about
Taanishi/Welcome,
You have entered the virtual home of Professor Sheri Osden Nault’s research-creation project, Tied together like a knot: ecologically responsive innovation in creative praxis. This work centres Indigenous-led conservation research and addresses the need for attentiveness to the social dimensions of climate events.
Tied together mobilizes community and land-based research and fosters networking among artist-researchers through the development of ecologically and socially responsible methods of art production and presentation. Métis kitchen-table methodologies guide this research, promoting the collaborative co-generation of knowledge through emphasizing peer-to-peer learning and relationship building. Tied together takes its title from the Michif (the Métis language) word for ancestor, which can be directly translated to mean ‘tied together like a knot.’
This research is supported by an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Sheri Osden Nault
Sheri Osden Nault is a Two-Spirit Métis artist, community worker, and Assistant Professor in Studio Arts at the University of Western Ontario. Their work spans mediums including sculpture, video, and more; integrating land-responsive, social, and cultural creative processes. They explore embodied connections between human and non-human beings, and relational responsibilities as artistic frameworks, prioritizing learning from more-than-human kin. Their research engages decolonizing methodologies, queer theory, ecological theory, and intersectional and Indigenous feminisms. They are a tattooer, researcher, and organizer within the Indigenous tattoo revival movement in so-called Canada and they run the annual community project, Gifts for Two-Spirit Youth.
Nault currently lives and works in London, Ontario - on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lunaapéwak, and Chonnonton Nations. They are Métis of the Charette, Bélanger, and Nault families.
Research Assistants
Imogen Clendinning
Imogen Clendinning is a settler media artist and scholar who resides in the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Attawandaron (or so-called London, Ontario). In their research, Clendinning develops DIY solar-powered web servers to hold digital archives and Internet Art. Her writing has been published by BlackFlash, Off Centre and tba Journal of Art, Media and Visual Culture. Clendinning is currently pursuing a PhD in Art and Visual Culture, Western University, with a focus on critical infrastructure studies and sustainable practices in digital archiving. They are also a proud member of the Centre for Sustainable Curating led by Dr. Kirsty Robertson and the Slow Internet artist project, founded by Carrie Hott.
Image: Dithered photo of Clendinning installing solar panels for their Archive on Ice project, 2022. Photo by Dermot Wilson.
In my work with Sustaining Praxis/Tied Together I hope to write about thoughtful engagement with digital technologies; of taking into account the many material and political dimensions of working with computers and solar power, including how the mining industry and the manufacturing of digital systems shape the environment and local communities in so many multifaceted ways. For example, I’ve become deeply fascinated by the growing presence of data centres as well as lithium mines and storage facilities in Northern Ontario. I believe that we can look to examples like the sale of land to Power Bank in Armour Township, ON or various lithium mining projects in Red Rock, ON when analyzing how technology capitalism takes advantage of smaller regions in Northwestern Ontario. These projects are shaped through the logics of technocapitalism to abstract land and resources under the guise of boosting an economy. I’ve been following the activism in Armour Township, where the local community group No Lithium Way are currently fighting to block the installation of a lithium battery storage facility. You can follow and support their ongoing activism here.
In my spare time I enjoy reading horror novels, rock climbing, learning new skills in HTML or Javascript, and watching documentaries about ocean ecology and deep-sea fish. My favourite podcasts are The Data Fix hosted by Mél Hogan, and Ologies with Alie Ward.
Jessica Irene Joyce
Jessica Irene Joyce is an artist in a long-term relationship with painting. She paints to document relationships to self, materials, and ecologies, and how these are transformed by reading about and living through climate change. Created with salvaged, repurposed, and experimental materials, her paintings suggest a gentle path to reciprocity between artist and environment.
Jessica holds a BFA in Studio Arts with a specialization in Painting from Concordia University. In 2022, Jessica moved to London, Ontario to pursue an MFA research project on climate anxiety, which culminated in an exhibition titled, How can I be OK with the e/and of the world? at Western University’s artLAB gallery. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Art and Visual Culture at Western University under the supervision of Professor Nault. She is grateful to the Deshkan Ziibi and the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, and Lūnaapéewak for the nourishment and lessons they offer.
Jessica’s paintings have been exhibited in Montreal, St. John’s, and throughout Southwestern Ontario. Her writing has been published by Forest City Gallery, Embassy Cultural House, and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery. She is the social media editor for Embassy Cultural House and an active participant of the Centre for Sustainable Curating.
Currently reading:
Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Currently watching:
a “Hacks” rewatch inspired by the recent series finale
Currently listening:
Metric’s newest album, Romanticize the Dive
Interspecies kin (pets):
One very vocal tortoiseshell cat named Luna who bosses me around every day.
Danielle Petti
I am a PhD candidate in Art and Visual Culture at Western University, where I also work as a research assistant for Professor Sheri Osden Nault. In this role, I apply my expertise in material experimentation across a range of alternative material recipes. I hold an MFA from Western University (2025) and a BFA in Photography from Toronto Metropolitan University (2012). Based in both Waterloo and London, Ontario, my work often engages with site specificity and local ecosystems, weaving together themes of material agency, geological time, and care. My practice challenges anthropocentric views, aiming to position myself as a participant in broader ecological and temporal processes. Bridging together scientific, domestic, and environmental narratives, my work draws on cross-disciplinary experience in photography, painting, sculpture, several crafts, and folk arts.
Image: Dithered photo of Petti. Photo by Jessi McConnell.
I have received awards from Canada Council for the Arts and Region of Waterloo Arts Fund and have exhibited internationally. I aim to create responsibly by sourcing discarded material and by foraging earth both globally and locally; on the traditional territories of Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Attawandaron.
