Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe image and word warrior, curator, and community organizer from Beausoleil First Nation, Canada. Based in Toronto, Nanibush is the founding director of aabaakwad, an international yearly gathering of more than 80 Indigenous curators, writers, and artists for talks and performances that last took place at the Venice Biennale and in Toronto Dec 5-7, 2024. She recently won the Toronto Book Award for her co-authored book Moving the Museum, which chronicles some of her groundbreaking work at the Art Gallery of Ontario as the Inaugural curator of Indigenous Art. She has curated survey, group, and retrospective exhibitions, including: Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful (NMAI, Smithsonian, Washington); Rebecca Belmore, Facing the Monumental (2019) (Canada and the US), and Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 (AGO). She is the 2025 Helen Frankenthaler Visiting Professor in Curating in the PhD Program in Art History at CUNY in the Graduate Department of Art History. She is also part of the curatorial team for Counterpublic 2026, St. Louis’s Triennial. She received her MA in Visual Studies from University of Toronto, where she has also taught graduate courses. She is on the Adjunct Faculty at York University. Nanibush has published widely on Indigenous art, politics, history, feminism, and sexuality.
Photo: Shelley Niro
