This collaborative sculpture reflects on Canadian identity through relationships of care, allyship and shared resilience. Created by Irish-Canadian artist Sinéad Ludwig-Burgess and Stoney Nakoda artist Andrew Holloway, the work draws from historic acts of cross-cultural generosity and mutual support. Bridging Indigenous and settler perspectives, the sculpture considers how belonging in Canada is shaped through responsibility to one another, collective memory, and ongoing acts of connection across cultures and histories.

This painting focuses on the front of a Canadian Pacific train, a powerful symbol of Canadian nation-building. Built to link eastern Canada and British Columbia, the railway was fundamental to the country’s expansion and to the development of Western cities such as Calgary, where Canadian Pacific is headquartered. The train also carries a distinct visual identity: bold colour, industrial form, and unmistakable lettering that made it an enduring national image. By isolating the train almost as a portrait, the work considers how infrastructure becomes symbol, and how designed industrial objects can hold history, memory, and ideas of Canada long after their original purpose has passed.

Memories Never Had explores the feeling of knowing where you’re from, but growing up in a completely different place your whole life, that being Canada. It reflects on experiencing “home” through second-hand stories, family memories, and fragments rather than direct lived experience. Uli designs were used in the work, and the pattern carries the meaning of “empty space.” The piece sits in the gap between inheritance and distance, tracing how identity forms through longing and what has been passed down, while shedding light on the beauty of both places.

“Northern Routes” is a new work that explores the relationship between Ethnicity and Craft. When presented with the prompt of exploring Canadian Identity, It allowed me to examine my own relationship with Canadian Culture as a Latino Canadian and the children of immigrants. Canada has no one exact ethnicity as it is a country that was founded on a diversity of people, be it people that travelled by land bridges thousands of years ago or the latest traveller that has just arrived.. So to go deeper, I examined humans as social creatures that when operating within a given area for trade and resources are influenced by the nature of the craft they do. Be it the corporate lawyer in a high-rise in a Toronto Skyscraper or an Oil-rig worker in the fields of Fort McMurray. These environments create certain contexts for personality traits and value systems to take rise and influence a person and cultural identity as a whole.

My perspective of Canada is shaped by being a descendent of French colonizers who committed atrocities to the Indigenous people of Turtle Island. They gave up their culture in order to destroy another. Canada is built on a broken foundation of genocide and stolen land. Like the figures in my painting, many exist here culturally untethered to this land. A blend of different backgrounds, colours, and stories, exist here to live, love, and play, yet remain ungrounded. Despite this, there is still beauty and hope. Canada’s diversity, perspectives, and community values drive change, and pave the path forward to reconciliation.

Growing up in a small mountain town, nature became a massive part of my Canadian identity early on. Camping, biking, fishing, skiing, kayaking, foraging, exploring, anything to immerse myself in the environment. It’s no surprise that my art practice revolves around nature. I am captivated by ecosystems and how everything works together in harmony. Sometimes I wish people, neighborhoods, towns, and cities worked that same way — together. Instead of in a hierarchical way. Instead of an individualistic way. The most beautiful communities include Canadians from all walks of life who uplift one another, just as these wildflowers do.

Dear Canada,

You gave the world maple syrup, hockey, and two of the most unhinged superheroes. Nothing says “national identity” like Deadpool and Wolverine hashing it out across your feet. A regenerative nuisance who is incapable of politeness and Captain Sideburns who could benefit from some anger management classes, together represent the true Canadian spirit: polite and sarcastic chaos with an (occasional) touch of violence. Our Canadian identity isn’t only unicorns and rainbows. It can be loud, messy, sometimes inappropriate and definitely weird, kind of like apologizing before starting a fight. These sneakers are my heartfelt but wickedly chaotic love letter to you. Sorry, not sorry.

A sculptural tribute to the Philippine Tarsier, an endangered species and a symbol of my heritage. Small Dignity focuses on the weight of presence within a small frame. By blending traditional Filipino motifs with contemporary character design, the work elevates a vulnerable creature into a figure of stoic resilience, challenging the viewer to find power in the delicate.

Reconciling focuses on Canada’s efforts towards reconciliation and questions the attempt at national healing. Rather than responding to Indigenous calls for sovereignty and land back, reconciliation often makes a spectacle of Indigenous pain in hopes that it will absolve Canada of its past wrongs. By opening up dialogue between Canada’s current efforts, and opportunities for decolonial work, Reconciling centers themes of transcendence, collaboration, activism and care.

Myka Der is a Saskatchewan born printmaker pursuing her BFA at Alberta University of the Arts and Concordia. Through her copper etchings, she explores the contradictions and nuances within Canada’s national identity. She contextualizes Canada’s present narratives within the nation’s colonial histories to map areas in need of change. By building her prints in layers, her practice is grounded in a dialogue between national myth and reality.

Canada, to me, is untamed wilderness, beauty, and adventure. Every province offers something iconic—from Anne of Green Gables in PEI to the lighthouses of Nova Scotia, the puffins of Newfoundland and Labrador, and hidden gems like the Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick. This country is remarkable—on both coasts. In the west, towering peaks and hidden waterfalls remind us why so many people come here and choose to stay. The hospitality and generosity of Canadians only add to that experience. I hope this collection inspires others to appreciate what we have, what we’ve built together, and to explore places they’ve never been before in the country we proudly call home.