UPCOMING Held. Together.

Exhibition Details

Held. Together. is a group exhibition featuring Glenna Cardinal, seth cardinal dodginghorse, Dwayne Martineau, and Amanda McCavour - four artists that take the behaviours and characteristics of grasses and plants endemic to the grassland ecosystem as a point of departure for considering the relationships that hold communities together. Looking to the ecological intelligence of grassland species, the exhibition explores how networks of reciprocity, interdependence, and care sustain both human and more-than-human life.

Situated where the Foothills Fescue and Foothills Parkland ecosystems meet, Guts-ists'i, Wîchîspa Oyade, Moh'kinstsis (Calgary) provides the ecological context for the exhibition. These grasslands have known, cared for, and stewarded the Tsuut'ina, Blackfoot Confederacy, and Stoney Nakoda Nations since time immemorial, whose enduring relationships with the land continue to shape understandings of place.

Beneath the prairie, grasses form intricate root systems that stabilize soil, retain nutrients, and create the conditions for countless other forms of life to flourish. Their work is largely unseen, yet it is fundamental. Held. Together. draws upon these quiet acts of holding as a way of thinking about community—not as a collection of individuals, but as a network of reciprocal relationships sustained through care, responsibility, and mutual dependence.

Through sculpture, installation, textiles, sound, and video, the artists attend to the medicinal, cultural, ecological, and symbolic significance of prairie plants. Rather than treating them as passive landscape or metaphor, the exhibition invites viewers to encounter plants as active participants in the life of this place, whose presence offers insight into how communities are formed, sustained, and transformed.

Held. Together. honours the enduring relationships that Indigenous Peoples have maintained with these grasslands since time immemorial, while inviting those of us who have settled here to consider our own responsibilities within these living ecosystems and the communities they sustain.

• Glenna Cardinal (Saddle Lake Cree Nation member/Tsuut'ina Nation)
• seth cardinal dodginghorse (Tsuut’ina, Amskapi Pikanii, and Saddle Lake Cree) https://www.sethcardinaldodginghorse.com/
• Dwayne Martineau (Frog Lake First Nation, descended from a complex frontier mix of early French, Scottish and Irish settlers, Plains Cree, Métis, and Iroquois) https://www.artfromhere.ca/artists/dwayne-martineau
• Amanda McCavour (Toronto-based settler artist) https://amandamccavour.com/ode-to-a-prairie/

Curated by Jenelle Pasiechnik.

Exhibition will open with a reception on September 17, 2026, 5:00-8:00pm.

Regular opening hours commence September 18, 2026.