In conversation with Rosanna Deerchild

Everyone’s favourite cousin Rosanna Deerchild returns this year where she will engage in in-depth conversations with climate changemakers.

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About Rosanna Deerchild

Rosanna Deerchild (She/Her) is Cree, from the community of O-Pipon-Na-Piwan Cree Nation. She is a storyteller with more than 20 years experiences as a journalist, broadcaster and a poet. Most recently, she has been heard as the host of CBC Radio One's Unreserved for six seasons. Currently, she is creating a podcast called This Place, which will focus on Indigenous history in Canada.  
Her debut poetry collection, this is a small northern town, shared her reflections of growing up in a racially-divided place. It won the 2009 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Her second book, calling down the sky is a collaborative work with her mother who was forced to attend Indian Residential School. She also wrote her first play, The Secret to Good Tea, with Royal MTC’s Pimootayowin Creators Circle and is writing her third collection of poetry.
 

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ROSANNA’S SPECIAL GUESTS:

Melina Laboucan-Massimo

Thursday, March 3 at 2pm CT

Melina Laboucan-Massimo is a Lubicon Cree. She is an advocate for climate justice and Indigenous rights. She is the founder of Sacred Earth Solar and co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action. Sacred Earth Solar empowers frontline Indigenous communities with renewable energy. Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is an Indigenous-led organization guided by a diverse group of Indigenous knowledge keepers, water protectors and land defenders from communities and regions across the country. They believe Indigenous Peoples’ rights and knowledge systems are critical to developing solutions to the climate crisis and achieving climate justice. Melina will discuss her work and how non-Indigenous people can get involved in the work she is doing.

 

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Darcy Wood, Aki Energy

Friday, March 4 at 2pm CT

From Clean 50.com:

By instigating the passing of social finance tool-enabling legislation, Darcy is making Indigenous energy sovereignty a reality in Canada. Aki’s innovative on-bill financing system has helped pay the capital costs of $10 million in ground-source heat pumps on four Manitoba First Nations without any government funding. Each of the nearly 500 systems installed reduces energy load requirements by 20,000kWh per year – numbers that have the potential to skyrocket as this approach is implemented across the country. By training and mentoring previously unemployed community members, their model delivers social and economic benefits, supports the creation of local social enterprises and prevents economic benefits of the projects from leaking outside of the community.
 

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KC Adams

Saturday, March 5 at 2pm CT

KC’ Inninew name is Flying Overhead in Circles Eagle Woman. She is an artist, educator, activist and mentor. She specializes in social activist art with a focus on the dynamic relationship between nature (the living) and technology (progress). KC creates work that explores technology and how it relates to identity and knowledge. “My process is to start with an idea and then choose a medium that best represents that thought. I work in video, installation, drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, welding, printmaking, kinetic art, adornment art and public art.”
 

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GUEST BIOS:

 

KC Adams

KC Adams is a Winnipeg-based artist who graduated from Concordia University with a B.F.A in studio arts. Her work is in many permanent collections nationally and internationally. Twenty pieces from the Cyborg Hybrid series are in the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. She was the scenic designer for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation. Her public art piece was unveiled at the Forks last year called Tanisi keke totamak …. Ka cis teneme toyak (phonetic pronunciation: tan-i-si ke-ke to-ta-mak ka cis teen-ne-me tō-yak). Adams was awarded the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making A Mark Award and Canada's Senate 150 medal recipient for her Perception Photo Series.

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Melina Laboucan-Massimo

Melina Laboucan-Massimo is Lubicon Cree from Northern Alberta. She has worked on social, environmental and climate justice issues for the past 20 years. Melina is the Founder of Sacred Earth Solar, the Co-founder and Healing Justice Director at Indigenous Climate Action, and a Fellow at the David Suzuki Foundation. She is also the host of a new TV series called Power to the People which profiles renewable energy, food security and eco-housing projects in Indigenous communities across Canada. Facing first-hand impacts of the Alberta tar sands in her community’s territory, Melina has been a vocal advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. For over a decade, Melina worked as a Climate and Energy Campaigner against tar sands extraction locally, nationally and internationally.