Tim Johnson, the Artistic Producer of Celebration of Nations, is Senior Advisor to the Niagara Parks Commission for Heritage, Legacy, and Indigenous Programs. He is also a Senior Advisor to Plenty Canada and the Friends of Laura Secord, and was a founder of the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network and LON 360° Inc. He served as Co-chair of Landscape of Nations: The Six Nations & Native Allies Commemorative Memorial, unveiled on October 2, 2016, in Queenston Heights Park, and was instrumental in the development of several subsequent legacy spaces and public artworks in Niagara including the First Nations Peace Monument in Thorold, Voices of Freedom Park in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the modern art masterwork Curtain Call, installed on the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines. He is also active on four forthcoming historically and culturally important public spaces that will be dedicated to Indigenous peoples.
Prior to his recent activity, Mr. Johnson was the Associate Director for Museum Programs at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. The Museum Programs Group was the museum’s largest organizational group, structured across two fully programmed facilities in Washington D.C. and New York, encompassing exhibitions, education, interpretive services, publications, film and media production, seminars and symposia, and visual and performing arts programs. During his tenure at the museum, he successfully supervised popular and critically acclaimed exhibits ranging in cost from $15,000 to $5.65 million representing myriad orientations from ethnography and history to contemporary arts. One of his most popular exhibitions, Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians In Popular Culture, was an art and history exhibit as told through the biographies of Indigenous artists whose contributions helped to shape several music genres since the mid 20th Century. This exhibit served as the basis for the Sundance, Hot Docs, and Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television award-winning documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World, that has inspired the live concert performances curated for Celebration of Nations.
Among his many highly successful Smithsonian programs was the museum’s Mother Earth Festival produced in conjunction with Al Gore’s LIVE EARTH global initiative on July 7, 2007. That epic program served to diffuse American Indian knowledge and scientific evidence concerning environmental sustainability to thousands in attendance and millions watching around the world. Designed to enhance public education about human-induced climate change, it stands as one of the Smithsonian Institution’s most widely viewed public programs. Now an annual event renamed the Living Earth Festival, it brings together scientists, renewable energy technologists, tribal resource managers, educators, and cultural performers and exhibitors. A leading figure who brought the reality and ramifications of climate change to the forefront in America’s capital, Mr. Johnson also served on the executive committee of the Smithsonian’s “Living in the Anthropocene Initiative” a pan-institutional committee formed to advance public education about climate change and the implications of human conduct on the planet.
Mr. Johnson’s executive leadership at the National Museum of the American Indian produced a long list of critically acclaimed exhibits, influential programs, award-winning books and films, lectures, events, and periodicals, creating an era that significantly advanced the institution’s museology and reputation.
He currently sits on the boards of the Shaw Festival Theatre, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network, Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum, BIPOC Fellowship, and an advisor to Lord Cultural Resources and the Niagara Parks Commission’s School of Horticulture.
He is the recipient of the Dreamcatcher Foundation Award for Art and Culture for his significant contributions to Native arts, media, and heritage programs over a distinguished career.
Among many highly successful programs, on July 7, 2007, in conjunction with Al Gore’s Live Earth global initiative, he launched the museum’s Mother Earth Festival to diffuse American Indian knowledge and scientific evidence concerning environmental sustainability to thousands in attendance and millions watching around the world. Designed to enhance public education about human-induced climate change, it stands as one of the Smithsonian Institution’s most widely viewed public programs. Now an annual event renamed the Living Earth Festival, it brings together scientists, renewable energy technologists, tribal resource managers, educators, and cultural performers and exhibitors. A leading figure who brought the reality and ramifications of climate change to the forefront in America’s capital, Mr. Johnson also served on the executive committee of the Smithsonian’s “Living in the Anthropocene Initiative” a pan-institutional committee formed to advance public education about climate change and the implications of human conduct on the planet.
Over a period of ten years, Mr. Johnson’s executive leadership at the National Museum of the American Indian produced a long list of critically acclaimed exhibits, influential programs, award-winning books and films, lectures, events, and periodicals, creating an era that significantly advanced the institution’s museology and reputation.
He is the recipient of the Dreamcatcher Foundation Award for Art and Culture for his significant contributions to Native arts, media, and heritage programs over a distinguished career.