we tend to care
Touring solo exhibition by Carrie Allison
Curated by Franchesca Hebert-Spence
Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (Grande Prairie, AB)
Opening Reception July 31, 2025 at 6pm MDT
What values, ideologies, and structures do we uphold when we mow the grass, pull up weeds, or romanticize a lush field of canola? “we tend to care” complicates and challenges the moral authority that green spaces hold in the public consciousness. For a decade, Carrie Allison has made art that investigates and critiques colonial subjugation strategies that are woven into the maintenance of urban green spaces and agricultural spheres. Based in a multimedia time-intensive approach, this body of work ranges from sensitive responses to Allison’s family and territory, to nihilistic predictions of future strategies that highlight the absurdity of the social transactions reinforced through lawns. This is directly related to abolition movements, Indigenous LANDBACK conversations, anti-colonial struggles, and global liberation with the dream for new futures and possibilities of liberated lawns by critiquing the spaces around us.
Tour Dates
This is the first tour date for we tend to care , which premieres at Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (July 31st – November 23rd 2025), before travelling to Urban Shaman & Winnipeg Art Gallery (Winnipeg, MB) in Winter 2026; daphne art centre (Montreal, QC), 16 May – 1 Aug 2026; and Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (Halifax, NS), Jan – April 2027. This exhibition marks the artist’s first solo exhibition close to maskotewisipiy (High Prairie, AB), the home territory of her maternal family.
For tour inquiries, contact IOTAgeneralinfo@gmail.com
Credits
Artist
- Carrie Allison
Curator
- Franchesca Hebert-Spence
Tour management
- Mireille Bourgeois, IOTA Studios
- Amanda Shore, IOTA Studios
- Tamunoibifiri Fombo, IbifiriWari
- Amanda Nellie, IbifiriWari
Artist Team
- Jordan Hill, Digital Media Technician
- Anna Taylor, Artist Assistant
- Kate Bourgeois, Artist Assistant
- Joanne Kern, Artist Assistant
- Brea McAllister, Artist Assistant
Botanist Consultation
- Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed, ALCLA Native Plants
Curatorial Assistants
- Kieara Hommy
- Cathy Demerais
Fabrication Team
- Crating by James MacIntosh, Frankie Macaulay
- Framing by Norberg Hall (Calgary), Frame Plus Art (Halifax)
Acknowledgements
This exhibition is produced in partnership with IOTA Studios and Art Gallery of Grande Prairie. This project gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, and the Province of Nova Scotia’s Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, M3M Marketing, and the RBC Emerging Artists Project.
Carrie Allison responds to her maternal Nêhiýaw/Cree and Métis ancestry, thinking through intergenerational cultural loss and acts of reclaiming, resilience, resistance, and activism, while also thinking through notions of allyship, kinship and visiting. Her work seeks to reclaim, remember, recreate and celebrate her ancestry through visual discussions often utilizing beading, embroidery, handmade paper, watercolour,... Read More
Currently residing in Inuvik within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Franchesca Hebert-Spence is Anishinaabe from Winnipeg, Manitoba, her grandmother Marion Ida Spence was from Sagkeeng First Nation, on Lake Winnipeg. Hebert-Spence has worked as cultural producer with a background in making, curating, research and administration. The foundation of her creative practice stems from Ishkabatens Waasa... Read More