Born in 1941 in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Mike MacDonald is of Mi’kmaq ancestry. He is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he has resided for more than two decades, working as a video and installation artist, in addition to pursuing photography and more recently new media projects. MacDonald is a self-taught artist who focuses mainly on the environment, incorporating plants and animals into a great many of his artworks. He has found inspiration in both his aboriginal ancestry and more Western sources, drawing from science as well as traditional Aboriginal medicine and biology. His works have been featured in many exhibitions worldwide at such venues as the Canadian Museum of Civilization (Hull, Quebec, Canada), the Heard Museum (Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.), and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, France. In 1994, he was awarded the prestigious Jack and Doris Shadbolt Prize from the Vancouver Institute for Visual Arts.