Runners Continuum: A thought-provoking journey with artist Greg Staats at the Art Gallery of Hamilton

The Art Gallery of Hamilton announces the opening of Greg Staats: Runners Continuum, a new exhibition of work by the Toronto-based artist, which will run from February 22 to May 18, 2025.

The exhibition, which spreads over three gallery spaces covering more than 3,000 square feet, includes more than 25 works – some in photographic series and others in mixed media.

For this exhibition, which required more than five years of planning, Staats imagines himself in the place of the Hodino?hso?:ni’ runner—a person whose role was to run over large distances to deliver important messages between communities and nations. He imagines the roles, responsibilities, and the visual absorption of the runner in a time after the five Founding Nations were brought together in a Confederacy by the Peacemaker while carrying the knowledge of the Great Law of Peace, and the period before colonial contact.

“What I’ve seen and felt along the pathway back to the Great Law of Peace I’ve recorded as reminders that strengthen me to move forward,” says Staats. “And as I come through the thorny bushes towards the light of the clearing, I hesitate until the knowledge gathered between footsteps becomes visible and my breath repeats the phrase in constant return.”

Greg Staats is Skaru?:re? (Tuscarora) / Kanien’keha?:ka (Mohawk) Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.