We Return

In the We Return billboard project, renowned Anishinaabe-kwe image and word warrior, curator and community organizer Wanda Nanibush explores common threads, both literal and symbolic, as expressed in Palestinian and Anishinaabe aesthetics and actions. A tapestry of text and image speaks to the value both cultures have for family, children, and land that is underpinned by an unconditional love. The billboard contains a photograph Nanibush took from the Nakba village of Luffa where presence is maintained by marking a cacti with the word Palestine, an action against erasure. She also had a tatreez pattern and Anishinaabe saddle bag pattern weaved together both highlighting the aesthetic similarities and the joining together to end settler colonialism. Finally, Nanibush and Mohammed Abu Laban who lives in the West Bank came up with the prose after talking about the importance of love, the sacredness of children and the returns genocides try to deny us. This is about returning love to our communities and protecting our children, our future ancestors.

Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe image and word warrior, curator and community organizer from Beausoleil First Nation. She recently won the Toronto Book Award for her co-authored book Moving the Museum. 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