Kamisha Alexson

Artist and Two-spirit Nehiyaw,

Kamisha Alexson is a two-spirit Nēhiyaw Iskwēw from Kahkewistahaw First Nation. Kamisha lives and practices her visual art, spoken word and hand-drumming in Treaty Six territory.
 
After becoming a founding member of Ogichidaa Kwe, a Toronto-based hand-drum group established in 2018, she has since created multiple youth programs. Her contribution to Treaty Six grassroots organization the Seventh Fire Singers encourage young women and two-spirits to grow into strong individuals through the power of song, drum and culture. She also accomplishes this through urban Indigenous youth programs that include land-based learning projects such as Land is Community and the Seven Sisters garden project. These programs offer opportunities for Indigenous youth to begin their journey of reclaiming their stewardship of the land.
 
Kamisha’s story comes from the experience of being raised as an Urban Indigenous youth without a strong sense of culture or community, and how she reclaimed that connection to the land, Nehiyawak culture and traditions in adulthood. Her multi-disciplinary work ranges from mixed media installations to visual art and spoken word, deeply rooted in two-spirit identity.  As a Cree woman, Kamisha wants to share with the youth how she decolonizes through the art of healing intergenerational traumas. Her creative practices often include gifted knowledge for foraged materials, taking from the land only what is needed and nothing more.