The Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin invites you to join us for a writing workshop led by our Upstairs Gallery artist Namaakii Bee Bear Hat. Working from photos and memories, participants will be led through creative exercises to create poetic writings of their own stories about land. Participants are encouraged to bring their own photographs to work from. 

This workshop is free for members. For non-members, regular admission applies. There are a limited number of seats available for this workshop. We encourage you to register in advance to reserve your spot. Contact Heather Kehoe, Program & Events Coordinator, to register, for more information, or if program costs presents a barrier.

Namaakii Bee Bear Hat is a Mohkinstsis based artist, whose Blackfoot and Cree/Dane-zaa ancestors have lived on the lands that are now part of Treaty 7 and 8, for many millennia. Her work explores this cultural lineage through installation, photography, text and collage. Bear Hat graduated from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2011, where she majored in painting. Her work explores identity and story-telling, wanting to give back to the rich stories of her home territories. Within her work, Bear Hat is unfolding that which ties her to these unique landscapes. 

Bear Hat’s most recent work, these trails are home, was a part of Story Keeping (2023) exhibition at The Nanaimo Art Gallery. Other recent exhibitions include, Big Rock River: Contemporary Indigenous Art in an Ancient Land (2022) at The Okotoks Art Gallery; Related (2022), at Libby Leshgold Gallery, Vancouver; Visions of the Hunt (2018), at the Esplanade, Medicine Hat; níchiwamiskwém | nimidet | ma soeur | my sister, Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA), Art Mûr, Montréal and I Believe in Living (2018), Untitled Arts Society, Calgary. Bear Hat has also been awarded the Joane Cardinal Schubert Memorial Scholarship in 2011 and the Sonia de Grandmaison Scholarship in 2013.