Image Source: Clayton Windatt I have been in a lot of conversations lately that pit “Artistic Freedom” against the “Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, specifically when it comes to discussing “Self-Determination”, often referenced as “Cultural Appropriation”. Comments defending discrimination-based actions...
Indigenous poetry has always been a place of unearthing, witnessing and healing. Gregory Scofield’s Witness, I Am (Nightwood Editions, 2016), embodies a Cree Sacred Story, revisions Metis identity, and evokes the critical issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women through poetics. Scofield, who is R...
Photo Credit: TSO/Jag Gundu Tagaq’s voice evokes the land and sky, as the ancestors move through her. Inuit throat singer and artist Tanya Tagaq is a life force. At the world premiere of Qiksaaktuq with Toronto Symphony Orchestra for New Creations Festival on March 4 at Roy Thompson Hall, she was...
Interland Memories no.3. Digital Print, 2014 | Image Source: WIOT Magazine Our communities are much like the ecosystem of rivers and lakes. Without new ideas flowing in, they cannot sustain bimaadiziwin. As an artist who is lucky enough travel and do residencies all over the world, one of the most meani...
Cast of The Road Forward | Image Source: NFB The Road Forward, by award winning director and producer Marie Clements, made its world debut this past Sunday at Hot Docs Film Festival. The film documents the birth of modern Indigenous activism from the 1930’s onwards, weaving a collection of original musi...
Ben, Rosalie, Esther and Betty Ann in Birth of a Family | Image source: NFB “Do you think you would be where you are now if you hadn’t been taken from your mother?” is a question, Sixties Scoop Survivor, Betty Ann Adam (Dene), has heard often throughout her life. Adam is one of the four ...
Bad Medicine, 84″ x 126″, Acrylic on canvas, 2014 Kent Monkman is brilliantly critical of Canada 150 in his latest exhibition, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience (Currently headed to Calgary on a three year national tour). Monkman has deployed Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, his drag que...
“Slaves working in 17th-century Virginia,” by an unknown artist, 1670| Image Source: Wikimedia Commons The Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center at Norfolk State University (NSU) held a conference called 1619: The Making of America in September of 2013. That year is historically significant because it was the f...
Cover Photo: Centre, black and white drawing by Rene Meshake Narrative by Kim Anderson Artwork, word bundles and poetry by Rene Meshake “In 1492, Columbus set sail from Spain. In 2014, Rene took a flight to Spain. In between my name was changed to number 23 at the Indian Residential School. I didn’t kno...
Chaudière Falls, Ottawa (Ontario) White, George Harlow (1817-1887) with superimposed Peace Pipe by Lynn Gehl, | source: http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMDC-PICTURES-R-798&R=DC-PICTURES-R-798 “It is absolutely never acceptable to have that kind of hate expressed in communities,”...