This Video Essay Was Not Built on an Ancient Burial Ground

Ariel Smith (Nêhiyaw/Jewish) is a filmmaker, video artist, writer and cultural worker based in Ottawa Ontario. Having created independent media art since 2001 much of her work has shown at festivals and galleries across Canada and internationally including: Inside Out Film Festival (Toronto, Ontario), imagineNative Film&Media Art Festival (Toronto, Ontario), Mix Experimental Film Festival (NYC), Santa Fe Indian Market, Boston GLBT Film Festival (Boston, MA), Five Myle Gallery (NYC) Urban Shaman (Winnipeg, Manitoba), WARC Gallery (Toronto, Ontario), Galerie SAW Gallery (Ottawa, Ontario), MAI (Montreal, Québec) Gallery Sans Nom (Moncton, NB),Cold Creation Gallery (Barcelona, Spain), Solid Screens (Cairns, Australia). Ariel is largely self-taught, but honed many of her skills by becoming heavily involved in artist-run centres and film/video cooperatives in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. Her passion for artist-run culture has informed her methodology and become an integral part of her practice. Ariel also works in arts advocacy and administration as Director of The National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition (NIMAC) as well as teaching media arts workshops, and providing freelance video production services . She currently sits on the board of directors for both the Independent Media Arts Alliance and Media Arts Network Ontario.

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