When I arrive at Joseph Tisiga’s home in Anjou, a neighbourhood in Montreal’s far East End, he is outside smoking a cigarette and scrolling through his phone. “The world news is hitting a higher octave these days,” he says in greeting, his dark brown eyes widening as he takes another drag. There’s a weariness in his voice that hints at a deeper exhaustion. Perhaps its the weight of a mind continually processing the world in complex ways. Or its simply the strain of parenting a young toddler. Conversations with the Kaska Dena artist tend to mirror the tone of his work: ruminative, at times brutally honest, always grappling with society’s fractures, its truths and its untruths. Though he enjoys long stretches of solitude in which he can let his mind wander (he used to take dishwashing jobs in Winnipeg and Vancouver simply so he could think through entire shifts), he is also a big talker. “I always joke that you almost need a seatbelt for your brain when you’re chatting with Joseph, because you’re on a ride and it’s going fast,” observes Mario Villeneuve, a longtime friend of Tisiga’s, over the phone from Whitehorse. “He has such a broad interest in everything. We’ve had many nights of rambling conversations, puddle-jumping from one thing to the other,” he adds.