Justine Woods

Justine Woods (she/her) is a garment artist, creative scholar, and educator with a focus in Indigenous fashion and material culture, Indigenous arts-based methodologies, performance and embodiment, and research-creation. She is a Doctoral Candidate in the Media and Design Innovation practice-based PhD program at Toronto Metropolitan University, holds a Master of Design in Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design from OCAD University and a Bachelor of Design in Fashion Design from Toronto Metropolitan University.​

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Justine’s doctoral research centres Indigenous fashion technologies and garment-making as practice-based methods of inquiry to explore the role garments play in resisting settler-colonial displacement of Indigenous ontologies and bodies to place. Her research centres re-stitching as both a theoretical framework and embodied practice to understand how the physical act of stitching cloth done by the Indigenous body can regenerate Indigenous ontology and re-stitch alternative worlds and futurities.​

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​Born and raised in Tiny, Ontario, Justine is a registered citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario and a Métis rights-holder with Section 35 Indigenous rights. Her Métis family names are Vasseur, St. Onge, Lafrenière, and Berger-Beaudoin. Her familial ties span the Red River, where her ancestors fought at the Battle of Seven Oaks; Michilimackinac (present-day Mackinac Island) in Northern Michigan, where her extended family took up Chippewa Halfbreed script; and Penetanguishene, Ontario, where multiple members of her family signed the Penetanguishene Halfbreed Petition of 1840.

 

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