“Maria Hupfield is a maker, a mover, a connector, an Anishinaabe-kwe of Wasauksing First Nation. Like the artist herself, Hupfield’s work is never static. Her performances, sculptures and installations reference different spans and scales of times. She values expansive exchange over isolation, and inclusion over hierarchy.” – Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Art in America, October 2017
After nine years in Brooklyn NYC, I circled back to my home territory in 2019 to live in Toronto, Canada. I identify as an off-rez urban Anishinaabe and belong to Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, Canada. I am currently the City of Toronto’s Inaugural ArtworxTO Legacy Artist in Residence (AiR) Program (2022), and a Mellon Distinguished Fellow, Center for the Imagination in the Borderlands, Arizona State University (2022). Major solo projects include: Nine Years Towards the Sun, Curator Erin Joyce, focused on the body within Art Museums by introducing a range of display strategies for performance art based work and related handmade creations, to open the 90th Anniversary of The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona (2019-2020); this exhibit followed on the heels of my first major traveling institutional solo exhibition in Canada The One Who Keeps on Giving, a production of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, in partnership with Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Galerie de l’UQAM, Montréal; Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax; and the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris. The exhibit included a monograph with essays by Richard W. Hill, Crystal known as Mikinaak Migwans and a conversation with New York based Artist, Andrea Geyer. This show built on previous work with industrial felt, tin jingles, video, performance, and included wooden armatures that functioned as display structures. My current projects continue to explore display strategies using unfinished wooden structures initially developed for It is Never Just About Sustenance or Pleasure, Wider Than a Line, SITELines Biennial SITE Santa Fe (2016).
Together with my husband artist Jason Lujan, we co-own Native Art Department International, which began in China Town New York, a project focused on mutual support, collaboration and a shared commitment to showcasing Native American and First Nations Peoples, alongside International artists.
I am currently an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Performance and Media Art, and a Canadian Research Chair in Transdisciplinary Indigenous Arts, at the University of Toronto in Mississauga (UTM) where I run the Indigenous Creation Studio as the Director and Lead Artist, in the Department of Visual Studies / English and Drama. I also work with graduate students in the Masters of Visual Studies program in the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, St George Campus. My research demonstrates a commitment to makers, land pedagogy and digital archives,
Like my settler accomplice father and late Anishinaabekwe mother (1951-2010) I am an advocate of Native Feminisms, with commitment to critical accountability and awakened solidarity with First Nations, Native American and Indigenous Tribes and Nations leading the movement for resurgence, decolonization, and reclamation of our homelands in North America.
The work on this website represents a selection of recent projects and activities, for more information on my work contact me at email: MariaHupfield@gmail.com
My work is represented by Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montreal Quebec Canada and I am a Collaborator with Patel Brown, Toronto Ontario Canada.
Artist profile video by Dylan Mclaughlin: https://vimeo.com/113761812
maria hupfield 