Still from Reservation Dogs | Image credit: FX Network The highly acclaimed Reservation Dogs is being praised in the Indigenous community and beyond. A comedy television series showcases Indigenous youth lives on an Oklahoma reservation, the first series to be filmed entirely in the United States. Creat...
Zainab at the Black Speculative Arts Movement event at University of Toronto | Image source: Zainab Amadahy “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” Audre Lorde As someone of mixed race (including African American, Cherokee an...
Jim Dumont is an internationally renown Elder, speaker and traditional knowledge keeper, also known as the Gichi A:ya: the Elder of the Elders in the Eastern Doorway of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge. In 2011, Jim was awarded a Doctorate of Sacred Letters the first of its kind at the University of Sudb...
In Anishinaabe culture, it is believed that newly born infants and community Elders are the closest to the spirit world. The process of giving birth carries spiritual teachings, ceremonies, and the power to transform parents, families, and communities. However, oftentimes Indigenous parents face barrier...
Section 35 founder, Justin Louis | Photo by Nadya Kwandibens Due to unprecedented times worldwide, the shift from in-person events has turned to virtual and online streaming. The biennial Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto (IFWTO) presented 15 designers showcasing innovative and choreographed runway prese...
Renae Maihi, Judith Schuyler and Alanis Obomsawin in Sydney Australia in 2017 at the Winda Film Festival, an Aboriginal Australian film festival. | Image source: Renae Maihi I was profoundly changed by my 2 years living in Canada. It wasn’t the Canada I saw numerous times during the film festivals I att...
“Windigo” by Norval Morrisseau, 1964. MUSKRAT Reflections for a New Year Yes, this is another reflection piece for 2020. No, it will not be a list of events you can easily find with a Google search. Still, no year in review can skip over the impact of the COVID-19 virus that has, at minimum,...
Michelle Latimer directed Inconvenient Indian which debuted at TIFF this year | Image source: Toronto International Film Festival All Indigenous people have their own unique experiences living in a colonial state. Some are well connected to their homelands others not, some can speak their languages and...
Students at Inuksuk High School. All photos by Tess Thurber. 2019 was a year to celebrate and reflect in Nunavut. It was the territory’s 20th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Supreme Court of Canada’s decision that began the process to decriminalize homosexuality in Canada. There has bee...
Smudge, Don’t Judge: Assisting Two Spirit/Trans Survivors of Violence is a ten-minute film resource for community workers made to honour the memory of Alloura Wells, a Trans woman who went missing in July 2017. The narrator reminds us that Wells was murdered and her body discovered not by police, who kn...
