How Canadian Indigenous Artists Depict Tobacco in Their Work

Tobacco has been central to Indigenous life since long before European contact. According to the Royal Ontario Museum, ceremonial tobacco smoking served as “a means of communicating with the spirit world,” with the smoker’s prayers and petitions sent to the Great Spirit through the ascending smoke [citation:3].

📜 The Four Sacred Medicines

In many Anishinaabe traditions, tobacco is one of the four sacred medicines — alongside sage, cedar, and sweetgrass [citation:1]. Anishinaabe artist Luke Swinson describes them as “all so important in healing and ceremony” [citation:1]. In his illustration for the University of Waterloo’s Indigenization journey, Swinson depicts all four medicines surrounding outstretched hands, with tobacco placed prominently among them [citation:1].

📜 The “Gratitude Plant”

Métis artist and cultural practitioner Julietta Sorensen Kass, who grew a bountiful crop of traditional Nicotiana Rustica tobacco in her Calgary yard, calls tobacco the “gratitude plant.” Before a family canoe trip, she offers tobacco to the river. “To be able to have something that you can offer feels a little less like you’re constantly taking; it feels a little more reciprocal,” she explains [citation:8].

The Royal Ontario Museum houses a remarkable Anishinaabe pipe bowl dating to approximately 1845, carved from chloritic schist and decorated with glass beads [citation:3]. This object, found on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, exemplifies the spiritual importance of tobacco in Anishinaabe culture. “Serving as a means of communicating with the spirit world, ceremonial tobacco smoking has been central to Indigenous life since long before the arrival of Europeans,” the museum notes. “The smoker’s prayers and petitions are sent to the Great Spirit through the ascending smoke” [citation:3].

📜 The Evolution of Pipe Art

According to the ROM, with the advent of metal tools, Anishinaabe pipes grew increasingly complex and esoteric, “to a degree where bowls displayed narrative scenes” [citation:3]. These carved pipes were not merely functional objects — they were storytelling devices, historical records, and spiritual conduits all in one.

In 2025, the Musée d’art de Joliette presented a landmark group exhibition titled “Of Tobacco and Sweetgrass: Where Our Dreams Are” [citation:2]. Curated by Wendat scholar Guy Sioui Durand, the exhibition brought together contemporary Indigenous artists exploring the combined fluidity of “hot tobacco smoke and the icy vapour of whitewater” [citation:2].

📜 Participating Artists

The exhibition featured works by:

• Christine Sioui Wawanoloath (Wendat) — large illustrations including Là où sont nos rêves (Where Our Dreams Are) and Esprit du rêve (The Dream’s Spirit) [citation:2]
• Sonia Robertson (Mashteuiatsh) — Le sang de la Terre-Mère (The Blood of Mother Earth), linking river water’s healing powers to women’s wishes [citation:2]
• Hannah Claus (Kanien’kehá:ka) — water song installation series [citation:2]
• Jacques Newashish (Atikamekw) — tent installations evoking forest life and nomadic sensibilities [citation:2]
• Eruoma Awashish (Atikamekw) — Poings levés vers l’avenir (Fists Raised to the Future) and the mural Onimiskiw [citation:2]
• Caroline Monnet (Anishinaabe/French) and Ludovic Boney (Wendat) — Hydro, an installation critiquing hydroelectric development on Indigenous lands [citation:2]

Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabekwe, Lac Seul First Nation) is one of Canada’s most celebrated contemporary Indigenous artists. In 2005, she became the first Indigenous artist to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale [citation:9]. Her interdisciplinary practice — including performance, sculpture, and installation — often engages with themes of history, voice, place, and identity [citation:4].

📜 Fountain (2005) — Venice Biennale

Belmore’s landmark work Fountain was presented at the Canadian Pavilion in Venice. While not exclusively about tobacco, the work addressed themes of water, land, and Indigenous survival — with tobacco often appearing in her practice as a material associated with prayer, offering, and the body’s relationship to the earth [citation:9].

📜 Political and Performance Art

Belmore’s work is known for its “conscience politique et sociale” (political and social consciousness) [citation:4]. Her performances and installations often use natural materials and repetitive gestures to confront challenges facing First Nations peoples. Tobacco — as a sacred plant and a material linked to trade, colonialism, and addiction — appears as a recurring motif in her explorations of Indigenous resilience [citation:4].

Brian Jungen (Dane-Zaa/Swiss, born 1970) is a global art star known for his practice of re-purposing consumer goods into objects that reference his Indigenous heritage [citation:5]. His work frequently explores the tension between commercial culture and Indigenous traditions — and tobacco, in its various forms, appears as a subtle but significant element.

📜 “Smoke Cured” — The Scent of Moose Hide

In his 2011 exhibition “Tomorrow, Repeated” at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Jungen presented a moose hide stretched across metallic green car fenders. When asked about the piece, Jungen leaned in and said, “Smoke cured — smells nice,” referring to the traditional smoking process used to cure the hide [citation:5].

📜 A Freezer as a Plinth

The moose hide piece sat atop a white freezer — “convenient storage for the meat the skin once wrapped,” as Jungen explained. “My family has a bunch of these, and they’re always piling things on top,” he said. “So I kind of love I can use them as these perfect, ready-made museum plinths” [citation:5].

📜 Re-purposing Consumer Goods

Jungen is renowned for his early sculptures that re-purpose banal consumer goods into art objects. His Prototype series (1998-2005) deconstructed Nike running shoes and reassembled them into objects resembling West Coast First Nations masks [citation:10]. While not directly about tobacco, these works engage with the same tensions between traditional Indigenous culture and contemporary commercial products — tensions that tobacco embodies uniquely.

Among the Métis, tobacco bags — also known as medicine bags or medicine pouches — were important objects of trade, ceremony, and nation-building along the Red River [citation:6]. Contemporary Métis artist Claire Johnston (Red River Métis, Two-Spirit) has revived and reimagined this tradition.

📜 “How do you use your medicine?” — A Glow-in-the-Dark Tobacco Bag

For Culture Days 2025, Johnston presented a giant glow-in-the-dark Métis floral beaded tobacco bag, asking viewers: “How do you use your medicine?” [citation:6]. The installation invited public participation in stringing glow-in-the-dark beads onto the bag, creating a slow, contemplative experience [citation:6].

📜 Venice Biennale Research

Johnston was selected as a fellow for Canada’s official entry to the 2025 Venice Biennale, where she conducted research on Venetian seed beads and their connection to Métis beadworkers past and present [citation:6].

Luke Swinson is a visual artist with Anishinaabe roots from Kitchener, Ontario. His work often centers Indigenous knowledge, language, and healing practices. In an illustration commissioned by the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy, Swinson depicted all four sacred medicines — tobacco, sage, cedar, and sweetgrass — surrounding outstretched hands [citation:1].

📜 The Medicine of Gifting

In the illustration, berries are offered as a gift. “To many Indigenous peoples, offering gifts itself is medicine,” Swinson explains. “The act of sharing with one another and honouring each other helps us to heal and to grow, as plants do” [citation:1]. Above the hands is the sun — “the ultimate healer and life giver” [citation:1].

In 2025, Yale graduate student Sháńdíín Brown (Diné) curated a major exhibition at the Hudson River Museum titled “Smoke in Our Hair,” featuring twenty-two Native American, First Nations, Alaska Native, and Métis artists [citation:7]. The exhibition was selected as a New York Times “Critic’s Pick” and hailed as gathering artists “who rewrite the land as contested, communal and charged with memory” [citation:7].

📜 The Title’s Poetic Origin

Brown took the exhibition’s title from a poem by Ofelia Zepeda (Tohono O’odham):

📜 Olfactory Presence

The exhibition emphasized the olfactory as well as the visual. A slight odor of weathered wood drew visitors to a work by foundational Ojibwe artist George Morrison. The exhibition was structured in three sections — wood, fire, and smoke — each evoking the transformative power of tobacco and ceremonial fire [citation:7].