Ursula Johnson

Ursula Johnson is a Mi’kmaw Interdisciplinary Artist from Eskasoni First Nation of Unama’ki District (Nova Scotia, Canada). Since graduating NSCAD in 2006, Johnson has exhibited work nationally at various university art galleries, provincial museums, artist run centres and festivals. She has also shown internationally in China, Italy, Greece, Australia and the United States. 

Johnson consistently works within a wide range of mediums, while maintaining the foundation of her practice in performance and installation. Much of her work employs cooperative didactic intervention, is place-based and often includes collaboration with others. She describes her work as “changing mediums based on who I am talking to and what conversations I am trying to have”.

Johnson has also been collaborating with her wife, Angella Parsons, under the collaborative duo KINUK. Johnson and Parsons have created works that explore notions of public versus private within the scope of the interpersonal nature of their relationship and cultural difference and sameness.

Johnson has been shortlisted for the Salt Spring National Art Prize (2015) and the Nova Scotia Masterworks Award (2016).  She was a recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Reveal Indigenous Art Award (2016) and is the winner of the 2017 Sobey Art Award.