Join us for Season 4, Episode 6 of Urban Art Biz as we focus on Neurodiversity in Indigenous Arts

Presented in partnership with Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery

Wednesday, April 30^th, 2025 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm CST

With our very special guests:
Claire Johnston, Frances Koncan, and Jackie Traverse

Join Claire Johnston Frances Koncan and Jackie Traverse as they share their experiences as neurodiverse artists. Rather than seeing differences as deficits, Indigenous ways of knowing recognize the inherent gifts of neurodivergent individuals. This conversation will assess if this holds true within arts spaces, and what work needs to continue to break down barriers for neurodiverse artists.

This discussion aims to explore how we can build supportive environments both within and beyond the arts sector. How do we shift conversations about neurodivergence away from deficit-based models? How do we foster language that affirms rather than erases? How can we create new structures that centre Indigenous ways of knowing?

Topics Include:

• Accessibility in organizations and institutions
• Navigating the commercial arts sector
• Organizing, advocacy, and activism
• Building a neurodiverse arts community

The workshop is offered FREE. Please register online by 10:30 am CST on April 30, 2025, and a Zoom link will be sent to your email address by 11 am!

If you haven’t received the zoom link, please check your junk mail folder.

Claire Johnston is a Red River Métis and settler visual artist based in Winnipeg/Treaty 1 Territory.

An artist and team member with the Re*Storying Autism project (Queen’s University), Claire seeks to uplift personal and ancestral experiences of difference as desirable and needed, contrasting widespread Western belief of autistic people as in need of remedy or fixing. Claire’s artwork has been exhibited at Le Musée cantonal d’archéologie et d’histoire (MCAH),

(Lausanne, Switzerland 24′), Rosemary Gallery (Winnipeg 24’), Tangled Arts (Toronto 22’, 24’), Festival du Voyageur (Winnipeg 24’), Venice Biennale of Architecture (Venice 23’) and The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art (Vancouver 22’).

In collaboration with their friend and Michif scholar Aimée McGillis, Claire is currently organizing an Indigenous neurodivergence gathering to take place in Treaty 1 Territory in Fall of 2025. Claire is a sundancer, a step-parent, an auntie, an MMF citizen, and a member of the Two-Spirit Michif Local.

Instagram: @clairejohnston__

Frances Koncan

Frances Koncan (she/they) is an Anishinaabe and Slovene playwright from Couchiching First Nation. She grew up on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba and attended the University of Manitoba (BA Psychology) and the City University of New York Brooklyn College (MFA Playwriting). Their plays have been presented across Canada, by companies including the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Firehall Arts Centre, Magnus Theatre, Globe Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, Great Canadian Theatre Company, National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre, and the Stratford Festival. She is an Assistant Professor of Playwriting at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C. where she currently resides. Select plays include Women of the Fur Trade, Space Girl, and zahgidiwin/love.

Social Media: @franceskoncan (FB, IG, Threads, BlueSky, TikTok, etc.)

Jackie Traverse

Jacqueline “Jackie” Traverse was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is Ojibway from the Lake St. Martin First Nation. Jackie began drawing as a child and was inspired from a field trip to the Wahsa Gallery when she was 13 years old. It wasn’t until she was 32 years old that she decided to submit a portfolio of her works to the University of Manitoba where she studied Fine Arts and graduated with a diploma in May of 2009.

Jackie Traverse is a multi-disciplined Indigenous artist who works in several mediums from oil and acrylic paintings to mixed media, stop-motion animation and sculpture.
Jackie draws her inspiration from her indigenous culture and her experiences as a native woman living in Winnipeg. Today, as an artist, Jackie does a lot of work in the community. Her work is very women centered.

“I can be inspired by ceremony, prayer, as well as kind and moving words. I love the culture of my people and this is where most of my inspiration comes from.”

Jackie Traverse is widely known in art communities across Canada. Her paintings, drawings, documentaries, and sculptures speak to realities of being an Indigenous woman. She has created stop-motion animation on missing and murdered women in Canada, another on the sixties scoop titled “Two Scoops” and “Empty” a tribute to her estranged mother. Jackie is deeply moved by the injustices faced by First Nations people.

Through her art she expresses her ideas and opinions while striving to inspire dialogue on addressing her people’s social issues. To Jackie painting is truly where her heart lies. Her happiest moments are when she is painting.

Website: jackietraverse.com
Facebook: facebook.com/artofjackietraverse

Urban Art Biz is a series of online workshops focusing on the business side of art from an Indigenous perspective, presented in partnership with Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery.

Urban Shaman Gallery is an artist-run centre dedicated to presenting contemporary Indigenous art with integrity. Taking a leadership role in the cultivation of Indigenous art and artists by providing a vehicle for artistic expression in all disciplines. Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art gallery is a nationally recognized leader in arts programming and one of the foremost venues and voices for Indigenous art in Canada.