Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera

Rosalie Favell (b. 1958) is a photo-based Métis artist from Canada whose work is inspired by her Indigenous heritage."Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera" presents over 115 black and white portraits that speak loudly of the broad diversity of Indigenous people engaged in the arts and cultural community. The exhibition draws from the artist’s monumental archive "Facing the Camera," consisting of more than 500 photographs taken between 2008 and 2018 in North America and Australia, as well as a selection of new portraits showcasing the vibrant and thriving community of Indigenous artists based in and near Chicago. Favell’s work is a living visual history and a critical intervention in expanding the visibility of contemporary Indigenous artists and arts professionals. 

Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera is curated by Corinne Granof, Academic Curator, and Felipe Gutierrez, 2022–23 Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow, at The Block Museum of Art. Major support for the exhibition is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition is also generously supported by the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation, the Alumnae of Northwestern University, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Explore Rosalie Favell works in The Block's Collection

Rosalie Favell in residence at The Block

The Block was proud to collaborate with Rosalie Favell on an initiative to reprise Facing the Camera with a series created during a May 2023 residency at the Museum. As part of the artist's residency, a photography session was generously hosted at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston. The Block exhibition includes 20 new portraits by the artist featuring Indigenous artists, curators, and arts professionals from Chicagoland. Chicago is home to one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in the US, and confluences among Native and non-Native peoples have generated creative practices and shaped visual arts across generations. 

Facing the Camera - Chicago Portraits

About the Artist

Rosalie Favell is a photo-based artist, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Drawing inspiration from her family history and Métis (Cree/English) heritage, she uses a variety of sources, from family albums to popular culture, to present a complex self-portrait of her experiences as a contemporary aboriginal woman. To date Rosalie’s work has explored the relation of photography to issues of identity. A major body of recent work, Facing the Camera (2008-ongoing), is a large document of Aboriginal artists (450+). Favell has received enormous support from her fellow Aboriginal artists for her project, photographing them in different cities to give as much representation of her community as possible. During her residency in Australia in 2016, she met renowned Aboriginal artist Maree Clarke. This key encounter inspired her to initiate a new project, Wrapped in Culture, which brought together 10 Indigenous artists from Australia and Canada. Collaboratively the artists created a contemporary version of a possum skin cloak and a buffalo robe, drawing from culturally distinct yet similar artistic traditions that historically have sacred and practical uses.

Over the course of her long career, Favell’s work has appeared in exhibitions in Canada, the US, Edinburgh, Scotland, Paris, France, Taipei, Taiwan and Melbourne, Australia. Numerous institutions have acquired her artwork including: National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (Ottawa), Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.), and Global Affairs, Canada. She has received numerous grants, and won prestigious awards such as the Ontario Arts Foundation – Paul DeHuek/Norman Walford Career Achievement Award, the Chalmers Fellowship, the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunten Award and the Karsh Award.  A graduate of Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, Rosalie holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Mexico and a PhD (ABD) from Carleton University in Cultural Mediations. In Ottawa Rosalie has taught at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and Discovery University.