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Takeovers

Dom Lafontaine (@dohlishiss) is an Algonquin multimedia artist, poet and musician, hailing from the deep waters of Timiskaming First Nation. He also currently works for Digital Creator North as the Temiskaming Shores Lead Program Coordinator. Dom is an Algonquin singer songwriter proposing an eclectic mix of blues influenced folk/country music and storytelling. Born to an Algonquin mother and a Québecois father, he began playing guitar at the age of thirteen, thrashing around in various punk bands. It was only a few years ago that he began composing and performing his own works; his earthy voice and gutsy guitar grinding away at themes of vice, lost love and redemption. Dom’s artworks explore the very notions of cultural identity, meaning, and belonging, as he synthesizes his knowledge of traditional art forms with new media in order to redefine the substance and visual language of contemporary native art.

In 2014, his self-directed music video for his song “Red & Black” was selected as part of Wapikoni Mobile’s Official Selection and exhibited during the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, he is always building or aquiring new sounds. A typical performance is a witch’s brew of whiskey soaked country, raw unfiltered blues and off-the-wall storytelling all mashed together to make what he calls: ‘Mutt Music’. From the distorted banjo of ‘Lost Enough’ to the Russian inspired murder ballad ‘Red & Black’, his songs take listeners on a journey through a dark, sometimes melancholy world of flawed players on the long, hard road to salvation. After a few years of picking guitars & grinding microphones in Montreal, Dom Lafontaine is back in the North, ready to bring his unique brand of performance to the scene.

During his Takeover, Dom had the opportunity to attend Hub Montreal, an international business accelerator event for creative industries in the entertainment, cultural and experiential marketing sectors. Dom shared many pictures from his trip and gave everyone an inside look at what the event is about and some of the exciting activities that were going on.