Our History

O'Kaadenigan Wiingashk was named by teacher, mentor, Anishnaabe language speaker, Taaji Cameron. We embody the spirit of our collective vision through our name which translates from Anishnaabe as "weaving sweetgrass in toward the heart of the braid". Sweetgrass grows in abundance in this region and has been used for generations as medicine in our First Nation territories. We believe that expression through the arts is also great medicine. Through our many community partnerships we are weaving together arts communities, organizations, Aboriginal and non Aboriginal audiences to celebrate the strength, resilience and innovation of Aboriginal and Indigenous artistic practice.

O'Kaadenigan Wiingashk Collective (known locally as OKW) is a multidisciplinary arts collective dedicated to nurturing Indigenous artists and arts practices. OKW has an ambitious yet visionary mandate with the Ode'min Giizis Festival: to create a platform for learning through traditional and contemporary artistic practices; to foster dialogue and create participatory opportunities for diverse audiences; to showcase the artistic excellence of well-known and emerging Indigenous artists; to raise the profile of Indigenous arts in the Kawartha region; to serve as a resource for Indigenous and non-Indigenous arts organizations and community members; to build relationships with local and regional organizations, businesses, and First Nations; and finally, to stimulate new partnerships. OKW has been granted the privilege of playing a significant role in the arts community: as a catalyst of Indigenous arts in the Peterborough area.

Our most rewarding accomplishment thus far has been the, now annual, Ode'min Giizis (Strawberry Moon) a multi-disciplinary Indigenous Arts Festival inaugurated in June 2008. Now entering the festival's fourth year, OKW has achieved great success in building audiences by presenting well known artists alongside emerging artists.

Who We Are

Nicole Gibeault is from Wasauksing First Nation and is a graduate of Trent University’s Indigenous Studies/Cultural Studies program. She has worked behind the scenes in various capacities at NOZHEM: First Peoples Performance Space and Market Hall Theatre.  She has participated in writing and performance workshops presented through O'Kaadenigan Wiingashk /Public Energy/PND with both Tomson Highway and Ker Wells. Nicole currently freelances as a writer and editor.

William Kingfisher is a member of the Chippewas of Rama Mnjikaning First Nation. He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Indigenous Studies Department at Trent University. His dissertation explores the connection between landscape, being-in-the-world, and contemporary Native art. He curated the exhibition nogajiwanong: land stories community: ten native artists from the peterborough region for the Peterborough Art Gallery and last year ayaandagon: outdoor art installations in an anishinaabe garden, both as part of the Ode' min Giizis art festival, an annual celebration of Native art and culture held in the middle of June in Peterborough.

Wanda Nanibush is the Executive Director of ANDPVA, the oldest Indigenous arts organization. She is also a curator whose work re-contextualizes Indigenous time-based media and performance art in terms of its philosophical complexity and rethinks how culture is framed. Her shows have included Mapping Resistances, Post Colonial Stress Disorder, Rez-Erection and Chronotopic Village. Her recent writing appears in FUSE and This is an Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Blockades. Currently she is exhibiting her own media art installations at WARC gallery in Toronto.

Patti Shaughnessy works as an actor, arts programmer and producer. Patti's theatre training began at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre and at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She has toured throughout Canada and internationally with Red Sky Performance in Drew Hayden Taylor's Raven Stole the Sun and has appeared on a few Canadian stages in Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters (Theatre NorthWest, Magnus Theatre and Market Hall Theatre). This June/July, she will be acting in 4th Line Theatre's 20th Anniversary season in Drew Hayden Taylor's Berlin Blues. Patti is currently festival director of the annual Ode'min Giizis Festival in Peterborough, ON.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a writer, activist, and scholar of Michi Saagiik Nishnaabeg ancestry with family roots in Alderville First Nation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba, is an Adjunct Professor in Indigenous Studies at Trent University and an instructor at the Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge, Athabasca University. She has recently published two edited books, Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence and Protection of Indigenous Nations (2008, Arbeiter Ring), and This is An Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Barricades (with Kiera Ladner, 2010, Arbeiter Ring). Her third book, Niimtoowaad Mikinaag Gijiying Bakonaan (Dancing on Our Turtle's Back): Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence will be launched at Ode'min Giizis 2011. Leanne lives in Nogojiwanong with her partner where she homeschools her two children, Nishna and Minowewebeneshiinh. She is currently the co-director of Wii-Kendimiing Nishinaabemowin Saswaansing, a language nest for Nishnaabeg families.

Tara Williamson is a singer-song-poem-writer and a recent transplant to the area of Nogojiwanong. Born in Winnipeg, raised in Gaabishikigaamag (Swan Lake, Manitoba) with more roots buried and exposed in Opaskwayak and Beardy's-Okemasis, she has come to know herself as a wayfaring Anishinaabekwe/Nehayowak (Ojibwe/Cree).

Tara brings to OKW a background in social services, law, and Indigenous governance. She has extensive experience in program/project management, event planning, and youth engagement. She has worked in, with, and for Indigenous organizations and communities in Manitoba, British Columbia, and Ontario for the last 9 years.

Tara's most recent writing projects include a found poetry project that uses transcripts from interviews with her family. She's also been writing a lot about aunties (probably because she's a relatively new aunty herself). Her music crosses the genres of folk, jazz, and blues and she's excited to be liberating her artistic self with the support of OKW.

James Pinesii Whetung is from the otter clan born on the north shore of Curve Lake First Nation. James is a sugar bush hero man and wild ricer. James Whetung's artistic career spans over thirty years. James's first theatre debut was in 1977, in George Kinney's October Stranger , directed by Denis LeCroix through the Association of Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts headed by the late James Buller. Through the years, James has appreared in several television series including Riel, Mac and Jenny, and Sidestreet. In 1996 James published his first children's book "Vision Seeker". In 2002 James co-wrote a play called Narrows with Trent University's Cultural Studies Department head, Ian McGlaughlin. In 2004, James participated in a Tomson Highway playwriting workshop which led to enrolling himself into the Centre for Indigenous Theatre's summer program led by New York luminary Muriel Miguel. In 2006, James co-wrote and performed with Daystar Rosalie Jones' Between Earth and Moon: Voices of the Great Circle, in Columbus, Ohio. Independent film credits include: Shelley Niro's, Flying Head and Sarah DeCarlo's music video, Land of the Silver Birch.