The Indigenous experience has always informed the work of MC Snow.
The Kanien’kehà:ka artist was a fine arts student at the University of Ottawa when the Oka Crisis broke out in 1990. It was sparked by a land dispute between Kanien’kehà:ka (Mohawk) people and the town of Oka, Que., just outside of Montreal. The crisis garnered international headlines and affected Snow personally, having an impact on his family, his art and his Indigenous identity.
“It was very hard not to be informed by what was going on. Everything I was doing seemed like it had to reflect the political climate,” Snow recalled. “It kind of forced me to come out of my shell and develop a thick skin.”
Today, Snow’s art practice remains firmly rooted in his Kanien’kehà:ka culture, and soon he’ll be back on a university campus: in April, he’ll serve as McGill’s Mellon Indigenous Studies and Community Engagement Initiative (ISCEI) Artist in Residence.
“[A McGill residency] is something I’ve always wanted to do,” said Snow. “I can’t wait to start working with the students and meeting everybody on campus. I’m really looking forward to it.”
An artist’s process
Snow is of mixed parentage, and his family moved frequently when he was young.
As a result, “I spent most of my life wondering about my identity and being curious about it. Kanien’kehà:ka is the culture I identify with most – we spent most of our summers in Kahnawà:ke – so I decided to come back and settle down here.”
Snow draws and beads, but his primary disciplines are sculpture and painting. His work has been shown locally and internationally, including at the Révélations Biennial in Paris. He’ll discuss his major works during his residency, but he also intends to create a new work, and he hopes to recruit McGill students to help him.
“I’m looking forward to having the students get some hands-on stuff done themselves,” he said. “I learn so much from young people; their attitude is so different from when I was a student, and I find it so fascinating. I feel like my art is enriched by doing these residencies, and it really feeds my process.”
“ISCEI is honoured to host MC Snow as this year’s Mellon ISCEI Artist-in-Residence,” said Prof. Yann Allard-Tremblay, director of ISCEI. “We are looking forward to very engaging sessions for the McGill community and we are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their generous contribution, which has made ISCEI possible.”
An Indigenous storyteller
Snow’s work can already be found in proximity to McGill. Last year he completed the Peel Trail, an epic 21-piece bronze sculpture collection on Peel St. that stretches from the Lachine Canal to avenue des Pins. Co-created with fellow artist Kyra Revenko, many of the sculptures are located within the boundaries of McGill’s downtown campus.
“The project is about the dialogue between an Indigenous world view and the new arrival coming to the continent for the time: the conflicts, the differences and the things that bring us together,” said Snow. “There was evidence of an Iroquois village here and we wanted to commemorate the archaeological remains. It connects the Indigenous heritage of the island and gives us the presence we hadn’t had before.”
He also collaborated with the McCord Stewart Museum on a 2024 exhibition, which featured two original works alongside 40 Kanien’kehá:ka objects from the museum’s Indigenous Cultures collection.
“I got to go through some of their drawers, which was a dream come true,” he said. “These objects are the missing pieces that form the whole of this story that we are trying to remember, stories we are trying to tell for generations to come.”
Snow’s ISCEI residency is the next step in his journey as an Indigenous artist and storyteller.
“I’ve done almost everything that I’ve set up to do [in art]. I just want to keep doing more of it.”
For details on MC Snow’s residency, please visit the ISCEI website.