Faculty + Staff

Staff

Daina Warren
Executive Director, Indigenous Initiatives

dwarren@ecuad.ca
Daina Warren is a member of the Akamihk Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alberta. She holds a BFA in Visual Arts from Emily Carr University and a Master of Arts in Art History (Critical and Curatorial Studies) from the University of British Columbia. In 2015, she was selected as one of six Indigenous women curators as part of the Canada Council for the Arts Delegation to participate in the International First Nations Curators Exchange in Australia (2015), New Zealand (2016) and Canada (2017). In 2018, she won the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellency. In 2020, she participated in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN, on invitation from Australia Council for the Arts’ Visiting International Curators program. In 2022, Daina received the Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction, which is awarded biannually in recognition of the highest level of artistic excellence and contribution to the development of the arts in Manitoba.
Sydney Pickering
Coordinator, Aboriginal Programs
spickering@ecuad.ca
Sydney Frances Pickering is a member of Lil’wat nation. Her multi-disciplinary practice includes hide tanning, video, sound, beadwork and poetry. She uses her practice to tell her family’s story. Her work over the past few years has been grounded by her continued connection to land-based material practices.
Kajola Morewood
Manager, Aboriginal Programs
kmorewood@ecuad.ca
Kajola is Inuit through her birth mother who is from Kuujjuarapik in Nunavik. She has a BFA in photography from Emily Carr University and a Master’s in Library & Information Studies from the University of British Columbia. Her art practice is interdisciplinary including textiles, photography, woodwork, and use of traditional materials.
Meghan Weeks
Foundation Technician

mweeks@ecuad.ca
Meghan Weeks was born in Grande Prairie, Alberta.  She is part of the Sucker Creek First Nations, with her mother being Cree and father of English descent.  She has a Diploma in Interactive Digital Design from Grande Prairie Regional College and BFA in Media Arts from Emily Carr University.  She is an interdisciplinary artist, working with different mediums, such as silversmithing, beadwork, woodworking, and photography.
  Gaye Fowler
Foundation Program Advisor
  Alex Fowler
Reception

 Faculty

Mimi Gellman for Emily carr Dr. Mimi Gellman
Associate Professor, Culture & Community

mgellman@ecuad.ca
Mimi Gellman is an Anishinaabe/ Métis visual artist, educator, and curator with a multi-streamed practice that includes drawing and painting, architectural glass, and conceptual installation. Her interdisciplinary work explores phenomenology and technologies of intuition through an embodied practice of walking and mapping and through works and installations that point to the animacy and agency of objects. She has a PhD in Cultural Studies from Queen’s University on the metaphysics of Indigenous mapping. She continues to exhibit internationally, with recent exhibitions in France, Germany, and Tokyo and was included in the seminal exhibition “On line” at the MOMA in 2011.
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Art Praxis | August 2020

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill is a Métis artist and writer who lives and works on the unceded lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkwəy̓əm and Səl̓ílwətaɬ nations. Hill’s artwork, primarily focused on sculpture and drawing, uses found materials to probe concepts of land, property, and economy. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including at Cooper Cole in Toronto, Unit 17, The Polygon, The Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, and Grunt Gallery in Vancouver, and the Art Gallery of Alberta. Hill is a member of BUSH gallery, an Indigenous artist collective. Her writing has also been published widely, most recently in Beginning with the Seventies (2019), and she is co-editor of the anthology The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation (2015). Hill holds an MFA from California College of the Arts and a BFA and BA from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.
Christine Howard Sandoval
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Art Praxis

chowardsandoval@ecuad.ca
Christine is an Obispeño Chumash and Hispanic artist. She comes to Emily Carr University from Parsons The New School for Design (NYC). Her work challenges the boundaries of representation, access, and habitation through the use of performance, video, and sculpture. She has been awarded residencies at Colorado College, the Santa Fe Art Institute, Triangle Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Parsons The New School for Design.
Jay White
Assistant Professor, Foundation

jaywhite@ecuad.ca
Jay is an interdisciplinary artist and animator of Mi’kmaq and European descent who activates storytelling across multiple platforms and various media to transmit land-based knowledge to future generations. After completing a BSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UBC in 1996 and a Diploma in Computer Animation from the Vancouver Film School in 1997, Jay received an MAA from Emily Carr University in 2014. He has been teaching at Emily Carr as a sessional faculty member since 2008.
McIntyre-SM Lindsay McIntyre
Assistant Professor

lindsaymcintyre@ecuad.ca
Lindsay McIntyre is a film artist from Edmonton of Inuk/European decent. She holds an MFA in Film (Concordia) and a BFA in Painting and Drawing (UofA). Her process-based media practice is largely analog and deals with themes of portraiture, place, form and personal histories. Working primarily with 16mm and experimental, handmade and documentary techniques, she also makes her own silver gelatin emulsion.

Indigenous Matriarchs for Virtual Reality,
Augmented Reality and 360-video Media Lab. (IM4 Lab)

Colin Van Loon
Operations Manager, IM4 VR/AR LAB

cvanloon@ecuad.ca
Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon) originally hails from Piikani Nation aka Brocket AB and is a graduate of the SFU School of Contemporary Arts BFA Film Production program. He has worked in many facets of the film industry working on such films as The Revenant and Dirks Gently.  He is the Director and Curator of REEL RESERVATIONS: Cinematic Indigenous Sovereignty Series and the Reel IndiGenuity youth film series. Colin works on his own projects as a producer or filmmaker and is currently working at the NFB’s digital studio in Vancouver developing a 360 experimental documentary series.
Alannah Mandamin-Shawanda
Project Coordinator, IM4 VR/AR LAB

amandamin@ecuad.ca
Alannah Mandamin-Shawanda is an Anishaabekwe from Wikwemikong First Nation in Ontario. Alannah primarily grew up in Alberta on the Treaty 6 territory where she graduated in Native Studies at the University of Alberta. She was one of the scriptwriters and film presenters on the massive open online course, Indigenous Canada, provided by the Faculty of Native Studies and Coursera. Alannah attended the Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking Program at Capilano University. This led her to work on set of Coyote’s Crazy Smart Science Show II.