Maria Hupfield circled back to the original name of the river, Muhheakantuck, to create these ink drawings. She researched maps and other abstractions of history to delve into the assumptions made about a place. She notes that the fact that the river flowing both ways shares similarities with aboriginal ideas of governance. Her multi-layered use of powerful Anishnaabe origin figures that double as symbols of power in Western governments, invites different interpretations. In the Nation as a River, on the left, the parallel movement suggests the river flowing both ways, with the canoes in one direction and the imperial lion (or underwater panther) in the other. The image is open to interpretation of the flow of the river and the Two Row Treaty between the Dutch and the Haudenosaunee in 1613. The Eagle Dance bears a relation to emblematic representations of the United States, yet is also a powerful Anishnaabe sky world figure. By drawing a red line across each frame, the artist asserts her hand, and reminds us of the symbolic nature of the drawing.

Maria Hupfield’s practice includes painting, object-making and performance and community activism, and is grounded in a combination of both Indigenous and Western art practices. She is of Anishnaabe (Ojibway) heritage, and a member of Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario, Canada. She earned her MFA in sculpture from York University, Toronto, ON and an Honours BA in art and art history from the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON and Sheridan College, Sheridan, WY. She is an Associate Professor in Visual Arts, at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, BC, where she currently lives and works. While living in Toronto, Hupfield organized and carried out numerous community arts projects. She is the Founding Coordinator of 7th Generation Image Makers, a youth arts organization with a focus on Metis, Inuit and First Nations Youth in downtown Toronto. In the New York area her work was included in Native Voices, FiveMyles, Brooklyn NY; and 50 Years of Pow Wow, Castle Gallery, New Rochelle, NY. Solo exhibitions in Canada include Making Space/Sharing Place, Gallery 101, in collaboration with the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective, Ottawa ON; Wagon Burner, This! Princess Moonrider, That!, A Space Gallery & imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival, Toronto, ON; and From Stereotype to Archetype, Indian and Inuit Art Centre, Hull, QC.