Wanda Nanibush

Together they have made a series of changes to the exhibition of Indigenous and Canadian art, including renaming the 1929 Emily Carr painting from The Indian Church to Church in Yuquot Village, 73 years after Carr's death, and centering Indigenous art in the renamed McLean Centre for Indigenous and Canadian Art.

The centre has texts in Anishinabemowin, Inuktitute and other First Nations languages alongside English and French.

Since becoming the curator of Indigenous Art, Nanibush's influence has led to Indigenous artists representing nearly one third of those featured at the AGO.

Her first curatorial project at the AGO was Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971–1989, for which she included Anishinaabemowin land acknowledgment text alongside English and French as a way of marking Toronto as traditional Indigenous territory.

The exhibition was a collections exhibition that turned over after four months including over 120 artists.

It had a film festival and performance art series as part of the programming.

Wanda Nanibush (born 1976) is an Anishinaabe curator, artist and educator based in Toronto, Ontario.

Notable figures in the Canadian and international arts sector have expressed their support and solidarity with Nanibush including Lucy Bell, Haida curator and professor who led the Indigenous collection and repatriation department at the Royal British Columbia Museum before resigning due to systemic racism and bullying, artist Dr. Jamelie Hassan, winner of the 2001 Governor General's Award in Visual Arts, and Candice Hopkins, Tlingit curator, artist and Executive Director of the Native-led Forge Project in Taghkanic, New York.

On November 28, 2023, an open letter signed by over 50 Canadian and international Indigenous cultural leaders, including Shelley Niro, Greg A. Hill, Raymond Boisjoly, Andrea Carlson and Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill, condemned the AGO's "decision to erase Nanibush’s institutional presence" and censured the AGO and other Canadian art institutions' for the "harms inflicted upon our community members working in these institutions" through "regular systemic discrimination, racism and subsequent stress-related obstacles".

The letter called for the AGO to "review and revise the inner workings and cultures of their institutions and to genuinely support and commit to practiced policies of decolonization and Indigenization".

The same day, 44 recipients of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts published a shared statement to "express our alarm and disapproval of the forced departure of Wanda Nanibush" and that "the forced departure of Wanda Nanibush is an act of political censorship" that "severely damages the reputation and credibility of the AGO and sets a dangerous precedent in Canadian art that demands protest".

An open letter, signed by over 3500 artists, curators and cultural workers, including artist and professor Deanna Bowen and the curator and professor Gabrielle Moser, called for a boycott of the AGO in response to Nanibush's departure.

On November 30, 2023, the AGO's Director Stephan Jost released a public statement in response to the backlash and public calls for accountability, stating he is "taking this seriously and I know there will need to be a rebuilding of trust. I recognize there is much work to be done with open, honest, and brave conversations" and the institution will "deeply review and reflect on our commitments to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report".

An anonymously-led group, AGO, NO, continues to document the ongoing controversy.

As of January 2024, Nanibush has not publicly commented on her departure, citing the terms of her leave.

Nanibush has a long-standing relationship with Anishinaabe multimedia artist Rebecca Belmore and has curated a series of shows featuring her work including KWE: Photography, Sculpture, Video and Performance by Rebecca Belmore (2014) at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, and Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental (2018) a survey of Belmore's 30 year career at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Nanibush has been an active community organizer participating in demonstrations against the Iraq War and uranium processing, and raising awareness about the relationship between racism and lack of education.

She has also worked as an organizer for Idle No More Toronto talks and teach-ins to help with education efforts.

From 2016 to 2023, she held the position of the inaugural curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Nanibush won the 2023 Toronto Book Award for the book Moving the Museum, written in collaboration with her fellow Art Gallery of Ontario curator Georgiana Uhlyarik and was a jurist for the 2023 Sobey Art Award

Nanibush is a member of the Beausoleil First Nation.

She obtained an MA in visual studies from the University of Toronto.

She has also served as Curator in Residence at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery.

Nanibush began work at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2016 as an assistant curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art in the department of Canadian art.

In 2017, Nanibush and Georgiana Uhlyarik renamed the department of Canadian Art, the department of Indigenous and Canadian Art, and developed a new nation to nation model of sharing power.

As part of the role, Nanibush created a new Indigenous Curator position and co heads the department with Georgiana Uhlyarik, the curator of Canadian Art.

In a 2018 profile about the changes underway at the Gallery and other institutions featuring Indigenous art, the New York Times noted Nanibush as "one of the most powerful voices for Indigenous culture in the North American art world."

Nanibush parted ways with the AGO in late November 2023.

Her departure was cast as a "mutual decision" by the Art Gallery of Ontario; however, her exit came after the Israel Museum and Arts, Canada (IMAAC) sent a complaint to the AGO in mid-October 2023.

Nanibush has been publicly vocal in her "support of the Palestinian cause, linking the experiences of Indigenous peoples living in Canada to those of Palestinians", a stance which drew intense criticism from various pro-Israel interest groups, including internal stakeholders at the AGO and the IMAAC.

IMAAC's letter alleges that Nanibush's vocal criticism of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory is "inflammatory" and "inaccurate" while UN expert has equated Israel policies to settler colonialism.

Nanibush's departure has raised criticism of culture of censorship in the Canadian art world.