Student Affiliate
My name is Véronique Picard. I’m Wendat and Québécoise, a member of the Wendake community, and I live in Montreal. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had my head in the clouds and my nose in a book. Writing quickly became a way to escape a reality that didn’t always feel like mine. Creation, stringing together words that give shape to a feeling, a thought, or a memory, became a refuge, a space that shields me from life’s hardships while celebrating its most beautiful offerings.
Writing and creating, for me, form a spectrum that helps me recognize my flaws and my strengths, my vulnerability and my resilience. I write lines that carry poetry, softness, and healing. Through them, I try to understand the person I was, the one I am, and the one I am becoming. I don’t consider myself an artist, an author or a poet. I’m part of a generation of people who are telling their stories in their own way.
In 2021, I created a short film titled Rêveries with Wapikoni Mobile, where I wove together film, drawing, music, and poetic writing. In 2023, I collaborated on a second audiovisual project called Vibin’ with the Chronicle Changes. I’ve also written and published across different forms, from academic papers and reports to poetry and co-editing a collective book. And in my free time, I also love to draw and have collaborated with different organizations and initiatives in that aspect.
In my professional life, I hold a bachelor and a master’s in criminology. For the past eight years, I’ve worked with and for Indigenous communities across Québec, both in community-based and research contexts. My approach is rooted in building real, humanizing relationships that center mutual care, listening, and reciprocity.
I am currently a PhD candidate at Concordia University in the Individualized Program. My doctoral project focuses on celebrating the diverse manifestations of leadership expressed by young First Nations women in Québec. Anchored in the Wendat teachings of the Circle, the work aims to reimagine leadership, and to co-create a collective audiovisual narrative that weaves together individual stories, bringing to image and sound the many ways leadership takes shape in our lives.
