bio, long

Megan Samms (they/she) is an L’nu and Nlha7kápmx visual artist, Indigenous agriculturalist, beekeeper, and community worker who, drawing from her varied practices, works collaboratively with mediums to articulate story, messages, and continued dialogue within their respective historic and contemporary place-based contexts. She’s known for weaving and natural dye work, but uses photo, and performance interventions to remember and triangulate entangled presence and relationality with place and time. Samms is a collaborator and is currently an apprentice in Ancestral Skin Marking with Dion Kaszas, Keith Callihoo, and Jerry Evans. She lives in her home community in one of their two ancestral territories: Katalisk, Ktaqmkuk, Mi’kma’ki, Wabanaki Territory.

Samms shares work in non conventional or non institutional art spaces like abandoned buildings, Land or community spaces; in solo and group exhibitions at Artist Run Centres, as well as at the Rooms provincial gallery in Ktaqmkuk, regional galleries, and at various festivals; Samms was a participating artist in the Bonavista Biennale in 02023 and an Anchor Artist at Nocturne Festival in Kjipuktuk in 02025. In 02025 Samms administered the Second Wave Ancestral Marking Group Mentorship with mentor, Dion Kaszas; she was a Leighton Independent Artist in Residence (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity), a TC2 Weaver in Residence (Centre for Research and Innovation and in private studio); and was long listed for the Sobey Art Award (National Gallery). In 02024, Samms was awarded the Theodore Prize from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, Wabanakik; in the same year she was nominated for the Sobey Art Award (National Gallery), and for various awards from VANL-CARFAC and was shortlisted for the Craftsperson of the Year. Samms’ work has been shared in a variety of artful and peer-reviewed publications including the Journal of Creative Cartography from the University of Arizona, Riddlefence Magazine, and Beside Magazine. They have received generous attention from media like CBC, Visual Arts News, and the Globe & Mail. Megan is the chair of the board of Union House Arts in Port Union, Ktaqmkuk. Their (continued) education is Land, peer-to-peer, and mentorship based.

a note

I live in my home community, Katalisk, Ktaqmkuk, Mi’kma’ki territory, Wabanaki’k - one of my two ancestral territories. I am also connected to ƛ̓q̓əmcín (ltKumcheen), or Lytton, in Nlha7kápmx territory, so-called British Columbia. I am an internationally Indigenous person of Mi’kmaq and Nlha7kápmx descent; I come from the Samms, Noseworthys, Halls, Youngs, Gagnons, Cennames, Watkinsons, and from Cexpen’nthlEm (Chief David Spentlum).

I hope that my practice(s) serve then, now, and people yet to be. I try to articulate anticolonial values by examining and living story, experience, presence, and interconnected relationships. I hope that making my work generates more story-sharing and more living and more examination and unravelling of the colonial project, in all of its presences.

If you require a copy of my CV, please contact me.

I co-run an off-grid, regenerative farm with my partner in love and life, Ash Hall, and my good friend and land-mate, Libby Dane. It’s cute and called Tuckaway Farm, Apiary & Apothecary. You can read about it, here.

We usually host a very grassroots residency on our farm, in the Loom Shed (on hold at the moment)! Read about our Artist in Residence program here.

I am grateful for support and opportunities through funding agencies: ArtsNL and Canada Council for the Arts. All works supported by organizations and funding streams are noted in the project abstracts. I am hugely grateful for the support from my family, friends, by collaborators, readers, and those of you who engage with my work. Biggest thanks!

Follow @livetextiles on instagram to stay in touch, for thoughts and day-to-day stuff.