Gaganoonidiwag: They Talk To Each Other

Joel Richardson and Nyle Miigizi Johnston, curated by Virginia Eichhorn

Jan 11 >> Apr 13, 2025

Joel Richardson and Nyle Miigizi Johnston have been talking with each other for well over a decade. Their conversation began on a log over a stream in Toronto’s High Park. Johnston is an Anishinaabe visual storyteller and cultural director of Finding Our Power Together, a youth organization. His art incorporates teachings based on traditional knowledge. Richardson is a multidisciplinary artist and co- founder of the Metipso Portal, an experimental media lab in the highlands of central Kenya.

Their conversations began with the blending of stories from Indigenous and settler perspectives, harnessing art and technology to stimulate dialogue, promote cultural revival, and inspire collective responsibility for our environment. Merging historical facts with created narratives, this body of work includes mixed media and video components that follow the artists’ time travelling alter egos, Captain Jimmy Swann and Commander George Nadjiwon as they grapple with what it means to reconcile.

Gaganoonidiwag/They Talk To Each Other is the most recent iteration of a decade’s long project. Bringing this exhibition to Thunder Bay for the first time, artists Nyle Johnston, Joel Richardson, and curator Virigina Eichhorn connect, listen, and learn from the community members, as we come together to share conversations.

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Image: Joel Richardson and Nyle Miigizi Johnston, George & The Eagle, mixed media, 2023.