The Conseil des arts de Montréal’s Indigenous Arts Residency Program fosters stimulating, reciprocal artistic exchanges and cross-disciplinary dialogue by offering an Indigenous perspective in arts and culture. For this residency project, MAI welcomes Deaf artist, cultural mediator and consultant Dominique Ireland.
Onyota’á:ka Dominique Ireland is a member of the Turtle Clan of the Oneida of the Thames Nation. She is a Deaf artist, cultural mediator and consultant who has been collaborating with MAI since 2023. Dominique Ireland started her collaboration with the MAI as a consultant for specific accessible events to Montreal’s Deaf communities, then in 2024 she began an internship in the Department of Accessibility and Innovative Practices with Claudia Parent through the Conseil des arts de Montréal’s CultivART program.
This internship offered Dominique her first work experience as a cultural worker, and in return, MAI benefited Dominique’s experience and expertise as an Indigenous cultural worker, but also as the first Deaf cultural worker to join the team of a Montreal cultural organization.
This work period and exchange generated a great learning deal and a reciprocity environment. Her presence on the team prompted reflection and advances in the MAI accessibility team’s practices, both in terms of welcoming a Deaf person onto the team, and in welcoming Deaf artists and spectators who visit the MAI. Dominique’s presence even had repercussions for Montreal’s cultural milieu in general, considering the many events in which Dominique participated and the pilot projects that were developed during her time at MAI. The internship enabled the MAI to forge strong links with Montreal’s Deaf communities and even elsewhere in Canada, and to rapidly develop stimulating and accessible projects for these communities.
In January 2025, Dominique joined the MAI team again through the Conseil des arts de Montréal Indigenous Arts Residency program. As part of this residency, MAI supports Dominique’s artistic practice on several fronts. Dominique meets with the Indigenous artists in the current season program to exchange and share artistic practices and visions. In addition, through a number of initiatives, Dominique is setting up accessible artistic encounters for Montreal’s Deaf communities (in both LSQ and ASL), and introducing them to the works and artistic journeys of many Indigenous artists. Dominique organizes a number of artistic encounters around the works of Indigenous artists in MAI’s program, such as a cultural mediation for a dance performance, a guided tour of an exhibition and a culinary workshop with artists from her community. Cultural mediator Caroline Hould works in tandem with Dominique to offer activities in LSQ and ASL simultaneously. Finally, Dominique Ireland presents a dance performance as part of MAI’s 25th anniversary (May 7, 2025).
MAI warmly thanks the Conseil des arts de Montréal for its support of Dominique Ireland’s work at MAI. This support helps to bring the Indigenous and Deaf communities together in relation to the works in our programming.
Collaborators for the Conseil des arts de Montréal Indigenous Arts Residency Program
Caroline Hould is a sensitive and audacious cultural mediator and a committed accessibility consultant, dedicated to making the artistic milieu more inclusive. Trained as an occupational therapist, Deaf and communicating in Langue des signes québécoise (LSQ), she makes inclusion an art in itself. Her career path has taken her from clinical settings to project management, interdisciplinary research and French-LSQ translation. Always at the crossroads of disciplines, she develops innovative initiatives to strengthen the place of Deaf people at the heart of arts and culture. As an accessibility consultant, she designs tailor-made solutions for individuals, organizations and communities, so that everyone can take full ownership of the cultural and artistic world. As a lecturer at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), she plays an active role in the training of future interpreters and in the development of the LSQ certificate.
Adrean Clark is a Deaf artist with decades of experience in publishing, design, and sequential art. Her work captures the cultural vitality of sign languages through intuitive illustrated forms, navigating the intersection of visual art and visual language. She believes in empowering marginalized communities by expanding linguistic-cultural means of communication such as through the visual arts, zine-making, and written forms of sign languages. Adrean is a proud graduate of residential Deaf schools, with her M.F.A. earned from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2018. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke / Montréal as a 2024-2026 Bush Leadership Fellow.
Shana Elijah is Bear clan Woman from Oneida Nation of the Thames. She Studied fine arts at Fanshawe College (2007-2009) and Western University (2010-2014) In 2015, Elijah started her own business Twin Bears Designs. Elijah works with many art mediums such as digital painting, beadwork, aluminum quilting, hand embroidery and hand poke tattooing. Shana has also been involved in Oneida sign language (OSL) resource projects since 2024, and has been on her Oneida language journey since 2014.
Hailey Doxtator is from Oneida Nation of the Thames and member of the Bear clan. She studied Fine Arts at Fanshawe College 2014-2017. She experienced works with painting, pop art, sketching, cut-out, etching, printing ink, sculpture, wooding and other mixed media. She has to own her small business of making silk shirts and hoodies. Recently she has begun to learn OSL (Oneida Sign Language) and is still learning new words of OSL.
Brooke Nancekivell is the ASL-English interpreter who facilitates meetings for all the Deaf and hearing people collaborating on this residency project.
