Lynx River Revisited is hosted by Melaw Nakehk’o and Brie O’Keefe
Melaw Nakehk’o is a multidisciplinary Dene/Dënesułińe artist and educator, rooted in Dene relationality and based in Yellowknife, Denendeh. Their practice fuses Dene ways of knowing through soft sculptures sewn from traditionally tanned caribou hide, documentary f ilmmaking, installation, and digital media, inviting the land to speak through memory and relationality. The work centers sovereignty, language, land, and spirituality as grounded forces—reminding us who we are and who the land knows.
Through collaborative making and land-based camps, Melaw teaches moosehide tanning as a living lineage, a pedagogy of care and resistance.
Exhibitions include Icons and Archetypes (Yellowknife Art Gallery, 2022); Creation Story (Art Mûr, Montreal, 2024); Northern Gothic (Confederation Centre of the Arts, 2024); Unsettling Conservation: ReWorlding (Art Gallery of Guelph, 2025). Current focus: land, climate resilience, and intergenerational transmission within community governance.
Melaw Nakehk’o is a founding member of Dene Nahjo and a mother of three.
Brie O’Keefe is a born-and-raised NWT settler working as an independent consultant primarily with Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon on a range of policy and strategic planning issues, including conservation, self-determination and fundraising. She was born and raised in the Northwest Territories (Fort Simpson, Yellowknife) and Nunavut (Qikiqtarjuaq).
Before returning to Yellowknife in 2018 Brie worked in International Development and philanthropy based in London, UK working for Save the Children and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Development with Honours from McGill University and a Master of Science degree in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Brie is also the lead singer and songwriter of Yellowknife-based folk ensemble Flora and the Fireweeds. They released their first album, Green Wood, in 2023. Finally, she is the curator of @yellowknifememes a satirical meme account focusing on issues in the Northwest Territories.