Raven Davis is an Anishinaabe, 2-Spirit, trans, disabled multidisciplinary artist, and educator whose maternal lineage is from Treaty Four in Manitoba, Canada. Davis was born and raised in Michi Saagig /T’karonto Territory (Toronto, Ontario). Davis resides and works as a professional artist as well as curator between K’jipuktuk, Halifax and their birth territory. A parent of three sons’, Davis works within the mediums of painting, performance and media. Challenging systemic oppression, and as a tool for personal and social transformation, Davis fuses narratives of colonization, race, gender, disability, transformative justice, land and their lived experience within their work.
Throughout Davis’s career, they’ve exhibited at the Venice Biennale in Italy, performed at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and throughout Canada. They have been invited to deliver Keynote addresses, panels, and workshops at Princeton and Carleton University, the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Alberta, and for Mix, Brooklyn, New York. In addition to screening their films in Berlin, United Kingdom and South America, Davis has also worked as a designer for IKEA (Toronto, Montreal and California), The Toronto Olympic Bid, The Assembly of the First Nations, and Membertou, Nova Scotia. Davis is committed to Black and Indigenous futures, and meaningful commitment, engagement and collaboration of 2-Spirit, transgender and disability within the arts sector.
In addition to being an artist, Davis has worked and volunteered in Indigenous, and art-based institutions and organizations for over to 30 years. Beginning in the early 90’s in organizations at organizations that support Indigenous justice models, culture, health, child protection, sex worker rights, and Indigenous sovereignty. Davis is committed to the historical narratives which fuel myths, and stereotypes, and impacting Indigenous and Canadian relations, and society. Through public engagement, community building, educating, and transformative justice models, Davis has worked with many organizations and businesses to develop and improve policies and accountability frameworks to increase, and maintain equitable representation and leadership.