Earthwork
Alex Jacobs-Blum, Art Hunter, BUSH Gallery, Edward Poitras, Faye HeavyShield, Lisa Myers, Michael Belmore, Mike MacDonald, Protect the Tract Collective
Curated by Mikinaak Migwans
Art Museum at the University of Toronto
September 4 – December 20, 2025
Faye HeavyShield
Clan (performance documentation), 2019
Courtesy of Blaine Campbell
MOMENTA 2021
Photo by Jean-Michael Seminaro
The Art Museum at the University of Toronto presents the exhibition Earthwork, which reassesses the art historical framing of the “earthwork” popularized by the land art movement of the 1960s and ’70s, reclaiming it from an Indigenous perspective. It is curated by Mikinaak Migwans, Curator of Indigenous Contemporary Art at the Art Museum and Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto.
Works by Alex Jacobs-Blum, Art Hunter, BUSH Gallery, Edward Poitras, Faye HeavyShield, Lisa Myers, Michael Belmore, Mike MacDonald, Protect the Tract Collective
Earthwork redefines a term that until now has referred to a type of artistic practice associated within the larger conceptual framework of land art. In this exhibition, Mikinaak Migwans shifts our understanding of earthwork to refer to a way of working, rather than the making of singular objects — similar to the term “beadwork.” With a Canada-wide scope emphasizing the Great Lakes region, the exhibition takes as its starting point an understanding of ancestral earthworks less as monuments and more as sites of ongoing stewardship and care. It considers multiple layers of engagement with the land, including a history of land defense movements, medicine walks, and ancestral practices of prescribed burns, alongside contemporary artworks as creative acts of relational intervention.
“Redefining earthwork in this way helps us think about land as part of the cycles of life and death, rather than eternal monuments outside of time,” says Mikinaak Migwans. “It also helps us to see the huge labour investment that goes into maintaining relations on the land, getting away from this idea that the natural is something opposite to the human. Indigenous connections to land, especially, have been erased in colonial accounts that talk about a natural environment that is ‘virgin,’ ‘untouched,’ and in this way, unclaimed. But recent scholarship is starting to show that North America’s ecosystems were carefully cultivated and maintained by Indigenous Peoples. They’ve quite literally shaped the landscape through generations.”
Untitled (Controlled burn at Kay-nah-chi-wah-nung mounds), 2023
Digital print
Photo courtesy of the artist
Untitled (Controlled burn at Kay-nah-chi-wah-nung mounds), 2023
Digital print
Photo courtesy of the artist
Central to the exhibition is photo and video documentation by Art Hunter of land stewardship practices at the ancestral Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre, a national historic site and one of the most significant places of early habitation and ceremonial burial in Canada located in northwestern Ontario. Art Hunter’s description of the Anishinaabe community’s controlled burn and other processes to maintain the site’s special ecology served as the inspiration point for Earthwork.
drift, 2025
Steel, wood, 2.43 m x 9 m x 4.5 m
Photo courtesy of the artist.
drift, 2025
Steel, wood, 2.43 m x 9 m x 4.5 m
Photo courtesy of the artist
Internationally recognized artist Michael Belmore will create a new piece in his snow fence series, which will be on view from November 2025 through March 2026—following the seasonal cycle rather than the exhibition cycle.
A new audio work by independent curator and artist Lisa Myers helps visitors think about land relations through walking and listening.
Other featured artists are #BUSH Gallery (Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Peter Morin, Tania Willard), Alex Jacobs-Blum, Faye HeavyShield, Mike MacDonald, Edward Poitras, and Protect the Tract Collective.
The exhibition offers visitors a printed Engagement Guide, to better connect with the works on view by sharing specific histories and information in an accessible way.
ART MUSEUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
University of Toronto Art Centre
University College, 15 King’s College Circle, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H7