Ursula Johnson is the winner of the 2017 Sobey Art Award. She is an interdisciplinary artist and an enrolled member of the Eskasoni First Nation Mi’kmaq Community on Cape Breton Island, currently based in Dartmouth, NS. She is active in Mi’kmaw language revitalization and descendent from a long line of esteemed basket makers. Her nationally touring solo show Mi'kwite'tmn (Do You Remember) considers the consumption of traditional knowledge within colonial institutions. Johnson was awarded The Hnatyshyn Foundation’s 2017 Reveal Indigenous Art Award.

Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish) is an interdisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter and critical thinker whose family roots are from Papaschase First Nation, amiskwaciy wâskahikan (Edmonton, AB) and Kikino Metis Settlement, AB. Her work investigates and articulates a dynamism of nêhiyawin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place, incorporating Indigenous language(s), audio, video, VR, olfactory, sewn objects, music, and audience/user participation to create immersive environments towards “radical inclusion.” As a songwriter, L’Hirondelle’s focus is on both sharing nêhiyawêwin (Cree language) and Indigenous and contemporary song-forms, and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies toward survivance.

She is the recent recipient the 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art. In addition, Cheryl was awarded two imagineNATIVE New Media Awards (2005 & 2006), and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006 & 2007), and has been nominated for or received honorable mention for various other arts and music awards. Her work has been published, written about, exhibited, performed, and presented regionally, nationally, and internationally. L’Hirondelle holds a Master of Design from OCAD University’s Inclusive Design program (2015) and is a current member of the university’s Indigenous Education Council. She is currently a PhD candidate with SMARTlab at University College, Dublin, in Ireland.