Shelby Lisk is an Ottawa-based Kanyen’kehá:ka photographer, filmmaker, and journalist with roots in Kenhtè:ke (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, in Ontario). She currently lives between Ottawa and her home community. Shelby is interested in exploring complicated contemporary issues enmeshed in Indigenous and mixed-race identity by pointing her camera inward as an artist and outward as a journalist. She works to capture people's connection to culture, land (place), and one other – especially through stories of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Shelby started as a painter in art school where she completed her degree in Fine Arts, with a minor in Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa (2015) followed by a diploma in Photojournalism at Loyalist College (2019) before additionally pursuing a certificate in Mohawk Language and Culture from Queen's University and Tsi Tyónnheht Onkwawén:na (2020). She continues to study and use her language every day.
Shelby also completed a podcast training program with Indigenous 150+ and filmmaking training through imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. She was selected as a participant in the DOC Institute's Short Film Lab, Reelworld Film Festival's Emerging 20 filmmaking program, and the Hot Docs Podcast Accelerator program. Her films have been shown at film festivals around the world including the American Indian Film Festival (San Fransico), Native Spirit Film Festival (UK), Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival (Toronto), Asinabka Film and Media Arts Festival (Ottawa), Māoriland Film Festival (Ōtaki, Aotearoa), as well as the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and on CBC Gem.
Shelby has worked for commercial clients such as the Aboriginal Human Resource Council, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Kagita Mikam, Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada, and Scholastic Canada. Her writing and photography have been published in Red Rising Magazine, The Globe and Mail, Maclean's Magazine, ProPublica.org, APTN News, TVO.org, Room Magazine, Hart House Review, Watershed Magazine, In/Words Magazine, TEACH Magazine, and "#NotYourPrincess: an anthology of Voices of Native American Women", published by Annick Press (2017).
Shelby is a member of Indigenous Photograph and Women Photograph and was longlisted for the Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award in 2021. She was also recently awarded the Journalist for Human Right's annual award for outstanding work by an Indigenous youth reporter (2021). Shelby is the recipient of an Indigenous Arts and Stories Governor General's History Award (Historica Canada 2018), the News Photographer's Association of Canada student multimedia award (NPAC, 2018), best "short-short" in TVO's Short Doc contest (TVO, 2019), Emerging Indigenous Reporter Scholarship from JHR (Journalists for Human Rights, 2017) and the Daïmôn Prize for Photography (University of Ottawa, 2014).
Kanyen'kéha Bio:
Shelby Lisk nia’té:kon tsi naho’ténshon yeweyen:te, yeráhstha ne tahontierón:nion, ronwatiya’táhrha ó:ni, Kenhtè:ke (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory) nitiakawé:non, tsi nahò:ten yakoyo’te ne wathró:ris tsi nón:we nieien:tha ne ohontsà:ke tsi Kanyen’kehá:ka yakón:kwe naeya’tó:ten. Ya’teyakao’ktá:on ne Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (skátne ne minor ne Gender Studies) Ottawa University nón:we (2015) yakohyatónhserá:yen ni’ ó:ni ne Photojournalism, Loyalist College (2019) yeyakoteweyénston, yakohyatonhserá:yen óni tsi yakoteweyénston ne Kanyenkéha owén:na tánon tsi niyonkwarihó:ten Queen’s University tánon Tsi Tyónnheht Onkwawén:na (2020). Nón:wa nikahá:wi’s tiókonte tsi yakoyó’te ne Lisk ne yerihowanátha tsi niyoterihwatié:ren ne Onkwehón:we akorihwa’shón:’a Ontario nón:we.
For Shelby's art website please visit here
Portrait by Matthew Hayes