Women of Wampum

In conjunction with the Gwangju Biennale Canada Pavilion exhibition Skennen'kó:wa ken? Do You Carry Great Peace? Onsite Gallery presents Women of Wampum, a lecture and workshop led by artist Katsitsakatste Lindsay Delaronde exploring the enduring role of Haudenosaunee women as spiritual leaders, knowledge keepers, and architects of peace. Grounded in the teachings of Sky World, the Creation Story, the Great Law of Peace, and the Peacemaker narrative, Delaronde examines how Haudenosaunee knowledge continues to shape governance through balance, reciprocity, relational accountability, and collective responsibility. 

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About Lindsay Delaronde

Katsitsakatste Lindsay Delaronde is Haudenosaunee, a member of the wolf clan, and born to Kahnawake community. Kahnawake, which translates from the Kanienkehaka language into “people by the rapids,” exists by the St. Lawrence River and extends its territory outwards to the five other neighboring nations. Kanienkehaka, also known as the Mohawk nation, are an integral part of the Haudenosaunee confederacy alongside the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and the last to join the confederacy, the Tuscarora. Being part of the confederacy representing the Haudenosaunee people, also known as “People who build” (Lyons, Mohawk, Barreiro, 2005) and bound by the cosmologies of The Creation Story, the Great Law of Peace, the concept of the Seventh Generation, and Treaty Making, which shaped her understanding of governance, relationality, and place and purpose in the universe. As a descendant of those who once built palisades, raised longhouses, and pounded corn, she is not separate from these cosmologies and mythologies—she is their living embodied constellation, carrying forward the matrilineal knowledge, cultural resilience, and peacebuilding that have sustained her people for generations.

Delaronde is currently a PhD candidate within the Indigenous Governance program. As a multi-disciplinary artist who values creativity and the ungovernable space of the imagination, she engages and participates in the field of Indigenous governance theory and research through her PhD studies with the consciousness of the Haudenosaunee confederacy woven into the essence of her being. Delaronde holds a B.F.A. from the Emily Carr, Institute of Art & Design, an M.F.A from the University of Victoria., and a Master’s in Indigenous Communities Counseling Psychology from the UVIC. She currently holds the position as the Audain Professorship in the Visual Arts department at UVIC. Her artistic practice focuses on Indigenous dance and theatre, land-based dramaturgy, embodiment, site-specific performance art, co-creative collaborative practice, cultural resurgence and social/political activism and decolonial methodologies in art and research.

Her artistic philosophy is rooted within Indigenous aesthetics influenced and shaped by Haudenosaunee epistemologies. Her past and present solo and community projects intimately converse with the land, body, cosmos, identity, eroticism, sovereignty and Indigenous feminisms to forge artistic pathways towards a liberatory existence for self-actualization and self-determination. She weaves culture, art, history, ceremony, healing, spirituality, breath, song, movement, human development and mindfulness into the tapestry of the creative process to support the re-visioning of Indigenous futurities of hope and beauty. Transcending the intergenerational soul wound through the impasse of the radical creative spirit is what she strives to offer in her work. Her commitment to carrying the message of peace, power and righteousness is guided by the power of imagination, creativity, and creating processes of relational accountability. She hopes to continue contributing to peacebuilding and conflict resolution by amplifying community stories through embodied research methodologies, and honoring kinship through artistic expression.

About Skennen'kó:wa ken? (Do You Carry Great Peace?)

OCAD University is representing Canada at the 2026 Gwangju Biennale (Korea), one of the world’s leading contemporary art exhibitions and Asia’s most significant biennale. The Kanien’kehá:ka-led exhibition, Skennen'kó:wa ken? (Do You Carry Great Peace?) features works by acclaimed Kanien’kehá:ka artists and alums Shelley Niro, Melissa General and Hannah Claus and is curated by Ryan Rice, Onsite Gallery.

The exhibition runs from September 5 to November 15, 2026. The pavilion is generously sponsored by philanthropist David Binet.

Onsite Gallery is generously supported by The Delaney Family. We also acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Ontario Government and City of Toronto through Toronto Arts Council.