CUAG's winter exhibition "Robert Houle: Pahgedenaun" brings together several recent bodies of drawings and paintings by the Toronto-based Saulteaux artist Robert Houle. In these works, Houle addresses the traumas he experienced as a child, while attending the residential school located in his home community of Sandy Bay First Nation. Pahgedenaun is a Saulteaux word expressing the self-defining and self-determining act of “letting go,” manifested in Houle’s profoundly powerful and unsettling art works, which embody acts of memory, truth-telling, survivance and healing.

Please join us for a public conversation between Robert Houle and Alanaise Goodwill. Alanaise is the daughter of Robert’s sister, Vivian, who also attended residential school at Sandy Bay. Robert and Alanaise will discuss the ideas and issues raised by the exhibition. Alanaise is also interested in sharing her mother’s perspectives on Robert’s work, specifically in relation to their days at Sandy Bay Indian Residential School.

Alanaise Goodwill is an Anishinaabe scholar-practitioner in Counselling Psychology. An Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University in the Faculty of Education, she teaches and supervises Counselling Psychology graduate students, and researches Indigenous approaches to health and well being. She practices as a registered psychologist in Sto:lo territory, where she lives with her husband and three children.

Robert Houle is an internationally-acclaimed Saulteaux artist and a member of Sandy Bay First Nation. He has exhibited his work extensively in North America and abroad since the early 1980s. His work is represented in many important public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Remai Modern, Canadian Museum of History, Winnipeg Art Gallery, National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, Australia). He received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2015 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Manitoba in 2014.

Access: Admission is free and everyone is welcome! CUAG is an accessible space, with barrier-free washrooms and elevator.

Parking: Discount parking passes ($4.00 flat rate) will be available for sale at the tunnel entrance from 6:40 - 7:00 p.m. Please see the visiting page for directions.

Carleton University Art Gallery
St. Patrick's Building
http://cuag.ca
@CUArtGallery