Robin Metcalfe is a writer and cultural activist living in Nova Scotia, Canada, within Mi'kma'ki, the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq (L'nu). Of Acadian and Newfoundland ancestry, his poetry, journalism, art criticism and short fiction have been published in over 65 periodicals and 15 anthologies, and translated into French, Japanese, Mi'kmaw, Spanish and Swedish. In 2000 he was awarded the Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-Fiction, for the book Studio Rally: Art & Craft of Nova Scotia (Goose Lane, 1999), and he was short-listed for a Canadian National Magazine Award in 2004.
Robin worked as a sleeping-car porter on CN/VIA Rail for ten years, starting in 1975, while active in the emerging gay liberation movement, and as an independent writer, curator, critic, editor and broadcaster from the mid 1980s through the year 2000. He was Curator of Contemporary Art at Museum London, in Ontario (2001-2004), and Director/Curator of Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Kjipuktuk/Halifax, from 2004 through 2020. Significant exhibition projects include Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember) with Mi’kmaw artist Ursula Johnson (touring 2014-2018), for which he supervised the production of a trilingual (Mi'kmaw, French, English) publication; Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L Foulem, Paul Mathieu, Richard Milette (touring internationally 2014-15); and Queer Looking, Queer Acting: Lesbian and Gay Vernacular (MSVU Art Gallery, 1997; remounted 2014). He has served as President of both APAGA (Atlantic Provinces Art Gallery Association) and CAMDO (Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization).
Since 1975, Robin has been active within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities locally, across Canada and internationally, as an organiser, journalist and community archivist and historian. He is currently developing the Passage Memory Project - a non-institutional Queer archival and cultural meeting place - from his home in Sheet Harbour Passage (Weijuik, Eskikewa'kik District), based on more than four decades of collecting Queer historical documents, books, artworks and ephemera.
Robin worked as a sleeping-car porter on CN/VIA Rail for ten years, starting in 1975, while active in the emerging gay liberation movement, and as an independent writer, curator, critic, editor and broadcaster from the mid 1980s through the year 2000. He was Curator of Contemporary Art at Museum London, in Ontario (2001-2004), and Director/Curator of Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Kjipuktuk/Halifax, from 2004 through 2020. Significant exhibition projects include Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember) with Mi’kmaw artist Ursula Johnson (touring 2014-2018), for which he supervised the production of a trilingual (Mi'kmaw, French, English) publication; Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L Foulem, Paul Mathieu, Richard Milette (touring internationally 2014-15); and Queer Looking, Queer Acting: Lesbian and Gay Vernacular (MSVU Art Gallery, 1997; remounted 2014). He has served as President of both APAGA (Atlantic Provinces Art Gallery Association) and CAMDO (Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization).
Since 1975, Robin has been active within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities locally, across Canada and internationally, as an organiser, journalist and community archivist and historian. He is currently developing the Passage Memory Project - a non-institutional Queer archival and cultural meeting place - from his home in Sheet Harbour Passage (Weijuik, Eskikewa'kik District), based on more than four decades of collecting Queer historical documents, books, artworks and ephemera.