The Re•Storying Project: Collaborating Artists
Lisa Wood
Shira Avni
Em Farquhar-Barrie
nyle miigizi johnston
Sheryl Peters
Claire Johnston
estée Klar & Adam Wolfond
Lisa Wood
Lisa Wood is a visual artist and Associate Professor at IshKaabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabateg Department of Visual Art at Brandon University. She has an MFA from Yale University and a BFA honours from the University of Manitoba. Wood’s artistic lens is shaped by her upbringing with her single mother, and reflects her intersectional identities of woman and mother from a settler background living with chronic health conditions in rural Manitoba. She has been the recipient of many awards and scholarships and exhibits her painting and prints nationally and internationally at venues such as: Alchemy Artist Residency (Prince Edward County, 2022 and 2021),The Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (Brandon, 2019); Estevan Art Gallery and Museum (Estevan, 2019); Neutral Ground (Regina, 2018), Warte für Kunst (Kassel Germany, 2017), Gallery 1C03 (Winnipeg, 2017) and Julie Saul Gallery, NYC (2012). In 2020 she was commissioned to paint the official portrait commemorating the outgoing President of the University of Winnipeg, Dr.Annette Trimbee. Before moving to Brandon, Manitoba to teach (2016), she was an active contributor to the arts in Winnipeg. Over the span of fifteen years she worked in various roles including: Studio Coordinator at Art City, Director at PLATFORM Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Instructor at the University of Manitoba, and Program and Administrative Coordinator at Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art.
Wood’s artistic practice investigates how listening, dialogue, and intimate exchanges can facilitate interpersonal connection, share knowledge, create transparency and investigate our experiences with power, prestige, and exclusion. Through relational art events that are documented with time-lapse photography, video, and audio recording she creates figurative paintings and drawings, and explores opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration and learning; bringing her into the realm of qualitative analysis, sound art, and installation. Wood interrogates traditional figuration and portraiture - questioning who is depicted, what materials are used, and where and how the portraits are displayed, reflecting on how portraiture constructs history. Her work celebrates others, rarely venerated by portraiture: those who are decidedly not of the aristocracy and not of great wealth. These have included herself, older women, trans youth, equity seeking artists and seasonal agricultural workers.
Wood is interested in how art can build space for resistance and resilience. She is currently creating two related ongoing bodies of work, The Dinner Parties and Table Making where she prepared, hosted and documented home cooked one-on-one meals with artists in order to recognize the work of artists in the context of late capitalism and colonization that has shaped Canada. It is in the spirt of friendship, skill sharing, and hard work that Wood is dining with artists and creating figurative artworks and sound pieces that honour them.
View her website at: https://lisawood.ca
Hand to Chest 1 - The Dinner Parties Series (2019-2023)
Alison - Queer Perspectives Series (2012)
We and the Others (2017)
Cafeteria 2 - Girl Eating
Wake, Vicki. 2015
Hand to Mouth 2 - The Dinner Party Series (2019-2023)
Openings (2017-2018) Photo of part of the installation.
Brendon Eating (2012)
Claire Johnston
Métis beaded earrings (2022)
Métis beaded pouch (2022)
Métis beaded earrings (2022)
Métis beaded bracelet (2022)
Métis beaded necklace (2022)
Métis beaded patches (2022)
Métis beaded notebook (2022)
Métis beaded earrings (2021)
Métis beaded bracelet (2022)
Métis beaded earrings (2022)
Métis beaded earrings (2022)
Métis beaded bolero tie (2022)
Métis beaded earrings (2022)
Claire Johnston(she/they) is a Métis beadworker based in her Homeland of Winnipeg, MB. Claire's family has scrip in St.Andrews and St. Clements, Manitoba. Claire's beadwork practice is informed by the strengthening of relationships -- with herself, her kin and the natural world. As an Autistic beadworker, her love of bright colours and attention to detail allow for vibrant and intricate pieces. Claire believes strongly in "cripping" the arts and expanding accessibility for Disabled and low-income Indigenous artists to thrive. She is a Steering Committee member with the Re•Storying project, and was a keynote presenter at the Desiring Autism and Neurodivergence 2024 Symposium, where she facilitated discussions on decolonizing understandings of Autism and neurodiversity. View more at this website: https://tangledarts.org/about-us/artist/claire-johnston/
Claire has exhibited her work at Tangled Art + Disability Gallery in Toronto, ON, and has led numerous workshops with Mentoring Artists for Women’s Arts and other organizations in Winnipeg, Manitoba. For Louis Riel Day 2023 she hosted a beadworking workshop at the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq and taught a fish skin tanning workshop with the Louis Riel School Division.
In addition to being an artist, Claire has been a parliamentary assistant with the House of Commons of Canada for the past 3 years. She is also a proud member of the Two-Spirit Michif Local and an active member of Red River Echoes, a grassroots Métis collective based in Manitoba.
Unrestricted. Digital video. 2022. Made as part of the Indigenous Perspectives on Autism Digital Stories project, Re•Storying Autism.
Nyle Miigizi Johnston
Nyle Miigizi Johnston is a neurodivergent Anishinaabe visual artist, traditional storyteller, Oshkaabewis (traditional helper), cultural director at Finding Our Power Together, an Indigenous youth organization, and member of Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, where he grew up. Nyle has apprenticed with Storytellers since he was young and draws inspiration from woodland painters, Story Tellers and the traditions of his culture—universal messages of love, kindness, fairness and care for Mother Earth.
Nyle connected with the Re•Storying project in 2023, where he has served as a cultural helper and visual artist, contributing live paintings and visually interpreting themes at community and research events on neurodivergence. Writing about the Untitled piece featured here Nyle says, “I created this piece for the The Re•Storying Autism in Education Project The Desiring Autism and Neurodivergence in Education: Critical, Creative, and Decolonial Perspectives Symposium this week in Kingston (July 2024). This image was inspired by the stories shared at the event and my own perspective on what mainstream colonial society deems “disabled”. The water lily with the family looking at the stars alludes to a traditional story that I have been told since I was a kid. I remember the old ones telling us that we are all born perfect, with a gift to share with our community. The wolf teaches us of the importance of our community structure and the care that we are to give one another. The wolf also teaches us of humility and how we should treat each other regardless of looks or abilities. We treat all our community members with respect and desired regardless if we fit into the colonial concept of what a normal and desirable citizen looks like. Miigwetch.”
Nyle has exhibited his work widely, including original works in the Connecting With Our First Family (in partnership with TakingITGlobal) exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2018) and the creation of an Ojibwe Language learning resource in support of Indigenous students who are part of the Connected North program. Connected North serves over 10,000 Indigenous students in 42 schools based in northern, remote communities across Canada through virtual field trips with inspirational guest speakers and role models. Nyle has also exhibited at McLaren Art Centre Gaganoonidiwag/They Talk to Each Other June 14-September 15, 2024, the Doris McCarthy Gallery and others. Nyle has also collaborated extensively with community health and education projects including Anishnawbe Health Toronto, 7th Generation Image Makers, Chippewas of Nawash Health Centre, TakingITGlobal, Canadian Roots Exchange, Lower Simcoe Underpass Mural Project, Bold Realities Project, Sketch Toronto and Inkdigenous Tattoo Studio and Gallery.
See full biography and more of Nyle’s work here https://miigizi.com/.
"Untitled" created for the Re•Storying project, 2024. The piece depicts a water lily with a family looking at the stars. In the background is a wolf and a round shape that looks like the moon.
"Thunderbird Nest" 2017
“Maemaegwissehnsag Maatoots’gun/ The Little People Sweat Lodge” 2017
"MishiMakiinaak/The Great Turtle" 2014
“Petitioning to The Little People for Medicines” 2017
“Waagoosh Mushkiki” 2018
Em Farquhar-Barrie
Em Farquhar-Barrie (they/them) is a multidisciplinary Autistic, multiply disabled, trans artist who grew up in and around Nogojiwanong (Peterborough). Living amidst intersecting identities, they explore the in-between of the physical and spiritual, health and illness, community and individuality, and life and loss.
In their paintings, Em Farquhar-Barrie works to build bridges between multiple worlds. With the use of bold colours, they seek to connect the physical and the spirit world. Inspired by wanting to address the feeling of being lost, alone, and disconnected, Em’s work represents possibility, growth, and hope – especially when we cannot find any evidence of possibility, growth and hope. This growth has been rooted in the healing spaces of nature and the validation felt in the expansive diversity found therein.
Using abstracted landscapes and evolving spiritual experiences, they explore their connection to the land while navigating layers of grief and loss. In the creation of these mixed media works, they embody the spirit of a bird building its nest. Beginning in darkness, elements are added, layer upon layer, in a search for safety. Within their artistic practice, this way of collaging is a rich and deeply personal experience for Em, mapping their mind to navigate unknown paths. As they move in and out of the artistic process, collecting pieces, adding and removing elements of expression they seek to explore who they are, where they come from, and where they are going.
Flying Up (2022)
Summer Ends (2022)
Introspection (2021)
Winter Chaos (2022)
A Walk in the Woods (2022)
Reach (2022)
Home Sweet Home (2021)
Rainy Day (2022)
Beyond the Hills 1 (2022)
Beyond the Hills 2 (2022)
May Flowers (2021)
Climb (2022)
Estée Klar & Adam Wolfond
Estée Klar and Adam Wolfond are mother and son, artists and founders of dis assembly in Toronto, which is a collective for neurodiverse, relational-artistic creation and collaboration.
Estée Klar is a PhD in Critical Disability Studies, specifically in neurodiversity, relation and research creation from York University. She holds an M.A. also in Critical Disability Studies from York and a Fine Arts Degree from the University of Toronto. She is the co-founder with Adam Wolfond of dis Assembly (formerly The A Collective) and the founder of The Autism Acceptance Project (2006-2018). She was the original blogger of The Joy of Autism (2004-2008) which is archived on this website with her next blog esteeklar.com. She is also a curator of art.
Estée uses relational-movement and artistic experimental approaches to understanding supportive typing, which initially incited this deeper exploration of neurodiversity in relation. She educates others toward supportive movement practices. These practices are studied at dis assembly in Toronto, ON, where other neurodiverse/ neurodivergent people participate with each other in their own social relationships. Her research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Adam Wolfond is a non-speaking, self- ascribed “man of autism” who types and moves to communicate. He is an MA student at Concordia University, contributor to academic journals and a regular public speaker at universities and conferences, including with the Re•Storying project. He has released several books of poetry including The Wanting Way (2022) and In Way of Music Water Answers Toward Questions Other Than What Is Autism (2019) and is the youngest poet to be published on poets.org. He is a collaborator on Klar’s dissertation: Neurodiversity in Relation: an artistic intraethnography. Wolfond’s interest is in neurodiverse ways of studying and collaborating, noting that mutual support is essential to access and creation.
Autism to Inclusion - Estée Klar (2015). Created on the Re•Storying Project.
Introduction: dis Assembly
S/pace
A film installation, screening and poetry/stick installation at Critical Distance, Toronto on October 3, 2019, as part of the exhibition Access is Love and Love is Complicated. Presented in partnership with Tangled Art+Disability.
Poet Trees (2020-2022)
Poet Trees (2020-2022)
from Pandemic Paces (2020-2022)
from Pandemic Paces (2020-2022)
From Poet Trees (2020-2022)
View from Access is Love and Love is Complicated (2019)
Video still from Access is Love and Love is Complicated (2019)
Detail from Access is Love and Love is Complicated (2019)
from Access is Love and Love is Complicated (2019)
Think About Moving - from Recipes for the Open
The Colour of Sound - from Recipes for the Open
Drawing Affect - from Recipes for the Open
Not a Pale Version - from Recipes for the Open
Path the All Ways - from Recipes for the Open
from Mobile Writing
from Mobile Writing
Her 2023 film, Two One Two, has won 17 international awards and 10 nominations to date, including the Special Jury Prize at the Sommets du Cinéma d'animation, Best Animated Short Film at the Berlin Short Film Festival, Best Experimental Documentary at the Oregon Documentary Festival, Nonviolence Award at Ann Arbor, Best MicroDocumentary at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation, and Technology, and others, as well as a Golden Sheaf Award nomination. Two One Two has screened in over 130 international film festivals across all continents.
Shira Avni
Two One Two - film trailer 2023 National Film Board
Shira Avni is an award-winning, neurodivergent artist-filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film Animation at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. She holds an MFA in Film, Video and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2003). Her research has been supported by the National Film Board of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Frameline, and Bravo!FACT. Avni's previous animated documentary films (John and Michael, Tying Your Own Shoes, and Petra's Poem), produced in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada, garnered over 30 international awards, including the prestigious DOK Leipzig Golden Dove and the NHK Japan Prize, and screened in over 120 festivals worldwide.
Two One Two - trailer - 2023 - digital video 7:14 minutes.
Still image from Tying My Own Shoes 2009 National Film Board of Canada
Still image from John and Michael 2005 National Film Board of Canada
Still image from Petra’s Poem
2012 National Film Board of Canada
Still images from the film Two One Two
Avni is the proud recipient of a 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award at Concordia, where she teaches Under Camera animation, Animated Documentary, and Advanced Animation Filmmaking classes. Her current research weaves documentary, animation, and personal memoir to address neurodiversity, identity, social justice, motherhood, and interdependence through luminous clay-on-glass animation, back-lit to create the shimmering effect of stained glass in motion.
Still image from Tying My Own Shoes 2009 National Film Board of Canada
Sheryl Peters is a Queer, neurodiverse, disabled, Winnipeg-based documentary filmmaker, visual artist, and social researcher. She has a BFA from University of Calgary and an MA (Sociology) from Carleton University. Sheryl has been with Re•Storying Autism for 3 years.
Sheryl’s creative work explores often hidden or marginalized stories, portraits and experiences.
Her new work explores queerness and disability, hidden presence, un-boundaries of skin, and relationships among others. It touches on how some people with disabilities go ‘missing’ from social life and institutional presence, and how life piles up when you are occupied with the work of disability.
Sheryl also facilitates digital storytelling of people with disabilities and carers of people with disabilities.
Sheryl Peters
Verna Kirkness's story is important for all Canadians to know. She is an Indigenous educator, Knowledge Keeper, Order of Canada recipient, and co-author of the turning-point document in Indigenous education, Wahbung: Indian Control of Indian Education 1972. It's been more than 60 years since Verna Kirkness first stepped inside of a classroom to teach, but she hasn't stopped advocating for Indigenous education and is still volunteering to help Indigenous students and educators across the country. In this 7-minute documentary, Chalk to Change, told through the perspective of her nephew, Doug Beyer, we take a road trip home with 83-year old Verna Kirkness to Fisher River Cree Nation, Manitoba where it all began. We journey through the years leading up to Verna’s publication, The Truth About Indians in Textbooks, which began to change the portrayals of Indigenous people in textbooks used in schools catalyzed the conversation about how children in Canada are taught for generations.
Chalk to Change - 2018 - digital video 7:14 minutes.
A full-length documentary about Verna Kirkness titled, VJK: Changing Education, is due for completion in 2024.
This video was produced for CBC Winnipeg in 2018 - Co-Producers Sheryl Peters and Angela Chalmers. It aired on television on the CBC evening news on October 18, 2018, and in print online on October 15, 2018. Sheryl Peters was also the editor and second cameraperson for this film.
Visual Art
Social Light. (2021) Private Collection
Hidden and Seen (2022) Private Collection
The Moment (2017) Exhibits: MAWA Members show 2017, Reel Pride 2021
K close up (2020) Private Collection
Age lines (2020) Private Collection
Illusory 2 (2019) Private Collection
Care/Home (2019) Private Collection
Fierce (2021) Exhibit: Reel Pride 2021. Private Collection
Joy (2022) Private Collection