SASKATOON.- Since time immemorial, humour has been integral to Indigenous life. Facilitating connection and strengthening relations, humour is oft employed in a variety of forms of storytelling: offering entertainment while imparting wisdom, engaging with the absurdities of life, and communicating cultural sensibilities.

Levity features largely within the work of visual artists Shelley Niro, Tarralik Duffy, and actor and comedian Adrianne Chalepah. In this online program, the panelists will reflect on the ways in which they utilize humour into their respective creative practices, while also discussing its deployment as a tool that generates joy, enacts subversion, fosters resilience, and engenders healing. It’s Funny Because It’s True: Indigenous Artists on the Work of Humour is being held in conjunction with the current Remai Modern exhibitions Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch and Tarralik Duffy: Klik My Heels.

Moderated by Wanda Nanibush.

Adrianne Chalepah

Raised in southwest Oklahoma, Adrianne Chalepah attended Riverside Indian School, ran track, and participated in clubs geared at youth civic engagement. In college, Chalepah performed at open mics, in student films, and sang in choir. After graduating magna cum laude with BA in English Communications and Indigenous Studies, she went on tour with the comedy troupe 49 Laughs Comedy. She later founded an Indigenous femme comedy group, now known as Three Sisters Comedy, and toured the US and Canada. Chalepah obtained her MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her written work can be found in Betsy Bird’s “Funny Girl.” A Yes and Laughter Lab winner and IAIA Time Warner Creative Writing Scholarship recipient, her works include a wide range of mediums, spanning acting, modeling, stand-up comedy, screenwriting, and creative nonfiction.

She is also the mother of four, a cat mom, a dog mom, an avid gardener, and a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. She is also a proud member of the Chalepah family and Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.

Tarralik Duffy

Tarralik Duffy is a writer, multidisciplinary artist, and designer from Salliq, Nunavut, now residing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Much of her work centres on contemporary Inuit culture, and her experiences as an Inuk living between her Arctic island home and city life in the south. Duffy is the recipient of the 2021 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award and is shortlisted for the 2025 Sobey Art Prize. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; SAW Nordic Lac, Ottawa; and the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq. An accomplished writer, her Inuit Art Quarterly essay on artist Jutai Toonoo was included in Best Canadian Essays 2019. She also received the Sally Manning Award in 2014 for her story “Don’t Cry Over Spilled Beads.” Through her jewellery label Ugly Fish, Duffy uses natural materials to craft designs exhibited across Canada and Europe, including at Paris Fashion Week.

Shelley Niro

Shelley Niro was born in Niagara Falls New York. Niro is a member of the Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk Six Nations Grand River Reserve.

Niro is a practicing artist, concentrating on painting, photography and film. In 2017 Niro was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Governor General Award in Visual Art, the Reveal Award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation, Dreamcatcher’s Visual Award, the Scotiabank Photography Award. That same year, she became an honorary Elder in the Indigenous Curatorial Collective. Niro received an honorary doctorate from the Ontario College of Art and Design University. In 2020 Niro was presented with the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation. In June 2023 she received an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Western Ontario. Recently Niro received an honorary doctorate of Letters from Wilfred Laurier University Brantford.

Niro is conscious the impact post-colonial mediums have had on Indigenous people. Like many artists from different Indigenous communities, she works relentlessly presenting people in realistic and explorative portrayals. Photo series such as Mohawks in Beehives, This Land is Mime Land, and M: Stories of Women illustrate this part of her practice. Niro's films include Honey Moccasin, It Starts with a Whisper, The Shirt, Kissed by Lightning and Robert's Paintings. Her most recent films are The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw (2019) and Café Daughter (2023).

Wanda Nanibush

Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe image and word warrior, curator and community organizer from Beausoleil First Nation. She is the Helen Frankenthaler Visiting Professor in Curating in the Ph.D. Program in Art History at CUNY in the Graduate Department of Art History in 2025. She is also part of the curatorial team for Counterpublic 2026, St.Louis’ Triennial. In 2024, Nanibush was awarded The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence. Nanibush founded aabaakwad, an international yearly gathering of over 80 Indigenous curators, writers and artists. She recently won the Toronto Book Award for her co-authored book Moving the Museum.