Current

Oily: on fandom

July 5- August 2

Conor McNally, MCDAVID film still

 

FEATURED ARTISTS

Maria Buffalo

John Cardinal

Veronica Fuentes

AJA Louden

Conor McNally

Emily Riddle

 

Hanif Abdurraquib writes about his hometown of Cleveland as its basketball team chases a national championship: “Cleveland is a city that is overwhelmed by a desire to believe in something beyond what people outside of the place have ascribed to it.”

The parallels between Edmonton and Cleveland jump out of every page of Hanif’s book “There’s Always This Year”. While the City of Edmonton removed its “City of Champions” slogan from welcome signs on the highway, many are still banking on a return to those glory days of back to back championships in the late 1980s.

But what is Edmonton without hockey?

In the early 00s, some in the local arts scene tried to cement Edmonton’s identity as blue collar and gritty by deeming it “Dirt City”. While this moniker seemed to encompass some accuracy in its attempt to describe us as underdogs, fish philosopher Dr. Zoe Todd rightfully critiqued how there was nothing dirty about a land that has held, fed and nourished people since time immemorial.

Whether a fan of the sport and the local team or not, it’s impossible to deny the power a franchise has on this city. There seems to be no hesitation to hand over blank cheques for an arena while cutting vital services, and displacing the most vulnerable population for the optics, to appear “world class”—desperately trying to believe we are something else.

Oily examines the joy, representation, and unity within a fandom while also never forgetting those who are left without when the party's over. 


Raffle

Enter to win Maria Buffalo Oily Turtle Island Medallion

As part of this exhibition, enter our raffle for the chance to win Maria Buffalo’s custom beaded Oily Turtle Island Medallion, valued at $350. The piece is based on the original Turtle Island logo design by Lance Cardinal.

Please note: Tickets can only be purchased in person at the Latitude 53 gallery (10130 100 St NW). Stop by Wednesday - Saturday, 12-5 pm, until August 2nd to enter to win.

The winner will be drawn on Saturday, August 2nd, and contacted directly.

To purchase raffle tickets, you must be an Alberta resident and 18 years of age or older.

Ticket Prices:

1 for $5

5 for $15

10 for $25

20 for $40

50 for $75


About the Artists

Maria Buffalo is a Prairie Femme Nêhiyaw iskwêw from Samson Cree Nation in Maskwacis. Located within Treaty 6 Territory along the Battle River, where she calls home. She’s a multidisciplinary artist; bead worker, part time filmmaker, stage actor, model, and writer. Currently, Maria works as a library coordinator at her library branch in Maskwacis.
She is also recently finished her first draft of her debut stage script ‘Kiyam-ing: A Band Office Drama’ with Workshop West’s Indigenous Playwriting Circle. And is working on her debut horror film “Mîhko: A Rez Gothic Vampire Story”


John “JCat” Cardinal is an artist from Whitefish/Goodfish Lake First Nation who creates art through various mediums: canvas paintings, digital art, painted clothing and accessories.


Veronica Fuentes is a mixed Salvadoran and Anishinaabe (Saulteaux, Yellow Quill First Nation). An artist, organizer, direct action trainer and community helper, she is born and based out of amiskwaciwâskahikan in Treaty Six Territory. Her role in the community is most centered on areas of harm reduction advocacy, urban Indigenous house-lessness, and intersectional climate justice but she is flexible in her role as a helper. Her deep love for relationships and solidarity within the prairies is paramount to creating art that places itself in Land Back movement(s) in her community, online platforms, or on the frontlines. Veronica works with multi-disciplinary mediums to express her experiences as an urban, diasporic femme - while also using her creativity to serve community, kin and her imagination of Indigenous futurisms. Veronica believes that Indigenous peoples have a lot to teach the world about living a way of life we all deserve. In her free time, Veronica can be found scheming creative resistance projects, traditional textile and regalia crafting, printmaking, and working on radio with her friends. 

About the work

Stop The Sweeps, 2023

Stop the Sweeps is a commentary that demands an end to the violent practice of encampment evictions (Sweeps). Stop the Sweeps focuses on the $613.7 million Rogers Place arena, which is the new home for the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Edmonton Oilers, a franchise owned by billionaire Daryl Katz. Stop the Sweeps brings forward the connection between the development of the Ice District, The Edmonton Oilers, Oilers Entertainment Group, Edmonton Police Services and Rogers Place - naming the harm and collusion of these organizations. Stop The Sweeps confronts gentrification, and the corporate, provincial and municipal manipulation that continues to criminalize, racialize, displace and systemically un-alive unhoused city center residents. Stop The Sweeps demands locals to call for an end to the police violence and banishing of community that continues to escalate with the reshaping of City Centre Edmonton. Stop the Sweeps was mass produced as a sticker to be radically displayed all over the city, in solidarity with impacted peoples and beyond.



AJA Louden is a Jamaican-Canadian artist living and working out of amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada).
Through rigorous mark making, constructions and installations, Louden builds stories and worlds that are firmly rooted in both galleries and public spaces, infused by his experience of growing up Black in the prairies. His current work focuses on the cyclical nature of power, inspired by science-fiction and historical paintings. Louden’s recent use of textiles considers the roles of craft in Black communities, and the history of craft in rural Alberta in particular.
Louden’s work has been shown in public spaces and institutions across western Canada, including his 2025 solo exhibition Prairie Star Deck II at the C2 Centre for Craft, Manitoba Craft Council, Winnipeg and the 2022 retrospective exhibition Black Every Day at the Art Gallery of Alberta that featured his large-scale, site specific installation Constellation. In 2022, he was awarded the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund, and he was selected by Faye HeavyShield, Lieutenant Governor 2021 Distinguished Artist, for a unique award from the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation. Louden’s work is in the collections of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Misericordia Community Hospital.

ABOUT THE WORK

Brick Wall (Fuhr), 2025
Mixed media portrait, hand-felted puck, Oilers-branded mini-stick, hockey net

Calling a goalie a 'Brick Wall' is hockey slang for saying they are unstoppable: incredibly difficult to score on. This interactive portrait of legendary Edmonton Oilers goalie Grant Fuhr in his rookie season, inspired by hockey training targets, allows you a taste of the action. Pick up the mini stick and the artist's hand-felted hockey puck, aim for a numbered target, and take your shot on one of the G.O.A.T.s. Top shelf, to the side, or 5 hole, It only counts if it goes in. 
Grant Fuhr was the Edmonton Oilers' go-to goalie during a run from 1984-1990 that saw the team in the championships 5 times. Fuhr is of Caribbean and Indigenous heritage, his mother being from Enoch Cree First Nation, and is the first black player to play in the NHL, the first black player to win a Stanley Cup in 1984, and the first black player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Fuhr spent time after his playing career working to inspire youth. I grew up here in Alberta hearing my dad play Hockey Night in Canada on the radio. Many of my cousins played, a couple of them goalies, and my whole family was excited when I got to work with the Oilers and meet Grant Fuhr. 


Conor McNally is a filmmaker based in amiskwaciy. Bypassing formal film training in favour of an undergraduate degree (Honors) in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, he creates works through a combination of instinct, and hands-on trial and error. Of course, he also has some talented and helpful friends that contribute in massive ways on all of his projects! Conor has made numerous films to date, including ôtênaw (2017), an experimental forty minute long documentary following the oral storytelling of Dr. Dwayne Donald. In 2020, Conor was commissioned by the National Film Board of Canada to create a short film about his brother Riley. The resulting film, Very Present, was screened nationally along with other short films detailing experiences of isolation. He is a father to an inquisitive ten year old daughter, and a proud citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta.

ABOUT THE WORK

McDavid, 2015
Film, 09:20 minutes, colour with sound, English

A portrait of a sports fan's twisted infatuation with a new "generational player". Edmonton, Alberta serves as the backdrop of how urban identity and the genuine spirit of sports fandom is corrupted.


Emily Riddle (she/her) is Nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation (Kipohtakaw) in Treaty Six Territory.  She is a writer and textile artist based in Amisko Waciw Wâskahikan (Edmonton, Canada). In 2022, she released her first full length poetry collection, The Big Melt which won the Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian first book award. Her writing has been published in The Malahat Review, Canadian Art, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, among others. Emily Riddle is a dedicated Treaty 6 descendant and a semi-dedicated Edmonton Oilers fan. 


Rylan Kafara (he/him) is a settler researcher, educator, and community helper. He holds a BA and MA in history, and is finishing a PhD at the University of Alberta. Rylan currently teaches sociology and history, and his research focuses on how forms of creativity, recreation, and community support are used by unhoused Edmontonians to both navigate the challenges of houselessness and enrich their lives. Rylan was a city-centre harm-reduction worker for nearly a decade, and volunteers with numerous community initiatives. He also co-hosts a weekly radio show called The History of Punk, and a podcast on houseless encampments called Keep Moving on CJSR 88.5FM. Rylan is grateful for all the life-sustaining relationships he has in the beautiful beaver hills.
Find Rylan’s current projects and research at www.citycentreedmonton.com and please contact him with any questions, ideas, or thoughts at rkafara@ualberta.ca.