Keynote: Faye HeavyShield

We are honoured to announce Faye HeavyShield as the keynote speaker for the 2026 BUMP Urban Art Conference, taking place this August 13-15
About this Event

We are honoured to announce Faye HeavyShield as the keynote speaker for the 2026 BUMP Urban Art Conference, taking place this August in Calgary.

One of Canada's most respected contemporary artists, HeavyShield has spent decades creating work that unfolds through intentional gestures, material sensitivity, and deep relationships to land, language, memory, and community. Through sculpture, installation, drawing, and site-responsive practice, her work invites us to pay attention and consider the forces that shape us before they become visible.

Born in Treaty 7 Territory and a member of the Kainai Nation (Blackfoot Confederacy), HeavyShield has exhibited extensively across Canada and internationally. In the 1990s, HeavyShield was one of the forerunners in the Canadian feminist art movement, creating early works reflecting on femininity and womanhood in her community. Her work over the next few decades expanded to reflect on the Southern Alberta landscape, using pieces of the environment to speak towards universal questions of care, presence, belonging, and transformation. Working with repetition, accumulation, and subtle interventions, HeavyShield reveals how meaning is built over time through sustained attention rather than spectacle.

At BUMP 2026, HeavyShield will open the conference with a keynote reflecting on this year's theme, “Of Simmering, and the Surge.” As we explore the unseen currents that shape culture before they erupt into public consciousness, her perspective will set the tone for the next three days.

This keynote marks a remarkable opportunity to hear from one of Canada's most significant artists. RSVP to reserve your spot.

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BUMP Festival returns August 3–17, 2026, transforming Calgary through murals, sculpture, music, placemaking, and artistic dialogue. Running August 13–15, the BUMP Urban Art Conference is the festival's ideas hub - a three-day gathering of artists, thinkers, musicians, and cultural leaders exploring the forces shaping public art and the cities we share.