(b. 1992 Saskatoon, SK)

Maria-Margaretta is an interdisciplinary Red River Michif artist from Treaty Six Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She has ancestral ties to the Métis communities of St-François-Xavier, St. Boniface, Manitoba and St. Louis, Saskatchewan. She is currently making and living on the stolen territories of the xwmƏƟkwƏýƏm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and SƏĺílwƏtaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Maria-Margaretta holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art+Design and an MFA from OCAD University. Her practice is an exploration of the Michif self archive, autobiographical beadwork and objects of the everyday. Using Métis identity as a place of transformation she questions how memory, personal experience, motherhood, and ancestral relations influence her understanding of self.

“many hands of not so light work explores intimate care systems through offerings of objects and love. These new works revisit the first rendition of this series “go help grandma with the dishes”, a pair of rubber yellow gloves with beaded Michif florals based on Maria-Margaretta’s Grandpa’s beaded gauntlets. The rubber gloves; synonymous with home making, are further transformed into traditional garments placing value on radical labours of love. Centring Michif motherhood and the love that has always existed for our children, these works reflect on everyday acts of care activated within Cabana Boucher’s artistic practice. Honouring slow laborious methods of making, many hands of not so light work considers ways in which her artistic practice shifts and expands to prioritize rituals of nurturing within the everyday. The rubber gloves reflect Maria-Margaretta’s relationships with her kinship systems; her sisters, and now her daughter’s aunties. Each rubber glove builds upon their familial archive. Expanding on cultural material, knowledges, and memories to create new beadwork designs to be accessed by Cabana Boucher’s daughter. In this way many hands of not so light work honours the repetitive acts of love of caregivers who witness and build worlds for the next generation.”

– Maria-Margaretta Cabana Boucher