“seth cardinal dodginghorse’s multi-layered performance art practice brings together archival research, original music and sound, oral histories and vibrant visuals. His site-specific work centers questions of land, family, belonging and displacement. Exploring both colonial legacies and enduring cultural knowledge and practices, cardinal dodginghorse’s complex, thoughtful, and deeply personal works distinguish him as an artist to watch.”
— 2026 Emerging Artist Jury
– Emerging Artist adjudicators
seth cardinal dodginghorse is a Tsuut’ina/Amskapi Pikanii/Saddle Lake Cree multidisciplinary artist, musician, researcher, filmmaker, prairie chicken dancer, and actor. They were raised on their family’s ancestral land on the Tsuut’ina Nation. In 2014 their family was forcibly removed from their home and land for the construction of the Southwest Calgary Ring Road. This life changing event has been a driving force in their creative work and activism. They consider their practice to be a form of collage where projects and materials can be reused in the forms of performance, video, installation, sculpture, sound, photography, digital/analogue media, painting, drawing, and printmaking.
seth performs and records music as sadbirthdays. They are currently a part of the artist collective tīná gúyáńí (Deer Road) with their mother, Glenna Cardinal. In 2022, tīná gúyáńí was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award. seth’s short film nisguya chu won the AstroLab x Future of Film Showcase Production Emerging Canadian Award at the Images Film Festival (2020). In 2024 they played the lead role in the film KLEE directed by Gavin Baird which premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and appeared on their 2025 Canada’s Top Ten list. They hold a BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts.
Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse’s practice is courageous, nuanced, and elegant. It is politically incisive and, most importantly, it is accountable—to family, to Nation, to land, and to community. As an emerging artist, their work is robust, critical, mature, disciplined, and deeply necessary.
Kurtis Lesick
Associate Professor, Media Arts, Alberta University of the Arts
