FOCUS CURATOR ANNOUNCED

Rhéanne Chartrand it the Focus Curator for Art Toronto 2024

As curator of the Focus Exhibition, Chartrand will bring together artworks from participating Art Toronto galleries to create an exhibition from which works can be purchased by collectors. The theme of the exhibition centers around the concept of “home” as both tangible (physical) and intangible (non-physical), as both spatial (a place) and temporal (a feeling). The curation will explore differing conceptions of what home is and what it means, and how it is intimately wrapped up in identity, history, politics, and geography.

Photo by Paul Eekhoff, © ROM

Introducing Rhéanne Chartrand

Rhéanne Chartrand is a Métis curator with over a decade of experience curating cross-cultural and multidisciplinary exhibitions, showcases, festivals, and programs. Currently, she serves as Hatch Curator of Indigenous Art & Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Previously, she served as the Curator of Indigenous Art at the McMaster Museum of Art from 2017–2023. Her most recent curatorial projects include we are made of stardust (2022); NIIPA 20/20 (2022); and what sustains us, co-curated with asinnajaq (2022); and guest curation of the 2022 Official Selection for imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. Additionally, she worked with organizations including the Art Gallery of Guelph, the City of Toronto, Harbourfront Centre, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and OCAD University; and formerly served as co-founder of the Shushkitew Collective, a Métis arts equity initiative (2020 – 2024), and as board member with the Indigenous Curatorial Collective (2018–2022).

Broadly, her curatorial work focuses on the praxis of survivance, Indigenous epistemes, relational aesthetics, representational politics, acknowledgment, and gratitude. She also serves as a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto. Chartrand holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in History and Anthropology from McMaster University and a Master of Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. She is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario.