Mike MacDonald

Mike MacDonald (Mi’kmaq, 1941-2006) was a self-taught new media artist and gardener who returned to Nova Scotia after living in working in Vancouver for a number of years. He linked his love for nature, Indigenous knowledge and storytelling with technology in his video and photography installations. He once said that “each of [his] shots is like a commercial for nature.” One of MacDonald’s most renowned living projects began in the early 1990s when he would embark on yearly road trips across Canada, planting butterfly gardens along the way. These gardens are tactile living examples of his devotion to and admiration of the environment (the one at the Banff Centre is still maintained). MacDonald’s work has been shown internationally in solo exhibitions at venues including Sacred Circle Art Gallery, Seattle; Winnipeg Art Gallery; and Vancouver Art Gallery. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris; Fujinomina, Mt. Fuji; Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver; Kamloops Art Gallery; Heard Museum, Phoenix and Edmonton Art Gallery. His work was recently featured at Vtape, Toronto, in partnership with the 2022 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival where he had previously been awarded the first Aboriginal Achievement Award for New Media in 2000. In 1994, MacDonald received the Jack and Doris Shadbolt VIVA Prize from the Vancouver Institute for Visual Arts.