Launch of the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art

Friday, December 13, 2019 - 2:30pm to 5:30pm

Launch of the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art
Friday, December 13, 2019
2:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Co-presented with Wapatah: Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge

Onsite Gallery
199 Richmond St. West

Free event as part of Onsite Gallery's public event program for ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras.


Please join us between 2:30 and 5:30 on Friday, December 13th to help the Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge and Onsite Gallery celebrate the launch of their prototype Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art (VPIA). The VPIA is a custom digital platform designed to facilitate Indigenous access and contributions to Indigenous artworks in museum and gallery collections around the world. Using a wiki-style approach, the VPIA allows institutional artwork records to be transformed into living documents that integrate Indigenous knowledge, language and protocols.

Following a knowledge crowdsourcing model popularized by Wikipedia, this public event will bring together artists, scholars and digital developers in an edit-a-thon to begin populating content and protocols within the VPIA system. It will introduce and explain the prototype VPIA, showcase our project milestones, and invite participants to contribute their knowledge of artworks through on-site engagement with the platform. Electronic music artist Geronimo Inutiq will DJ the event with a multimedia show, bringing his signature blend of Arctic and urban style.



The Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge is a hub for facilitating the documentation, communication and translation of Indigenous ways of seeing. Drawing on the inseparable concepts of perception and knowing, Wapatah assists Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists and researchers to collaborate on the presentation and representation of artistic knowledge. Wapatah highlights the innumerable lenses through which Indigenous people envision the world–whether through artistic production, language, or interaction with the land–using each of these as a research tool to form new questions and concepts about the world. Wapatah promotes Indigenous research at multiple scales, from Indigenous-led research at OCADU to creating connections and partnerships at the global level.

 

ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ
Among All These Tundras

September 18 to December 7, 2019

ᐊᓯᓐᓇᔭᖅ
asinnajaq
ᓛᑯᓗᒃ ᐅᐃᓕᐊᒻᓴᓐ ᐸᑦᑑᕆ
Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
ᑲᕈᓚ ᑯᕋᕼᐊᓐ
Carola Grahn
ᒫᔾᔭ ᕼᐋᓕᓐᑐ ᐅᓇᓗ ᓵᒥ ᕕᓐᓚᓐᒥᐅᑕᖅ
Marja Helander
ᖃᑉᓗᓯᐊᖅ
Kablusiak
ᓵᓐᔭ ᑲᓕᕼᐅ-ᑰᒻᔅ
Sonya Kelliher-Combs
ᔪᐊᖅ ᓇᓐᑰ
Joar Nango
ᑕᕐᕋᓕᒃ ᐹᑐᔨ
Taqralik Partridge
ᐱᐅᓕ ᐸᑐ
Barry Pottle
ᐃᓅᑎᖅ ᓯᑐᐊᑦᔅ
Inuuteq Storch
ᑲᔨᓐ ᐸᓐ ᕼᐅᕕᓕᓐ
Couzyn van Heuvelen
ᐊᓕᓴᓐ ᐊᑰᑦᓲᒃ ᒍᐊᑕᓐ
Allison Akootchook Warden

ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᖕᒥ ᑲᒪᔨᑦ: Hᐃᑐ ᐃᒡᓗᓕᐅᖅᑎ, ᐋᐃᒥ ᐳᕈᑎ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓴᕆᓴ ᐹᓐ ᕼᐃᐅᓕᒐ
Curated by Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa

ᓴᕿᑕᐅᔪᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑐᓂᔭᐅᔪᖅ ᑖᒃᑯᓇᖓᑦ ᓕᓄᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐲᓇ ᐊᓕᓐ ᓴᓇᖕᖑᐊᖅᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᒃ, ᑳᓐᑯᑎᐊ ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᕐᕕᒃᔪᐊᖅ
Produced and circulated by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University

Among All These Tundras, a title taken from the poem ‘My Home Is in My Heart’ by famed Sámi writer Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, features contemporary art by Indigenous artists from around the circumpolar world. Together, their works politically and poetically express current Arctic concerns towards land, language, sovereignty and resurgence. Click here to read more.

Produced and circulated by: Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University
Patron Sponsor: Birch Hill Equity Partners
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage), Initiative for Indigenous Futures and Nexus Investments

Onsite Gallery is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD U and an experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media. Visit our website for upcoming public events. The gallery is located at 199 Richmond St. W, Toronto, ON, M5V 0H4. Telephone: 416-977-6000, ext. 265. Opening hours are: Wednesdays to Fridays from noon to 7 p.m.; Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Free admission.

Venue & Address: 
Onsite Gallery: 199 Richmond St. West
Email: 
onsite@ocadu.ca
Phone: 
416-977-6000 x456
Cost: 
Free
Launch of the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art

Arctic/Amazon Symposium

Thursday, September 19, 2019 - 9:30am to Friday, September 20, 2019 - 7:30pm

The Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD U, with The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery are organizing a symposium Sept. 19-20 specifically aimed at nurturing dialogical engagement between Arctic and Amazonian Indigenous ontologies while being cognizant of balancing regional knowledges of land-human relations within a globally Indigenous epistemic framework.

Schedule of events: https://wapatah.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Arctic-Amazon_Symposium_Schedule.pdf

TICKETS: Seating are very limited for the Arctic Amazon 2019 Symposium. First priority will be given to ticket holders, and there is no guarantee that there will be availability for walk-ins. Grab your tickets to attend today to avoid disappointment!

 

Symposium Description

The Arctic/Amazon project is specifically aimed at nurturing dialogical engagement between Arctic and Amazonian Indigenous ontologies while being cognizant of balancing regional knowledges of land-human relations within a globally Indigenous epistemic framework. The inaugural Arctic/Amazon symposium is co-hosted by OCADU and the Power Plant. The purpose of this event is to gather established and emerging artists, curators, and scholars from North American regions of the Arctic and Amazonian zones primarily in Brazil to meet person-to-person to exchange ideas, share works, and to develop collaborative strategies that centralize traditional Indigenous knowledges for the survivance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities amidst tumultuous environmental times. In recognition of the inherent connections between Indigenous land, culture, and artistic production, this symposium will address key questions: (1) How might the centralizing of Indigenous cosmologies, traditional knowledges, and the everyday practicalities of living, protecting, and being in relation to respective lands transform Eurocentric artistic and scientific disciplinary approaches to understanding climate change?; (2) In exploring regionally specific responses from the Arctic and Amazon to both human- and non-human-made environmental concerns, what are some of the shared concerns, historical and current commonalities that reveal a globalized sense of indigeneity? The Arctic/Amazon gathering is a starting point to contemplate these complex questions.

 

Program Summary

The symposium program will take place on September 19 and 20, 2019 at the Harbourfront Centre, Toronto. The two-day schedule will roughly mirror one another. The symposium will begin with Elder Tom Cowie’s welcome, then a presentation of a joint mural created by Denilson Baniwa and Mark Igloliorte. In the morning to early afternoon, a large discussion circle will be facilitated by Indigenous artist-scholars who are part of the OCAD University faculty. In the afternoon, discussions will break into smaller groups so that the audience and the presenters can engage more intimately with the art practice, with one another, and with the ideas that come forth.

 

Large Group Discussions

The purpose of the large group discussions is to reflect upon the artistic, activist, and intellectual work that has been accomplished thus far in the artists’ respective communities and regions.

 

Discussion Circle 1: Land Relations
In this discussion circle, artists will be encouraged to consider human-to-human and human-nonhuman relations with regard to climate change and colonial and non-colonial contact zones. The facilitator will encourage the discussants to share their perspectives as well as raise concerns about addressing land-human relations in times of political and environmental upheavals.  

 

Discussion Circle 2: Land Collaborations
In this discussion circle, artists will be asked to reflect upon how they centralize Indigenous ways of knowing and worldviews to address issues discussed in the previous circle. The facilitator will gear conversations toward ways in which Indigenous artists can support one another through shifts in socio-political duress, future objectives, environmental directives, and land/human relations.The facilitator will engage artists to think about ways in which land-human collaborations, spirituality, ancestral respect, traditional knowledges, and political critique might inform their practices, leading to conversations about a practice-based and lived understanding of a globalized Indigeneity. Key questions include: How can a sense of globalized Indigeneity be built upon dialogical respect and engagement, especially when coming from such faraway places geographically, cosmologically, and politically? What does it mean to collaborate beyond verbal discussions.

 

Small Group Discussions

In the afternoon, the symposium will break into smaller group discussions. Artists from the Arctic and Amazon will be paired up so that they can provide a more in-depth accounting of their practice and begin to imagine and discuss ways in which their practices reach toward and support one another.

 

The participants in each group discussion are encouraged to be creative in their presentation in order to best open up a dialogical reach toward one another and the attending audience. Rather than doing a straight-up artist talk, they are very welcome to perform, create small group discussion workshop questions, present actual work (rather than documentation) to facilitate an enriching dialogical setting for discussions.

 

Mural

The main objective of the mural is for the collaborators to meet and visualize the possibilities for building dialogues between the Arctic and Amazonian regions regarding climate change, land-human relations, contact zones, and globalizing indigeneity. What similarities are there in terms of inspiration, lived experience, creative and political intentions? This mural is pivotal in establishing the symposium and the Arctic/Amazon project as a dialogical, collaborative exchange of ideas, dreams, and possible futures.

 

Performances

Artistically driven, the dialogical components of the symposium will be interwoven with performative responses. The performances, along with the mural and dj-ing are integral to ensuring that the Arctic/Amazon project is Indigenous-creatively-led. In subsequent gatherings such as the curatorial shows and conference in the works for 2020, the intention is to integrate activist art-making as a research methodology and political response to the concerns raised. The major impetus for focusing on an Indigenous artist-led symposium is to ensure that Indigenous ways of knowing encompass rather than become subsumed under the structuration of institutionalized disciplinary knowledge. Performative responses provide an embodied approach, an alternative to speech-based collaboration.

 

Keynote Dialogue

The purpose of the keynote dialogical address is to open up discussions about ways to centralize Indigenous ontological approaches to develop interconnections between Amazonian Indigenous and Inuit thinkers, artists, and activists, whose works address issues climate change, environmental protection, adaptation, and colonization through the lenses of art-making and activism. It is hoped that this dialogue will also evoke and inspire the sharing of different cosmologies, values, and reworlding through the entanglements of diverse Indigenous practices.

 

DJing Close

Following Elder Tom Cowie’s closing, the DJ will bring the house down with one hour of dj-ing to cinch the symposium. The function of this closing to signify the end of this specific gathering while imagining and opening frequencies for future collaborations, creative sharing, and ongoing dialogues.

Venue & Address: 
Habourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West
Website: 
http://wapatah.com/arctic-amazon-symposium/

ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras

Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - 6:00pm to Saturday, December 7, 2019 - 5:00pm

ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ
Among All These Tundras

September 18 to December 7, 2019

Free public reception
With performance by Allison Akootchook Warden
Wednesday, September 18 from 6 to 9 p.m.

ᐊᓯᓐᓇᔭᖅ
asinnajaq
ᓛᑯᓗᒃ ᐅᐃᓕᐊᒻᓴᓐ ᐸᑦᑑᕆ
Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
ᑲᕈᓚ ᑯᕋᕼᐊᓐ
Carola Grahn
ᒫᔾᔭ ᕼᐋᓕᓐᑐ ᐅᓇᓗ ᓵᒥ ᕕᓐᓚᓐᒥᐅᑕᖅ
Marja Helander
ᖃᑉᓗᓯᐊᖅ
Kablusiak
ᓵᓐᔭ ᑲᓕᕼᐅ-ᑰᒻᔅ
Sonya Kelliher-Combs
ᔪᐊᖅ ᓇᓐᑰ
Joar Nango
ᑕᕐᕋᓕᒃ ᐹᑐᔨ
Taqralik Partridge
ᐱᐅᓕ ᐸᑐ
Barry Pottle
ᐃᓅᑎᖅ ᓯᑐᐊᑦᔅ
Inuuteq Storch
ᑲᔨᓐ ᐸᓐ ᕼᐅᕕᓕᓐ
Couzyn van Heuvelen
ᐊᓕᓴᓐ ᐊᑰᑦᓲᒃ ᒍᐊᑕᓐ
Allison Akootchook Warden

ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᖕᒥ ᑲᒪᔨᑦ: Hᐃᑐ ᐃᒡᓗᓕᐅᖅᑎ, ᐋᐃᒥ ᑎᒃᓯᓐ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓴᕆᓴ ᐹᓐ ᕼᐃᐅᓕᒐ
Curated by Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa

ᓴᕿᑕᐅᔪᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑐᓂᔭᐅᔪᖅ ᑖᒃᑯᓇᖓᑦ ᓕᓄᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐲᓇ ᐊᓕᓐ ᓴᓇᖕᖑᐊᖅᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᒃ, ᑳᓐᑯᑎᐊ ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᕐᕕᒃᔪᐊᖅ
Produced and circulated by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University

ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ, ᐊᑎᖓ ᐱᔭᐅᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᑕᐃᒎᓯᕐᒥᑦ “ᐊᖕᖏᕋᕋ ᐆᒻᒪᑎᓐᓃᑦᑐᖅ” ᑎᑎᕋᖅᓯᒪᔭᖓ ᓵᒥᒥᐅᑕᖅ ᓂᐅᔅ-ᐊᔅᓚᒃ ᕚᑭᐊᐹ, ᓴᕿᔮᖅᑎᑕᐅᔪᖅ ᓄᓇᖅᑲᖅᑳᖅᓯᒪᔪᑦ ᓴᓇᖕᖑᐊᖅᑎᖏᓐᓂᑦ ᓇᑭᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ ᑲᔾᔨᐊᓂ ᓄᓇᕐᔪᐊᑉ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᐊᓂ ᐅᑯᐊ ᓴᓇᔭᐅᔪᑦ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓂᕈᐊᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᓄᑦ ᐃᓄᖕᓄᑦ ᐅᖃᖅᓯᒪᔭᐅᔪᑦ ᒫᓐᓇ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᖅ ᐃᓱᒫᓘᑎᒋᓪᓗᒍ ᑐᑭᓯᓇᖅᓯᑎᑕᐅᕙᓪᓕᐊᑎᓪᓗᒋᑦ ᓄᓇ, ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ, ᓄᓇᖃᖅᑐᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐅᒃᐱᕐᓂᖅᑖᑲᓐᓂᕐᓂᖅ. ᓴᓇᖑᐊᖅᑎᑦ ᓄᓇᖅᑲᖅᑳᖅᓯᒪᔪᑦ ᓄᓇᖏᓐᓂᑦ ᑕᒫᖓᑦ ᓄᓇᕐᔪᐊᑉ ᑲᔾᔨᐊᓂᑦ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᖅ ᑐᓴᕐᑎᑦᑎᔪᑦ ᐃᒻᒪᑲᓪᓚᓂᑦ ᖃᓪᓗᓈᖑᖅᑎᑕᐅᓯᒪᒐᒥᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᑐᖅᓯᒪᔭᑎᒃ ᐳᐃᒍᓇᓐᖏᑦᑐᑦ ᐃᓅᓯᕆᓚᐅᖅᑕᒥᖕᓂᑦ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᐅᓕᕐᓂᖅ ᓴᐳᒻᒥᓂᐊᕐᓗᒋᑦ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᖅ ᐆᒪᔪᓕᒫᖏᑦ ᐊᕙᑎᓕᒫᖏᓪᓗ, ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖏᑦ, ᐃᓄᖏᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖃᐅᔨᒪᓂᖏᑦ ᑕᒫᖓᑦ ᐱᐅᓐᖏᑦᑐᐋᓗᖕᓂᑦ ᐊᒃᑐᖅᑕᐅᓂᖓᓄᑦ ᓯᓚ ᐅᖂᓯᓂᖓᓄ ᐊᓯᑦᔨᕐᓂᖓᓄᑦ, ᓄᓇᕐᔪᐊᖅ ᓄᓇᒥᑦ ᐲᔭᐃᔪᒪᔪᑦ, ᐱᕈᖅᑎᑦᑎᕙᓪᓕᐊᔪᑦ ᑲᓐᐸᓂᕐᔪᐊᓂᒃ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓄᓇᖃᑎᒌᓐᖏᑦᑐᕐᔪᐊᑦ ᓵᓚᒌᖃᑦᑕᐅᑎᒐᓱᐊᖅᑐᑦ. ᑲᑐᔾᔨᓗᑕ, ᐅᑯᐊ ᓴᓇᔭᐅᔪᑦ ᑕᑯᑎᑦᑎᕗᒍᑦ ᐃᓚᒌᒍᓯᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᐊᒃᑐᒐᒃᓴᐅᔪᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑭᓱᓕᒫᑦᓯᐊᖏᑦ ᓄᓇᖅᑲᖅᑳᖅᓯᒪᔪᑦ ᖃᐅᔨᒪᓂᖏᑦ ᐊᑐᖅᑕᐅᓗᑎᒃ, ᓄᑖᓂᒃ ᐱᓕᕆᔾᔪᑎᖃᕐᓕᕐᓂᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓄᖑᑉᐸᓪᓕᐊᓂᖏᑦᑐᓂᒃ, ᑎᔅᓯᓇᖅᑐᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᑐᕐᓗᒍ ᐊᓐᓇᒍᓐᓇᕐᓂᖅ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑕᒪᑦᑕ ᑲᑐᑎᓗᑎᒍᑦ ᐱᔭᒃᓴᕆᔭᕗᑦ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᑉ ᐃᓅᓯᖓ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓄᓇᖓ.

Among All These Tundras, a title taken from the poem ‘My Home Is in My Heart’ by famed Sámi writer Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, features contemporary art by Indigenous artists from around the circumpolar world. Together, their works politically and poetically express current Arctic concerns towards land, language, sovereignty and resurgence. Artists from throughout the circumpolar north share kinship with each other and their ancestors, love for their homelands, and respect for the land and its inhabitants. Yet they also share histories of colonialism and experience its ongoing legacies and are united in their desire to protect northern ecologies, languages, peoples and knowledge from the nefarious effects of climate change, encroaching industry and competition. These resistance efforts do not merely express, they give shape to a collective ecology of care, a “decolonial love” (in the words of Leanne Simpson and others) that is both generous and generative. These works invite viewers to contemplate relationships between textual and embodied Indigenous knowledges, innovation and sustainability, humour and resilience, and our collective responsibility to northern life and land.

ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑑᓕᖅᑕᖏᑦ ᕉᑕ ᖃᔮᕐᔪᐊᖅ
Translation by Rhoda Kayakjuak


The exhibition publication is available online here.

Onsite Gallery, OCAD University is happy to offer a free interactive guide for families and young visitors to creatively engage with our current contemporary art exhibition. Click here to learn more.

 

ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ Among All These Tundras

 

Free Public Events

  • Spoken Word Performance & Writing Activity with Taqralik Partridge
    Saturday, September 21 at 2:00p.m.
    Co-presented with Wapatah: Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge
    Join Inuk artist, writer, curator, throatsinger, spoken word poet and Onsite Gallery exhibiting artist, Taqralik Partridge, for a spoken word performance and writing activity. The title of Onsite Gallery’s exhibition, ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras, is taken from the poem ‘My Home Is in My Heart’ by famed Sámi writer Nils-Aslak Valkeapää. During this event, Taqralik will perform one of her spoken word pieces and then guide attendees in a writing activity inspired by a shared theme.
     
  • Curators’ Tour with Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa
    Friday, September 27 at 6:30p.m.
    Join Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa for a curatorial tour of ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras.
     
  • Exhibition Tour with Ryan Rice
    Thursday, October 17 at 6:30p.m.
    Join Ryan Rice for a tour of ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras. Ryan Rice, Kanien’kehá:ka, is an independent curator and the Associate Dean in the Faculty of Liberal Arts / School of Interdisciplinary Studies at OCAD University, Toronto.
     
  • imagineNATIVE Art Crawl
    Thursday, October 24 from 5:15 to 5:50 p.m.
    Co-presented with imagineNATIVE Media + Arts Festival
    This year's Art Crawl kicks off at Onsite Gallery, with a visit of ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras. The Art Crawl continues in the historic 401 Richmond building.
     
  • Peter Morin: Reciprocity with Among All These Tundras
    Thursday, November 14 at 6:30 p.m.
    Join Peter Morin for a performative reciprocal exchange with the artworks in ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras.
     
  • The Fifth Region Film Screening and Conversation
    Wednesday, November 20 at 6:30 p.m.
    Nancy and Joshua are Inuit but raised in southern Canada. All their lives they struggled with aspects of their identities and now begin to redefine what is means to be a young urban Inuk growing up under the shadow of the Sixties Scoop and the residential school system. Join us for a screening of the documentary film, The Fifth Region, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Aeyliya Husain and lead participants Nancy Saunders and Joshua Stribbell.
     
  • Inuit Art On-Line
    Thursday, November 28 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
    Co-presented with Wapatah: Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge
    This public symposium will convene a panel of Inuit artists and scholars to discuss the role and importance of materiality in the creation and presentation of Inuit art. Visit Onsite Gallery’s webpage for a list of confirmed speakers.
     
  • Launch of the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art
    Friday, December 13 from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.
    Co-presented with Wapatah: Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge
    Celebrate the launch of the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art (VPIA) prototype. The VPIA is a custom digital platform designed to facilitate Indigenous access and contributions to Indigenous artworks in museum and gallery collections around the world. Using a wiki-style approach, the VPIA allows institutional artwork records to be transformed into living documents that integrate Indigenous knowledge, language and protocols.
     

 

Curator Biographies

Dr. Heather Igloliorte is the University Research Chair in Indigenous Circumpolar Arts at Concordia University in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, where she also leads the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership SSHRC Partnership Grant and Co-Directs the Initiative for Indigenous Futures Cluster (IIF) in the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology with Professor Jason Edward Lewis. Igloliorte currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Circle for the Winnipeg Art Gallery, working on the development of the new national Inuit Art Centre; on the Board of Directors for North America's largest Indigenous art historical association, the Native North American Art Studies Association; is Vice-President of the Inuit Art Foundation; and sits on the Faculty Council of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, among others.

Amy Dickson is an emerging curator and doctoral student in the Art History program at Concordia University. Her research focuses on the practice of Inuit artists within urban spaces and the role of art in the construction of place. Amy holds a BA and an MA in Art History, both from Carleton University. Her writing has been featured in Inuit Art Quarterly and esse arts + opinions.

Charissa von Harringa is a PhD Researcher in Art History at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from New York University (2007) and an M.A. in Art History from Concordia University (2016). Von Harringa’s academic area of focus lies at the intersection of several fields including Circumpolar, Indigenous, Memory and Performance Studies. Through her doctoral work she examines the media-based practices, archival dispositions, and networked agencies of pan-Inuit and Sámi artists. These are analyzed as they engage past and present Arctic discourse, elaborate new functions of tradition and modernity, and clarify the ever-evolving nexus of theory and practice in contemporary art towards sovereign ends. She has several published essays and reviews in Inuit Art Quarterly and RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, among others.

Artist Biographies

asinnajaq
Inukjuak, Nunavik and Montreal, Quebec

asinnajaq is an Inuit artist from Inukjuak, Nunavik. Her film, Three Thousand (2017), blends archival footage with animation to imagine her home community of Inukjuak from the past into the future. Three Thousand won Best Experimental film at the 2017 imagiNATIVE media arts festival, and was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the 2018 Canadian Screen Awards. She is a laureate of the REVEAL Indigenous Art Award in 2017 and the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Technicolour Clyde Gilmour Award in 2018. She is one of the curators of Tillitarniit, a three-day festival in Montreal which celebrates Inuit culture. asinnajaq was apart of the curatorial team that worked with Isuma on their representation of Canada at the 2019 Venice Biennial. She is also be on the curatorial team working on the inaugural exhibition of the Inuit Art Center opening in 2020.

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
Iqaluit, Nunavut

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory is an artist that applies her study of uaajeerneq (Greenlandic mask dancing) and understandings of Inuit philosophies into many genres, from performance art and theatre to writing and curatorial work. Co-winner of the 2018 Dora Award for most outstanding play and of the inaugural Kenojuaq Ashevak Memorial Award from the Inuit Art Foundation, Laakkuluk is the first Artistic Director of Qaggiavuut, a nonprofit society in Nunavut supporting Inuit artists and advocating for a Nunavut performing arts centre. Laakkuluk lives in Iqaluit with her husband and three children.

Kablusiak
Mohkinstsis (Calgary), Alberta

Kablusiak is an Inuvialuk artist and curator based in Mohkinstsis and holds a BFA in Drawing from the Alberta University of the Arts. They are represented by Jarvis Hall Gallery, and their work has been acquired by public and private collections across so-called Canada. Kablusiak is a board member of Stride Gallery (2016-present). Awards include the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize (2017) and the Primary Colours Emerging Artist Award (2018). A multi-disciplinary artist, they imbue a variety of mediums with their trademark ironic humour to address cultural displacement. The light-hearted nature of their practice extends gestures of empathy and solidarity; these interests invite a reconsideration of the perceptions of contemporary Indigeneity. Kablusiak, along with three Inuit curators, will be creating the inaugural exhibition of the new Inuit Art Centre in 2020, and they are shortlisted for the 2019 Sobey Art Award, representing the Prairies and the North.

Carola Grahn
Malmö, Sweden and Kittelfjäll, Sápmi

Carola Grahn is a Sámi visual artist based out Malmö, Sweden and Kittelfjäll in Sápmi. Grahn works primarily with materializations of text, installation strategies and sculptural media. Her affective text- and sound-based sculptural installations lend poetic dialogue to the contexts of place, labour, and identity that are attuned to the slippages of language and representation in art while complicating cultural and gendered social constructions of the North. Carola is an internationally-known artist in northern Scandinavia and abroad, whose work has been shown at Southbank Centre, 2017 (London, UK), Carleton University Art Gallery, 2017 (Ottawa), Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, 2017 (Brandon), Office of Contemporary Art Norway, 2017, Tråante, 2017 (Nor), Havremagasinet, 2016 (Sweden), Art Centre KulttuuriKauppila, 2016 (Fin), Bildmuseet, Umeå (Swe), 2014, Galleri Jinsuni, Seoul, 2014 (South Korea) amongst other places. Grahn has been the guest editor of Hjärnstorm magazine 2017, she has written for Afterall (2017) and published the conceptual novel Lo & Professorn (2013). Grahn’s work is also represented in the Swedish Art Council’s collection.

Marja Helander
Utsjok and Helsinki, Finland

Marja Helander is a video artist and photographer based in Utsjok and Helsinki, Finland. Her multi-media practice draws from her Sámi and Finnish ancestry. Helander explores themes related to femininity, identity and the tension between traditional Sámi ways of life and modern Finnish society. Her recent work concentrates on post-colonial topics among Sámi including industry and resource extraction in the North with photography and video art that feature the Northern landscape and Sami issues of modernity through a tragicomic lens. Although originally trained as a painter, Helander decided to pursue her interest in photography, graduating from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in 1999. Since then she has presented works in solo and group exhibitions both in Finland and abroad, with many shows in northern Scandinavia, Canada, South Africa, and Mali. Her video work Dolastallat won the Kent Monkman award at imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto, 2016. In 2017, Helander was chosen as the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York’s artist-in-residency. Her recent short, Birds in the Earth won Risto Jarva Prize and the Main Prize in the National Competition in the Tampere Film Festival 2018 in Finland. Helander´s works are also included in collections in several Scandinavian museums and in the National Gallery of Canada. Helander has also made a public artwork So Everything Flourishesfor the Sámi Cultural Centre Sajos, in Inari.

Sonya Kelliher-Combs
Nome, Alaska

Sonya Kelliher-Combs is an Iñupiaq and Athabascan artist from the Alaskan community of Nome. Through her mixed media painting and sculpture, Kelliher-Combs offers a chronicle of the ongoing struggle for self-definition and identity in the Alaskan context. Her combination of shared iconography with intensely personal imagery demonstrates the generative power that each vocabulary has over the other. Similarly, her use of synthetic, organic, traditional and modern materials dissolves binaries of Western/Native culture, self/other and man/nature, to examine their interrelationships and interdependence while also questioning accepted notions of beauty. Kelliher-Combs’s work has been shown in numerous individual and group exhibitions, including the national exhibition Changing Hands 2: Art without Reservation and the inaugural Sakahàn quinquennial of Indigenous art at the National Gallery of Canada in 2013. Recent exhibitions include Hide: Skin as Material and Metaphor at the National Museum of American Indian Art in 2010 and the traveling exhibition THIS IS DISPLACEMENT: Native Artists Consider the Relationship Between Land and Identity in 2011.

Joar Nango
Alta and Tromsø, Norway

Joar Nango is a Sámi and Norwegian architect and visual artist, born in Alta, Norway, and who currently lives and works in Tromsø, Norway. His varied practices often involve site-specific performances and structural installations which explore the intersection of architecture and visual art, drawing from both his Sámi heritage and Western culture. Nango is a co-founder of the architecture collective FFB, who create temporary installations in urban settings. He has exhibited in Canada at Western Front (Vancouver, 2014) and Gallery 44 (Toronto, 2016) and internationally at 43SNA, Medellin (Colombia, 2013), and the Norwegian Sculpture Biennale at Vigelandsmuseet (Oslo, Norway, 2013). One of his recent projects was European Everything (2017) at Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, an extensive installation and performance which involved collaborations with Sámi and European artists, writers, poets and musicians.

Taqralik Partridge
Kuujjuaq, Nunavik

Taqralik Partridge is an Inuk artist, writer, curator, throatsinger, and spoken word poet. She is originally from Kuujjuaq in Nunavik, although she now splits her time between Canada and Kautokeino in northern Sápmi. Partridge’s writing focuses on both life in the north and on the experiences of Inuit living in the south. Partridge co-founded the Tusarniq festival held in Montreal. Her performance work has been featured on CBC radio one and she has toured with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Partridge has also worked as Director of Communications for the Avataq Cultural Institute. In 2010, her short story Igloolik won first prize in the Quebec Writing Competition and the same year she was a featured artist onstage at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. In 2018, Partridge was named as a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize. Partridge is Editor-at-Large for the Inuit Art Quarterly. Her work will be featured as an official selection at the Sydney Biennale in Sydney, Australia in 2020.

Barry Pottle
Rigolet, Nunatsiavut and Ottawa, Ontario

Barry Pottle is an Inuk artist from Nunatsiavut in Labrador (Rigolet), now living in Ottawa, Ontario. He has worked with the Indigenous arts community for many years particularly in the city of Ottawa. Barry has always been interested in photography as a medium of artistic expression and as a way of exploring the world around him. Living in Ottawa, which has the largest urban population of Inuit outside the North, Barry has been able to stay connected to the greater Inuit community. Through the camera’s len, Barry showcases the uniqueness of this community. Whether it is at a cultural gathering, family outings or the solitude of nature that photography allows, he captures the essence of Inuit life in Ottawa. From a regional perspective, living in the Nation’s Capital allows him to travel throughout the valley and beyond to explore and photograph people, places and events, as well as articulate and interrogate the emergent identity of an “urban Inuk.” His projects have included the “Foodland Security”series which highlights the importance of access to country food in urban communities and the “Awareness” series which documents the history of the Eskimo ID tags and the elders who wore them. Mostly self-taught, his work is rooted in photojournalism. His work can be seen in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Museum of History, and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

Inuuteq Storch
Sisimiut, Greenland and Copenhagen, Denmark

Inuuteq Storch is a Kalaallit visual artist, photographer, musician and author based in Copenhagen, Denmark and Sisimiut, Greenland. Storch received his photography certifications from the International Center of Photography in New York in 2016, and at Fatamorgana in Copenhagen in 2011. The artist’s practice in photography, film, video, music and installation, incorporates archival and contemporary images to comment on colonialism and the present day impacts and realities of modernization on Greenlandic communities. He is the author of Porcelain Souls (2018), a collection of family photos and letters from Greenland in the 1960s, and anticipates a forthcoming publication this December. Storch has participated in several festivals and major international solo and group exhibitions including: Old Films of the New Tale (Sisimiut Culture House, Greenland, 2017) and Run Away For Mother Earth (Katuaq, Nuuk Culture house, 2012). His group shows include Chirts & Cloves (Nuuk Kunst Museum and Sisimiut Culture House, 2018), Notas Al Futuro (Espacio El Pasajero, Bogota, Colombia, 2017), and the Pop Up Archive Exhibition, MANA (New Jersey, 2017).

Couzyn van Heuvelen
Iqaluit, Nunavut and Toronto, Ontario

Couzyn van Heuvelen is an Inuit artist born in Iqaluit but who has lived most of his life in Southern Ontario. His artistic practice blends modern fabrication techniques with Inuit tradition to create “hybrid” objects that explore both cultural tensions and synchronicities. Van Heuvelen holds a BFA from York University and an MFA from NSCAD University. His work has been included in several group exhibitions across Canada. Recently, van Heuvelen created an aluminum qamutiik sculpture at the Southway Inn in Ottawa, Ontario for the Lost Stories Project commemorating the historical significance of the hotel being a landing point for Inuit traveling south for school, employment and medical care. In 2017, van Heuvelen was chosen as the Sheridan College Temporary Contemporary Artist in Residence and the subsequent work, Nitsiit (2017) was featured at Sheridan’s Hazel McCallion Campus in Mississauga.

Allison Akootchook Warden
Kaktovik and Fairbanks, Alaska

Allison Warden is an Iñupiaq interdisciplinary visual and performance artist who raps under the name AKU-MATU. She was born in Fairbanks, Alaska with close ties to Kaktovik, Alaska and is now based in Anchorage. Warden’s practice weaves together Iñupiaq narratives and traditions from the past, present, and imagined futures. She is the creator of one-woman show, “Calling All Polar Bears” which in 2011 was part of a National Performance Network residency. Her most recent work is Unipkaaġusiksuġuvik (the place of the future/ancient) at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska in 2016, featured an extensive performative installation piece in which she was present in the gallery for 390 hours over two months. As AKU-MATU, she performed at the Riddu Riddu Music Festival in 2018 as part of the Inuit Circumpolar Hip-Hop Collaboration. In 2018, Warden was awarded the Rasmuson Individual Artist Fellowship in the new genre category.

 

Produced and circulated by: Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University
Patron Sponsor: Birch Hill Equity Partners
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage), Initiative for Indigenous Futures and Nexus Investments

 

Onsite Gallery is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD U and an experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media. Visit our website for upcoming public events. The gallery is located at 199 Richmond St. W, Toronto, ON, M5V 0H4. Telephone: 416-977-6000, ext. 265. Opening hours are: Wednesdays to Fridays from noon to 7 p.m.; Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Free admission.

Onsite Gallery acknowledges that the new gallery construction project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Canada Cultural Spaces Fund at Canadian Heritage, the City of Toronto through a Section 37 agreement and Aspen Ridge Homes; with gallery furniture by Nienkämper. Onsite Gallery logo by Dean Martin Design.

 

Image: Marja Helander, Dolastallat (To have a campfire), 2016. Video still. Video, colour, sound, 5 min. 48 sec.

Venue & Address: 
Onsite Gallery (199 Richmond St. West)
Email: 
onsite@ocadu.ca
Phone: 
416-977-6000 x265
Cost: 
Free
Image: Marja Helander, Dolastallat (To have a campfire), 2016. Video still. Courtesy of the artist.

Rescheduled: In Conversation with Tanya Tagaq

Photo of artist Tanya Tagaq smiling warmly in colourful dress on a baby blue background
Thursday, March 21, 2019 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm

In this free public talk, improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and novelist Tanya Tagaq discusses her bestselling first novel, Split Tooth.

Please arrive early as space is limited to 250 seats.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

100 McCaul Street, Room 190

7:00pm - 8:30 pm

Doors Open: 6:30pm

About Tanya Tagaq:

Tanya Tagaq is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and bestselling novelist. A Member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner, Giller Prize Long Listed author and recipient of multiple honourary doctorates, Tagaq is one of the country’s most original and celebrated artists.

Tagaq’s improvisational approach lends itself to collaboration across genres and forms. Her work includes numerous guest vocal appearances (Buffy Sainte-Marie, Weaves, A Tribe Called Red, Fucked Up), original avant-garde classical compositions (Kronos Quartet, The Toronto Symphony Orchestra), commissions (National Maritime Museum in London, UK) and more. In its many forms, from novel Split Tooth to most recent album Retribution, Tanya Tagaq’s art challenges static ideas of genre and culture, and contends with themes of environmentalism, human rights and post-colonial issues.

This event is produced with the support of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and School of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Indigenous Visual Culture Program, the Creative Writing Program, and the Delaney Family Foundation.

Venue & Address: 
100 McCaul St., Room 190
Website: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/645064459285524/
Email: 
folas@ocadu.ca
Cost: 
FREE

"Too Much Not Enough" by Kaia'tano:ron Dumoulin Bush: INVC BFA Exhibition

Monday, December 3, 2018 - 10:45am to Friday, December 7, 2018 - 10:45am

Please join us for INVC student Kaia'tano:ron Dumoulin Bush's BFA exhibition “Too Much Not Enough.”

 

December 3rd-7th 2018

Ada Slaight Gallery, OCAD University

100 McCaul Street, 2nd Floor

Artist Talk/Reception: Wednesday, December 5th 4:30pm – 6:30pm

 

Venue & Address: 
Ada Slaight Gallery, OCAD University 100 McCaul St. 2nd Floor
Website: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/553689608424908/
Cost: 
FREE
"Too Much Not Enough" scrawled repeatedly in black on a gritty off-white background with a red outline of a dress behind title

You're Welcome

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - 11:00am to Saturday, December 15, 2018 - 5:00pm

A Space Gallery
401 Richmond St. West Suite 110
November 6th-December 9th, 2018

Opening reception: Friday, November 9th 6pm-8pm

The welcome mat, a rug that is placed on the ground in front of one's home, is repurposed by Indigenous artists, Jason Baerg, Ange Loft, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, and Logan MacDonald as a metaphorical device to innitate and locate narratives to place. For You're Welcome, the mat becomes the site of contemplation to address shared spaces, Indigenous presence, the colonial affect and personal/collective relationships to land. Each artist activates their mat as a means to contemplate and illustrate the discourse around land acknowledgement and protocols, which recognizes stewardship, ownership and hints of hospitality. 

Drawn from creative expression and curatorial practise bearing in mind mediative actions, Land is Where Your Feet Touch the Ground (#LIWYFTTG) is a curatorial investigation led by Ryan Rice to examine forms of visual literacy to place through lived experience and collective mappings. You're Welcome is framed as a tangible collective work developed for #LIWYFTTG and is about listening, lookinh, imagining and locating the stories the land will tell us through interpretations by Indigenous artists who navigate Tkaronto on a daily basis.

Communal Biography

Ange Loft, Jason Baerg, Logan MacDonald, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, and Ryan Rice are creative minds who embody the diversity Indigeneity offers. Individually and collectively, they activate and centre themselves on the land - in life, love, creation, and community. 

#LIWYFTTG is supported by the Toronto Arts Council with funding from the City of Toronto.

Venue & Address: 
A Space Gallery 401 Richmond St. West Suite 110
Website: 
www.aspacegallery.org/
Cost: 
Free
Close up shot of Porcupine Quills sticking out of a brown door mat

Free public screening of Angry Inuk

Thursday, October 4, 2018 - 3:15pm to 5:45pm

Indigenous Visual Culture and Culture Shifts present a free public screening of:

 

Angry Inuk

October 4, 2018

3:15 – 5:45pm

Room 190 (Auditorium) OCAD University

100 McCaul St. Toronto ON.

 

A program will follow.

 

In her award-winning documentary, Inuk director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril offers a close look at the critical role of seal hunting in the lives of Inuit, and its importance to their sustainable economies in face of the aggressive and negative impact international campaigns and ban against the seal hunt has on their lives.

 

Angry Inuk (2016) 1 h 22 min

Director: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, is a producer and award-winning director, whose films include Tunniit: Retracing the Lines of Inuit Tattoos (2010), Lumaaiuuq (2010) and The Embargo Project (2015).

 

OCAD’s Culture Shifts presents documentary media as a catalyst for critical discussions and community action for social change.

 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/events/461746917656288/

Venue & Address: 
OCAD University, 100 McCaul St., Room 190 (Auditorium)
Website: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/461746917656288/
Poster for "Angry Inuk" film

Richard Fung: Chinese Characters

shirtless man wearing hat
Wednesday, May 3, 2017 - 11:00am to Monday, April 30, 2018 - 6:00pm

Explore the many themes and movements that have shaped Canada’s visual arts landscape since 1968.

Continuing the storylines from the new Canadian and Indigenous Galleries, this special exhibition invites visitors to experience more than 150 works in all media, including sculpture, painting, video art, installation, drawing and photography. From the feminist art movement of the 1970s to present-day Inuit art, the richness of the national Canadian and Indigenous contemporary art collections is on full display. Highlights include Shary Boyle’s work on paper Untitled (the Porcelain Fantasy series), Joyce Wieland’s O Canada, and Brian Jungen’s impressive sculptures inspired by whale skeletons: Shapeshifter and Vienna.

Venue & Address: 
National Gallery of Canada, Contemporary Galleries B101 to B109, B201 to B205 380 Sussex Drive Ottawa, ON
Website: 
https://www.gallery.ca/whats-on/exhibitions-and-galleries/canadian-and-indigenous-art-1968-to-present
Email: 
info@gallery.ca
Phone: 
613-990-1985

OCAD University mourns the passing of Daphne Odjig

Photo of artist Daphne Odjig with colourful fabric
Thursday, October 6, 2016 - 6:45pm

Legendary Indigenous artist Daphne Odjig has passed away at the age of 97 in Kelowna, B.C.

Odjig was one of Canada’s most celebrated artists, a painter and printmaker who mixed Indigenous symbols with Cubist and Surrealist images. She joined artists including Alex Janvier and Jackson Beardy to become part of what was known as “The Indian Group of Seven.” Her work drew attention to Aboriginal political issues including colonization, displacement and the status of Indigenous women and children.  

Her family, especially her stone carver grandfather, Jonas Odjig, encouraged her to explore art. In 1963 she was formally recognized as an artist when she was admitted to the British Columbia Federation of Artists.

Odjig is a member of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual Arts. She received a wide range of honours and recognition, including an Honorary Doctorate from OCAD U in 2008.

Four Points on an Aesthetic Map: Aboriginal Media Art in Canada

Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - 4:00am to Saturday, May 31, 2008 - 4:00am

Presented by Urban Shaman Gallery.

This project seeks to put a context and history to Aboriginal media art practice and provide a forum dedicated to the representation of Aboriginal artists working in the media arts. We have invited three nationally recognized curators to create programs of seminal works by Aboriginal artists, thus creating an online exhibition of Aboriginal media works representing major artists and movements within media arts discourse. The selected curators have produced critical essays and online curator's talks on the impacts and history of media art within an Aboriginal context.

Native artists work from a history grounded in the colonial experience. Yet an aesthetic has developed in spite of cultural oppression and repression that is distinct, vibrant and multi, as well as cross disciplinary. In many ways, the work of Aboriginal media artists can be seen as the outgrowth of a distinctly Aboriginal visual and literary culture. It represents an aesthetic of nexus based on an oral storytelling tradition and the increased participation of Aboriginal artists in visual arts culture.

As more media art finds its way into gallery and presentation spaces, we must examine the place of an Aboriginal cultural specificity. What is important here, is that this is not a dialogue about the formation of some pan-Indian identity politic, but that experimentation in media art by Aboriginal artists challenges control by others of our image and our perception. This is our point of departure.

Curated by Professor Richard Fung, David Garneau and Cynthia Lickers-Sage. Includes work by alumna Rebecca Belmore. To learn more visit the Non-compliance.ca website.

Email: 
program@urbanshaman.org

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