Cheryl L’Hirondelle

Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/halfbreed; German/Polish) is an interdisciplinary, community-engaged artist, a singer-songwriter and a critical thinker whose family roots are from Papaschase First Nation, amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) and Kikino Metis Settlement, Alberta. Her work critically investigates and articulates a dynamism of nêhiyawin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place with a practice that incorporates Indigenous language(s), audio, video, virtual reality, the olfactory, music and audience/user participation to create immersive environments oriented toward “radical inclusion.” As a songwriter, L’Hirondelle’s focus is on both sharing Nêhiyawêwin (Cree language) and Indigenous and contemporary song-forms and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies of survivance. She has exhibited and performed widely, both nationally and internationally. L’Hirondelle is the recipient of two imagineNATIVE New Media Awards (2005, 2006) and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006, 2007). She holds a master's degree from OCAD University’s Inclusive Design program (2015) and is the director of Miyoh Music Inc., an Indigenous niche music publishing company and record label. She is currently a PhD candidate at SMARTlab University College Dublin.