Sherry Farrell-Racette

Sherry Farrell Racette is an interdisciplinary scholar with an active arts and curatorial practice. Her work is grounded in story: stories of people, stories that objects tell, painting stories, telling stories and finding stories. She has done extensive work in archives and museum collections with an emphasis on retrieving women’s voices and recovering knowledge. Most recently she was cross-appointed to the Departments of Native Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Manitoba. Farrell Racette also had an extensive career in Saskatchewan education, working at SUNTEP Regina (GDI), First Nations University of Canada, and the University of Regina. She remains committed to experiential learning and Indigenous pedagogies. 

 

Primarily a painter and textile artist, Farrell Racette also creates narrative objects, and has begun to incorporate soundscapes into her work. She is a children’s book illustrator and has collaborated with noted authors Maria Campbell, Ruby Slipperjack, Freda Ahenakew and Wilfred Burton. Beadwork has become increasingly important as both artistic practice and creative research. 

 

ACCREDITATION:
PhD. (Interdisciplinary Program), University of Manitoba, 2004
MEd. (Curriculum and Instruction), University of Regina, 1988 

 

WORKS OF NOTE

Books

Sherry Farrell Racette, ed. Close Encounters: the Next 500 Years (Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 2012). 
 
Cynthia Chavez, Sherry Farrell Racette, eds. with Lara Evans, Art in Our Lives: Native Women Artists in Dialogue (SAR Press, 2010). 
 
Carmen Robertson and Sherry Farrell Racette, eds. Clearing a Path:  New Ways of Seeing Traditional Indigenous Art (Canadian Plains Research Centre, 2009).  
 
Articles and Book Chapters 
“Tuft Life: Stitching Sovereignty in Contemporary Indigenous Art”, Art Journal (Spring 2017). 
 
“Pieces Left Along the Trail: Material Culture Histories and Indigenous Studies” (with Crystal Migwans and Alan Corbiere), in Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies (Routledge, 2016).
 “Tawow: Canadian Indian Cultural Magazine (1970–1981),” Canadian Journal of Art History, Special Edition:Network Print Culture 36, no. 1 (2016). 
 
“Nimble Fingers, Strong Backs: First Nations and Métis Women in Fur Trade and Rural Economies,” in Women at Work: Transnational histories of Indigenous Women’s labour in the modern era, (University of Illinois Press, 2012). Reprinted in Rethinking Canada: the Promise of Women’s History, 7^th edition (Oxford University Press, 2016). 
 
 “‘I Want to Call Their Names in Resistance’: Writing Aboriginal Women into Canadian Art History, 1880 to 1970,” in Rethinking Professionalism: Essays on Women and Art in Canada, (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012). 
 
“Returning Fire, Pointing the Canon:  Aboriginal Photography as Resistance,” in The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011).  
 
“Encoded Knowledge: Memory and Objects in Contemporary Native American Art” in Manifestations: New Native Art Criticism (Santa Fe NM: Museum of Contemporary Native Art / Rizzoli Press, 2011). 
 
 “Haunted:  First Nations Children in Residential School Photography” in Depicting Canada’s Children (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2009).  
 
Recent Exhibitions
An Eloquence of Women, Wanuskewin Heritage Park Gallery, Wanuskewin SK,
April 29 –July 7, 2017 (solo). 
 
Bead Speak, Slate Fine Art Gallery, Regina SK, September 1–October 1, 2016. 
 
Counter-History & the Other, Wanuskewin Heritage Park Gallery, Wanuskewin SK,  
January 9– April, 2016.  
 
Select Curatorial Projects
Métis Rights/We Are Not Birds, Canadian Journeys Gallery, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg MB (2014–2020). 
 
Resistance / Resilience: Metis Art, 1870–2011, Batoche National Historic Site, Batoche SK, June 21, 2011–September 15, 2011.
 
Unmasking: Arthur Renwick, Adrian Stimson and Jeffrey Thomas (with Martha Langford), Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France, September 22, 2009–January 31, 2010.   
 
Izhizkawe: To Leave Tracks to a Certain Place: An Exhibition of Concordia’s Indigenous Alumni, FOFA Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal QC, May 20–June 14, 2008.  
 
Clearing a Path: Contemporary Traditional Art in Saskatchewan (with Carmen Robertson) for the Saskatchewan Arts Board, Regina SK, November 2005–March 2009.  
 
Fellowships and Residencies
Distinguished Visiting Indigenous Faculty Fellow, Jackman Humanities Institute,
University of Toronto/Massey College Senior Resident Scholar, 2016-2017. 
 
Distinguished Woman Scholar, University of Victoria (Department of Art History), February 19-23, 2016. 
 
Indigenous Art and Activism Summer Institute, Resident Artist, UBC Okanagan, July 22-August 3, 2014 
 
Santa Fe Art Institute, Resident Artist, Santa Fe NM, August 2012. 
 
Ann Ray Fellow, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe NM, 2009-2010.