Returning to Ourselves Rebecca Baird and Kenny Alvin Baird
A Retrospective of Art and Design by Cree Métis Siblings

Returning to Ourselves  

Rebecca Baird and Kenny Alvin Baird  

A Retrospective of Art and Design by Cree Métis Siblings 

Curated by Lisa Deanne Smith 

September 2, 2026 to January 30, 2027 

Returning to Ourselves presents over forty years of transformative work by Rebecca Baird and Kenny Alvin Baird. The exhibition spans sculpture, painting, and traditional material practices, alongside interior design, film art direction, graphic design, and public art commissions. 

Emerging from their Cree Métis histories and ways of knowing, the Bairds approach creative practice through multiple cultural perspectives, bringing together diverse forms of making grounded in lived experience, collaboration, and community-centred practice. 

_{^{Above Image Credit: Artist: Rebecca Baird, Designers: Kenny Alvin Baird, Mike Mansor, North Star (Woodbine Casino), 2022, stainless steel, aluminum and custom powder, 15x15x2 feet. Fabrication by Eventscape Inc. Photo by Luca Dichio.}}

About the Artists  

Rebecca Baird 

Born 1954, Edmonton, Alberta 

First Nations Affiliation: Status Cree Métis, Michel Callihoo Nation Society 

As a Cree Métis (Scot/German) artist, my practice engages Indigenous histories, identity, and cultural memory through installation, sculpture, Super 8 film, painting, printmaking, and animation.  

Working with materials such as sweetgrass, porcupine quills, and glass seed beads, I draw upon Indigenous knowledge systems and material traditions while engaging contemporary visual language. Through these layered processes, inherited forms become expressions of cultural continuity, relational knowledge, and self-determination. 

Over several decades my work has been exhibited widely across Canada and internationally, with pieces held in significant public and private collections. Early landmark exhibitions include From Sea to Shining Sea at The Power Plant (1987) and the groundbreaking exhibition INDIGENA: Perspectives of Indigenous Peoples of 500 Years (1992–1995) at the former Museum of Civilization, developed in collaboration with my sibling, artist Kenny Baird. Projects such as Cree Star Blanket (2014) and Looking Hawk and the Buffalo Nation (2016) continue this work across moving images. In 2022, the Museum of Toronto presented Punk, Creed & Cree Métis, a recording and walking tour of Queen Street West narrated by Kenny and myself, reflecting on our formative artistic experiences within Toronto’s late-1970s and early ‘80s cultural landscape. 

Public artworks—The Great Mystery (1996), All My Relations (2018), Star Blanket (2019), North Star (2022), and The First Treaty Was Between the Earth and the Sky (2023)—and recent commissions for South Niagara Hospital (2024) and the George Street Revitalization Project (2025) continue to explore relationships between land, community, and collective experience. 

Kenny Alvin Baird  

Born 1956, Kirkland Lake, Ontario  

First Nations Affiliation: Status Cree Métis, Michel Callihoo Nation Society 

Kenny Baird is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose work spans illustration, costume, set, interior design, and film art direction. Together with his sister, artist Rebecca Baird, he shares a history of collaborative projects exhibited at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Walter Phillips Gallery, and MOCCA.  

Baird’s creative practice extends to film, music, and hospitality design. He has collaborated on projects with David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Lisa Marie Presley, Nine Inch Nails, and Marilyn Manson. He was a creative director at AREA (an art installation nightclub in New York City) and designed and illustrated principal character wigs for Milos Forman’s Amadeus, earning Paul Leblanc and Dick Smith an Academy Award for best makeup in 1985. He worked with Tony King on the Rolling Stones private media rooms during two major North and South American tours. He designed Madonna’s Music record release event, created costumes for the Pee-wee’s Playhouse television series, and designed and fabricated interiors for Toronto venues including the Drake Hotel, CiRCA Nightclub, INK entertainment, the Boa Café, and Cameron Public House.  

Baird has received multiple Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council awards, as well as a residency scholarship at Banff Centre for the Arts. In addition to a Juno Award and nominations for several MTV and Much Music art direction awards, he was honoured with a Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Indigenous Art Award (2017). 

About the Curator 

Lisa Deanne Smith is Senior Curator of Onsite Gallery at OCAD University. Her curatorial practice examines voice, embodied knowledge, non-human–centred worldviews, and the processes through which knowledge is created and shared. As part of this inquiry, Smith became a certified Forest Therapy guide, deepening her engagement with land-based learning. 

Recent curatorial projects include The Sunshine Eaters, How to Breathe Forever, power, and How will we be with you? These multidisciplinary exhibitions included works by Mary Anne Barkhouse, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Shary Boyle, Nick Cave, Rocky Dobey, John Greyson, Brian Jungen, Jessica Karuhanga, Natalie King, Qavavau Manumie, Ekow Nimako, Alanis Obomsawin, Ebony G. Patterson, Rajni Perera, Pejvak, and Winnie Truong, among others. 

Onsite Gallery is Generously Supported by The Delaney Family