By Karin Olafson
“That wasn’t my background,” says Collins. “I started to feel like perhaps those spaces weren’t made for me.”
She discovered Calgary’s spoken word scene when she attended an event in 2014 put on by renowned poet Sheri-D Wilson. That’s when Collins realized there was space for artists like her. That powerful realization led to a variety of cross-disciplinary artistic projects and collaborations — she was a Calgary Poetry Slam champion in 2015/2016 and competed in poetry slam competitions across the country. She’s also made the award-winning film Hop Along Hang On, an animated short exploring Indigenous identity, and worked on a Calgary Arts Development-funded mural project with Edmonton-based artist AJA Louden.
When the opportunity came up to curate the Northeast Mini Galleries, an initiative to bring more public art to the northeast quadrant of the city, Collins was drawn to the opportunity. She wanted to learn new skills, work with other artists — typically emerging, BIPOC and disabled artists, as well as those whose voices are often overlooked, like young mothers — to help them feel welcomed and heard in Calgary’s creative spaces.
“I’ve gotten where I am because of collaboration. I’ve gained my artistic opportunities by reaching out to people working in different practices and from different backgrounds, and built bonds with them along the way,” says Collins.
As the 2025/2026 Northeast Mini Galleries curator, Collins worked through artist submissions and, from there, developed a common theme for the artwork.
“It was pretty interesting to see how quickly common themes started to emerge from the submissions, especially within artists from more marginalized spaces,” says Collins. “A lot of the artists were first, second or sometimes third generation to Canada. As an Indigenous artist myself, I’m always trying to connect these voices and my voice back to the land. It was important to me to bring that insight into the Northeast Mini Galleries: what does it mean to be on land you’re not from, and what does home mean?”
Collins curated work that connects the themes of home displacement and reconciliation. Working with Calgary artists in this way was not only humbling for her, but also inspired her own artistic work.
“My big takeaway from this curatorial role was being able to connect with artists that I would never have crossed paths with in my day-to-day practice. That’s been incredibly beneficial to the lens on how I write and who I reach out to in collaboration for future projects,” says Collins. “There’s also a community engagement aspect that I hadn’t considered before with a lot of this work, and that’s definitely helped grow and inform my practice as an artist, spoken word or otherwise.”
She adds, “Being able to hear and see voices that I would have otherwise not, and then to be able to bring those voices to their own community, was a pretty remarkable experience.”
For Collins, working with Calgary Arts Development has been imperative to her gaining new skills, growing her network and expanding her work in new ways.