Outdoor Installation: Michael Belmore’s drift

Part of:
Earthwork

November 2025–March 2026
Outdoors on King’s College Circle

In this temporary art installation, Michael Belmore offers the snow fence as a medium of communication and cooperation rather than a barrier or stopping force. Belmore explains that the snow fence uses wind resistance to create snow drifts rather than preventing them, with the size and spacing of its slats communicating to the wind where to deposit its load. Belmore sees this as an example of humans adopting the language of the elements and participating in a process of co-creation. Featuring designs inspired by the treaty “talk” encoded in Indigenous wampum belts, and lifted off the ground to reference a waving banner, Belmore extends the concept of treaty negotiation to interactions among water, wind, land, and people. 

Learn more about this artist in the Earthwork Engagement Guide.

This work is part of the exhibition Earthwork, curated by Mikinaak Migwans. The exhibition was on view at the Art Museum’s University of Toronto Art Centre from September 4 to December 20, 2025. Produced by the Art Museum with the generous support of Toronto Arts Council Strategic Funding and Partners in Art. 

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About the Artist 

Michael Belmore employs a variety of materials and processes that at times may seem disjointed, yet, the reality is that together his work and processes speak about the environment, about land, about water, and what it is to be Anishinaabe. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design, he completed his Masters of Fine Art at the University of Ottawa in 2019. 

Practicing for over 25 years, Belmore is an internationally recognized artist and is represented in the permanent collections of various institutions including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the National Museum of the American Indian – Smithsonian Institute. Belmore is a member of Unsettled Ground Artists Inc and is currently involved in the creation of a multi-year public art project for four light rail stations as part of Phase 2 of Ottawa Light Rail. His exhibitions include: Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood  at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art  at the Peabody Essex in Salem, MA and HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor at the National Museum of the American Indian – George Gustav Heye Centre in New York. 

Seemingly small things, simple things, inspire his work; the swing of a hammer, the warmth of a fire, the persistence of waves on a shore. Through the insinuation of these actions, a much larger consequence is inferred.