has been teaching and facilitating hide camps around northern Ontario with her hide family and is dedicated to learning with the Land and its people.

Shelby Gagnon examines time as the past, present, and future flowing together like a river. To honour the resilience of the Indigenous worldview, she uses her practice to navigate, connect, and inspire both as an artist and collectively through community. Shelby’s reciprocal and relational way of being in the world is a way to heal mind, body, and spirit against systemic colonial violence.