PhD Student, Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, University of British Columbia
Gloria is an interdisciplinary cultural worker working with Aboriginal communities in Ontario and is currently working on several projects surrounding storytelling and traditional knowledge research, and self-determination and colonial art. She is Métis with ancestral ties to the Red River Settlement and James Bay, and writes about Aboriginal cultural heritage issues on her blog metisramblings.
Gloria holds an MA degree in Art History and Native Studies from Carleton University. Her master’s research examined Métis art and identity through visual culture: fine art, material culture and performance. As a research assistant for the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Culture (GRASAC), 2008–2010, she created digital records based on Anishinaabe, Cree, and Métis material culture by corresponding with museums in the United Kingdom and North America, consulting with scholars in 19th-century fur-trade history and Native studies. During 2010–2011, she completed an internship at the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, conducting collections management, registration, and curatorial activities.
Gloria’s research interests include: art therapy; collectors and collections of Aboriginal art; digital media and cultural survival; fashion and identity; Indigenous healing methods; international art exhibitions and indigenous presence; material culture theory; and self-determination for indigenous peoples and colonial art.
