Vigil: The Land Remembers (Performance still) 2020

Julia Rose Sutherland is a Mi’kmaq (Metepenagiag Nation) / settler artist and educator (Assistant Professor at OCADU) based out of Tkaronto (Toronto, Canada). Sutherland’s interdisciplinary art practice employs photography, sculpture, textiles, and performance. 

Vigil is a large-format printed work from a performance series titled "Vigil: The Land Remembers."  Epson: Ultrachrome Pigment Inks on Lexjet Archival Matte Paper. 26X 38 " White frame optional. There are several in the series that can be hung together. There are several in the series that can be hung together. 

Through performative action, Julia Rose Sullivan engages traditional and spiritual methods such as smudging and other physical acts of exertion to connect herself with the natural landscape and her spirituality. Sutherland draws attention to how colonialism, postcolonial trauma and economics have had an everlasting effect on Mi'kmaq spiritual wellbeing, mental health, and health inflictions such as diabetes and heart disease.

Sutherland earned her MFA at the University at Buffalo (2019) and BFA in Craft and New Media at the Alberta University of the Arts (2013). She has exhibited nationally and internationally, recently showing work at the Bemis Center of Contemporary Art, the Mackenzie Art Gallery, K Art Gallery, WAAP Gallery, and 59 Rivoli Gallery in Paris, France. Sutherland is a recent recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts Creating Knowing Sharing award and the AFA Indigenous Individual Project grant.