We are Star People

We are Star People is an interactive participatory new media journey through Cree cosmology. Inspired by Cree scientist Wilford Buck, and additional research focusing on Cree star constellations, Cree Métis artist Jason Baerg leads us to Pakone-Kisik (Cree) or Behgonay Geeshik (Anishinabe), which is known as the Hole in the Sky. This star cluster of Seven Sisters is also referred to as Subaru by the Japanese or named the Pleiades by the ancient Greeks and is located in the constellation of Taurus. This audience performative audio and motion responsive media installation is created in collaboration with Fransaskois artist Jean-Sébastien Gauthier.

Jason Baerg is a registered member of the Métis Nations of Ontario that serves the community as a curator, educator, and visual artist. 2017 curatorial projects include exhibitions with Toronto's Nuit Blanche and the University of Toronto. Baerg graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelors of Fine Arts and a Masters of Fine Arts from Rutgers University. He currently is teaching as the Assistant Professor in Indigenous Practices in Contemporary Painting and Media Art at OCAD University. Dedicated to community development, he founded and incorporated the Métis Artist Collective and has served as volunteer Chair for such organizations as the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition. Creatively, as a visual artist, he pushes new boundaries in digital interventions in drawing, painting and new media installation. Recent international solo exhibitions include the Illuminato Festival in Toronto, Canada, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and the Digital Dome at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jason Baerg has adjudicated numerous art juries and won awards through such facilitators as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and The Toronto Arts Council. For more information about his work, please visit Jasonbaerg.com.

Jean-Sébastien (J-S) Gauthier (BFA, Concordia University, Sculpture, 2009) is a Fransaskois sculptor and new media artist who adopts inquiry and experimentation to create time-based artworks. Gauthier views collaboration and experimentation as key to his creative process. He actively seeks collaboration, embracing the unpredictability of outcomes and unique results. His work involves a mix of technical and conceptual approaches from traditional sculpture, video production, performance art, 3D rendering and scientific imaging technologies. Gauthier views collaboration and experimentation as key to his creative process. In 2017 Gauthier became the first Canadian artist to be granted synchrotron beam time for artistic experimentation at the Canadian Light Source. He is continuing this vein of research with his current project All Forms at All Times/Toutes formes en tout temps, which seeks to explore and describe the mutability of life forms using immersive technologies.