Loft’s work to be presented in city

For Martin Akwiranoron Loft, the now increasing presence in shows and galleries of Indigenous artists - himself included - has been a long time coming.

“In my first exhibit (in 1985), at the University of Quebec Gallery, we had a group show of about 20 Indigenous artists,” said Loft.

“At the time, everybody thought that galleries would welcome Indigenous artists, and they did for a while. But then those kinds of opportunities evaporated for many years.”

But, in the last decade and a half, Loft said that many of those opportunities have returned.

“There’s been a real blossoming resurgence, kind of a renaissance, of Indigenous artists,” said Loft. “It’s almost routine that you hear someone’s going to be at the Arsenal, or at the Museum of Fine Arts, or at the Museum of Contemporary Art,” said Loft.

Or, in Loft’s case, the McCord Stewart Museum, where his street photography work - in particular some of his Orange Shirt Day pieces - will be exhibited as part of the Pounding the Pavement exhibition, running from April 18 to October 5, 2025.

According to Zoë Tousignant, curator of the exhibition, Pounding the Pavement is about showing the history of Montreal through the lens of the camera.

“About 70 percent of the pieces are from the museum’s collection, and thus represent the particularities of the collection, in this case that these are documentary photos that represent the social history of Montreal and the province of Quebec,” said Tousignant.

The rest will be loaned, either from institutions or from artists like Loft. While non-exhaustive, the exhibition is set to be composed of over 400 photos.

Tousignant said she discovered Loft’s black-and-white street photography work through Instagram.

“I met up with him, and I found it very interesting that this was something he was doing when he was younger and that he’s started doing again relatively recently,” said Tousignant.

“His Instagram, it’s Montreal today. It’s fascinating to see how the city is represented today in his work.”

Loft said that he is very happy to be included.

“It’s an honour. The McCord has a mountain of photographic archives, which is an extremely important collection of historical photographs that is known around the world. To be able to have a little bit of my stuff in there, it’s gratifying,” said Loft.

To him, Tousignant did what some curators still do not do: seek out Indigenous voices.

“For a long time, people just weren’t looking. So you have to have curators who are actively looking for Indigenous artists, and Indigenous artists have kind of fallen through the cracks sometimes. But now, they can’t actively be ignored. How can curators be accurate if Indigenous artists are ignored?” said Loft.

Tousignant did not ignore that, for which Loft gave her credit.

“She’s very good, she’s a very smart lady. She’s got her hand on the pulse of what is going on in Montreal and across Canada,” said Loft.

The choice of going with the Orange Shirt Day photos was a natural one for Loft, to show Indigenous people in Tiohtià:ke in the present day.

“I would say that the work that I feel most connected to, emotionally, spiritually, and culturally, would be the present of Indigenous people, and this idea of resurgence and resistance and claiming our space in the city,” said Loft.

“Making space, claiming space, being there, present, so that the city, the people who walk through it, they see us. There is no plan to leave.”

The Kahnawa’kehró:non artist said that doing photojournalism for Orange Shirt Day in Montreal for the first time three years ago sparked his interest in following and photographing the event, for which his coverage in 2022 for The Eastern Door won the award for Best Photo Essay at the Quebec Community Newspaper Association Awards. “Now, I’m probably going to do it forever,” said Loft.

His photography will also be showcased in another gallery in Montreal, this time for Infinite Forms, presented at the University of Montreal. He is one of four Indigenous artists who will be on display in the gallery, the others being David Garneau, Michelle Sound, and Alexis Gros-Louis.

“The curator, Mike Patten, promotes Indigenous art in the city and Canada-wide. It is an honour to work with him and his team,” said Loft.

This time, it is his portrait work of Indigenous subjects that will be on display.

“I have been working on the project for several years. I look at this body of work as a bookend to a series of 50 portraits I made in 1985 when I worked at the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal,” said Loft.

Infinite Forms will run from today, November 29, to March 1, 2025.

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