Photo: Rita Taylor, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Lara Felsing is an interdisciplinary Cree Métis artist from Northern Alberta, Canada, and a registered member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. Her practice explores the interconnectedness of all life on Earth and aims to bring awareness to the necessity of caring for the Earth and all living beings. Lara’s material practice and research are approached with ‘two-eyed seeing’, with one eye looking through a lens of Indigenous teachings and the other through a lens of Western knowledge. Traditional plant harvesting is at the core of her practice, and she gathers roots, leaves, berries, petals, spruce tips and pine needles to create compostable drawings, paintings, sculptures and blankets that speak to the necessity to honour and show gratitude for the gifts provided by Mother Earth.

Lara’s practice responds to the stories happening on the land where she lives and beyond. Her work investigates climate change, community, and kinship towards the land and more-than-humans. Lara’s practice addresses the increasing prevalence of wildfires, including sharing her experiences evacuating from her community twice in 2023. Lara creates an ecology of artwork that reflects the power and knowledge embedded in the land, and she shares the message of acknowledging our connection to the natural world for our survival and the health of the land and more-than-human species with whom we coexist. Her artwork is made with biodegradable and secondhand natural fabrics and plants harvested from the land, often combined with upcycled items from her community. Lara also leads eco-weaving workshops and loves getting out into the community to make baskets, rugs, and blankets from materials that might otherwise end up in the landfill.

Lara has exhibited internationally and attended residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, AB, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE. Recent exhibitions include what we take, what we leave, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Kinship Ecologies, solo exhibition, Art Gallery of St. Albert, St. Alberta, AB, Woodland Gestures, Alberta Craft Council, Edmonton, AB, Hauntings, The Brewery Tap (University for the Creative Arts Project Space), Folkestone, UK, and Touching/Reading, Malmö Artist’s Book Biennial, Victoriateatern, Malmo, SE, Too Much/Not Enough, Galerie Lewis, Quebec City, QC, The Living Library – A Pop-Up Exhibition of Eco Poetry, part of Being Human 2025, the UK’s national festival of the Humanities, Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington, UK, and the 2025 Bemis Benefit Auction, Omaha, NE.

Upcoming exhibitions include Shallow Breaths, solo exhibition, The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Kelowna, BC, The Thread of the Wish, Art Gallery of Regina, Regina, SK, Wildfire, The New Gallery, Calgary, AB, Craft Perspectives, Alberta Craft Council, Calgary< AB, and Somewhere We Have Travelled, Emily Carr University, Vancouver, BC.

Lara’s work has been included in multiple publications, including Fire Season III, edited by Amory Abbott and Liz Toohey-Wiese, Ecocene: Cappadocia Journal of Environmental Humanities, edited by prOphecy sun, Winter 2023 Issue

, Touching/Reading, 2024 Malmö Artist’s Book Biennial, edited by Astra Papachristodoulou. She is co-editor along with Marama Salsano and Astra Papachristodoulou of To Feel The Earth as One’s Skin: An anthology of Indigenous visual poetry. Lara has been interviewed by CBC Radio, and her work was recently featured at the 2025 G7 in Kananaskis, AB.

Lara is a Helen Lefeaux School of Fashion Design graduate and has an MFA from the Emily Carr University of Art & Design. She received the Renée Van Halm + Pietro Widmer Graduation Award for Visual Arts, and is also the recipient of the Indigenous Scholars Award, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Government of Canada; the Peter deMarsh Memorial Bursary, Canadian Federation of Forest Owners; and the Yaxkasei (William Callaghan) Memorial Award, Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Lara is grateful to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Rupertsland Institute, Canada Council for the Arts and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for generously supporting her practice.