2025 Artist-in-Residence: Jaimie Isaac
Conversations about art as both research and knowledge mobilization led to the creation of a five-month artist residency from January to May 2025. Jaimie Isaac, curator and interdisciplinary artist from Sagkeeng First Nation, brought energy, insight and a new web of relationships to Just Waters in her role as Artist-in-Residence.
Along with continued work on her project, Nibi, Isaac hosted several events with Just Waters. In February, Isaac’s Rosemary Gallery hosted a film screening at The Forks in collaboration with Just Waters and The Decolonizing Lens. Featuring Poplar River (Kevin Settee), This River (Katherena Vermette and Erika McPherson) and other films, the screening was followed by an engaging panel discussion with Erika McPherson, Chukwudubem Ukaigwe, Becky Cook and Chimwemwe Undi, moderated by Jaimie Isaac and Suzanne Morrissette.
In March 2025, Isaac led a powerful workshop exploring the personhood and sacredness of the waters.We are grateful to Elder Margaret Lavallee and Knowledge Keeper George Muswaggon for starting the workshop in Ceremony and for sharing their teachings with us. Daniel Gladu Kanu of Lake Winnipeg Indigenous Collective taught the group about the Lake Winnipeg watershed while standing on a massive floor map, which according to one participant, “showed the gravity of the issue and the way our inaction has life-threatening consequences.” Participants put their learning to action by creating postcards with messages including “Protect Nibi,” and “Water is Sacred” that can be sent to policy-makers. Isaac invited participants to contribute to one of her larger projects by screen-printing an image of an algae bloom onto sail cloth.
Isaac hosted the final installment of the 2025 Critical Conversations on Water and Justice series, titled Messages in the Water. A panel moderated by Aimée Craft (Decolonizing Water, University of Ottawa) featured Isaac, KC Adams (Relational Maker) and Taylor Galvin (Mother Earth Protector, Scientist, Community Organizer). Each panelist presented a snapshot of their work bringing attention to the health of our relatives, including the Red River, the clay, the sturgeon and more. This group of artists and scholars called the standing-room only audience to action and advocacy, with an exhortation to also sit and listen to the water– because only then can we truly understand what the water would have us do.
telltales
Jaimie Isaac developed an exhibition of work and research that provides visual indications of the state and presence of waterways. Mixed media of installation, film and experimental sound, the artworks present a culmination of work produced from Isaac’s art residency with Just Waters in 2024-25.
Through various lifeways, Isaac is working on reclaiming and restoring a relationship with water, and honouring the continuum of sustained relationships community has maintained for millennia. Many Indigenous peoples globally recognize that water is sacred, and countries have pass groundbreaking laws granting legal personhood status to their water systems, honouring the Indigenous peoples’ perspective of waters as relatives and ancestors.
In relation to waterways, Lake Winnipeg and the Red River are endangered, telltales that phosphorous is the cause of blue-green algal blooms which are maintained by evidence-based research (Lake Winnipeg Foundation and Lake Winnipeg Indigenous Collective Report Card, May 2024). Telltales builds awareness of water injustices and deepens collective connection to water.
