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Joi T. Arcand

With quiet strength and profound political awareness, Joi T. Arcand reintroduces the Cree language into the public sphere. Her installation itihtin unfolds like a sculptural presence where memory, language, and territory converge. © Crédit Shelby Lisk

Date

February 28 – April 19, 2025

Location

Espace Quatre Cents

itihtin

“That’s the way it flows.”
A Cree word suspended like ice in the city.

Description of the exhibition

itihtin. “That’s the way it flows.” As if frozen in ice, this nēhiyawēwin (Cree) word takes on an almost abstract form. Understanding a language that we don’t speak requires focus and openness.

For Joi T. Arcand, using syllabics as she does here is part of her personal quest to relearn her language, which is still very much in use. Although this piece is installed in non-Cree territory, it brings up issues that go beyond the boundaries of a single nation. For centuries, colonial forces here in Canada and elsewhere tried repeatedly to bury Indigenous cultures. And although the fight to protect the French language is particularly fierce in the province of Québec, Indigenous languages remain largely absent from the public sphere. Arcand reminds us that, despite their suppression, these languages were present well before the arrival of English and French. And they are still here. In its ice-like form, itihtin bears witness to what has been preserved through the cold.

Artist Biography

Joi T. Arcand

(Born in Hafford, Saskatchewan, Canada – Lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

Joi T. Arcand is an artist and a member of the Musket Lake Cree Nation. Her practice is characterized by a visionary and subversive reclamation and indigenization of public spaces through the use of Cree language and syllabics. She was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award (2018), and her work has been presented, most notably, at the National Gallery of Canada, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.