KELOWNA – Wanda Nanibush has led a life of activism that focuses on indigenous sovereignty, rights, arts, and culture.

Nanibush, is the featured guest speaker in two upcoming public lectures in Kelowna. She will discuss how indigenous artists have used many media to express themselves and their culture — from the trials to the triumphs.

She describes herself as an Anishinaabe-kwe “image and word warrior,” curator, arts consultant, professor, and grassroots organizer from the Beausoleil First Nation of Chimnissing, Ontario.

Currently, Nanibush is a guest curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario and will be an instructor at the University of Toronto where she teaches about Truth and Reconciliation. She was the 2013 Dame Nita Barrow Distinguished Visitor at University of Toronto for her work with Idle No More.

While in Kelowna, Nanibush will host two public lectures. Her first, “Earliest Adapters: Survivance and Indigenous Media Arts” takes place Wednesday, January 27 at 3:30 p.m. in ART 114, Arts Building at UBC’s Okanagan campus, Kelowna.

Her second talk, “Art after OKA: Poetics and Politics in Contemporary Indigenous Art” takes place Thursday, January 28 at 7 p.m. at the Kelowna Art Gallery, 1315 Water Street, Kelowna. Both events are free and open to the public.

Nanibush is visiting Kelowna as a guest of UBC Okanagan’s Cultural Studies Visiting Speaker series, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.