Tag Archives: Art

Indigenous Media, Remix & Revolution (M3P1)

This is a presentation at the Indigenous New Media Symposium (2014) by Jarrett Martineau, an award-winning Indigenous media maker, scholar, artist, and storyteller. He is nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) and Dene Sųłiné from Frog Lake First Nation in Alberta, and he is currently based in Vancouver.

He opens the presentation with this quote from Louis Riel (Métis)

“My People will sleep for 100 years, and when they awake, it will be the artists who give them back their spirit.”

In the presentation, Martineau emphasizes the fundamental components of Indigenous New Media. Building community, asserting strength, and taking back control over self-representation. He also discusses how the pervading background of colonialism, and thus how everything Indigenous artists do is political. “Indigenous media, Indigenous cultural production, Indigenous art, and creativity is always a contestation of [colonialism]” [8:15].

Remixing Cycle: Respond/React > Restore > Revision > Represent > Revitalize/Regenerate > Reconstruct > Reimagine > Reclaim > Repeat

Of particular note is his discussion on the power of Remixed media, as a means of “resistance and asserting resurgence” [10:50]. Remix is reflexive, recombinant, and regenerative. One example he shares is Sonny Assu’s Coke Salish (pictured below). The power of Remix is its power to convey more than aesthetics and to invite conversations.

Coke Salish by Sonny Assu

Martineau’s Decolonize Media project is still online at the time of this posting.

Building Resiliency through the We Light the Fire Project (M2P5)

Fanian et al. (2015) evaluate the role art plays in building resiliency through the Kots’iìhtła (“We Light the Fire”) Project. The participants were Tłı˛cho˛ youth (of the Northwest Territories), facilitated by Indigenous youth artists/mentors. While the project’s original goal was suicide prevention among youth, participants steered its course by choosing issues that were important to them. During the workshops, “participants began to share about challenges such as alcohol use, cyber bullying and suicide and employment, as well as positive aspects of their community and visions for their own and collective future through the artwork and in conversations” (p. 7). Projects ranged from visual arts to music, film to photography. At the end of the project, the particpants’ creations were shared with the community. The project was deemed a success, as both participant self-reflections and mentor observations saw an increase in participant confidence and resiliency. Additionally, participation in art-making was found to have the potential for facilitating bonding and sparking conversations for change.

Art as a vehicle for social change + art as a vehicle for promoting healthier minds, bodies, and spirits = Kotshiihtla

Reference:

Fanian, S., Young, S. K., Mantla, M., Daniels, A., & Chatwood, S. (2015). Evaluation of the Kots’iìhtła (“We Light the Fire”) Project: building resiliency and connections through strengths-based creative arts programming for Indigenous youth. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 74(1), 27672. https://doi.org/10.3402/ijch.v74.27672

Bridging Communities Through Murals (M2P4)

In their paper, Taonsayontenhroseri:ye’ne: the Power of art in Indigenous Research with Youth, Whitlow et al. (2019) report on their arts-based research project, Transformation, Action, Grafitti (#TAG). Participants were from Six Nations, the unceded territory of Brantford, Chili, and the Mapuche territory of Kompu Lof. The project’s goals were first, to nourish cultural pride for Indigenous youth, and second, to educate non-Indigenous youth “through a for-Indigenous-people-by-Indigenous-people framework” (p. 182). During the workshops, participants created doodles based on what they were seeing and hearing. Later, these doodles were collected by the Alapinta (Chilean) muralists, who tied them together into two sister murals. The murals were painted in prominent locations in Six Nations and the Brantford downtown-core. They sparked conversations about reconciliation that, thanks to the Internet and social media, reached globally.

Participants working on the Brantford mural

The authors say this about the power of art:

“For this reason, art was even better medium for communication across the barriers of colonial languages. Haudenosaunee people often struggle to translate their stories from their original languages as English does not communicate the depth and complexity of their own morphology. The images that appear in the mural can be interpreted and valued regardless of spoken language. Indeed, art was the bridge between groups of people who spoke four different languages, often through a translator. Despite our struggles with language, symbolism and cultural imagery became a shared and complex form of communication” (p. 186).

The #TAG’s completed Six Nations mural

Reference:

Whitlow, K. B., Oliver, V., Anderson, K., Brozowski, K., Tschirhart, S., Charles, D., & Ransom, K. (2019). Taonsayontenhroseri:ye’ne: the power of art in Indigenous research with youth. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 15(2), 180–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/1177180119845915

Indigenous Youth Leadership: HIV-prevention and the Arts (M2P3)

In their paper, “Because we have really unique art”: Decolonizing
Research with Indigenous Youth Using the Arts, Flicker et al. (2014) outline the process and results of the project for Taking Action!, an Indigenous-youth-led project on using art for HIV prevention. The paper opens with the following quote by France Trépanier:

Art can be medicine, a survival tool, an antidote. Art is our identity, our place, a sign of our presence on this planet. It is medicine as it helps healing because we’ve been through so many things. Art is for the people. It can help build our communities.

Mural Created by Inuit Youth Participants of Puvirnituq, Nunavik

The goal of the project was to “explore the links between community, culture, colonization, and HIV” (p. 16). Twenty Indigenous artists and over one hundred youth (age 13-29) participated from six different communities across Canada. The project was guided by a committee of Indigenous youth. The paper is full of commentary from the participants, who found the workshops to be fun and helped them talk about HIV. The opportunity to learn ” traditional art forms, such as carving, throat singing, drumming, and painting, was an effective way to focus on the issues while learning about, and in some cases, reclaiming, parts of their heritage” (p. 22). The authors emphasize the importance of giving participants choice in what they did. As an educator, one comment particularly stood out to me: “You talk so much you don’t really remember, but if you do art you are going to remember it all” (p. 23).

At the end of the workshops, the participants had created pieces that they were proud of. These were shared with the community, such as paintings showcased locally and songs played on the radio. The project helped the participants challenge stereotypes about Indigenous youth. “Using the pieces as a springboard for discussion was suggested as a way to help people open up when talking about ‘hard things'” (p. 26).

Reference:

Flicker, S., Yee Danforth, J., Wilson, C., Oliver, V., Larkin, J., Restoule, J.-P., Mitchell, C., Konsmo, E., Jackson, R., & Prentice, T. (2014). “Because we have really unique art”: Decolonizing Research with Indigenous Youth Using the Arts. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 10(1), 16–34. https://doi.org/10.18357/ijih.101201513271

Skateboards and Stories (M1P2)

An Albertan teacher made waves with his “sk8trepreneur” course in 2020. One of the class projects was on “Exploring Colonialism, Creativity and Reconciliation with Skateboards, [which] combines skateboard design with Indigenous history” (CBC).

Kristian Basarada had his students create their own brands from the ground up, from defining their brand’s purpose to designing a logo. He teamed up with Cree artist Jon Cardinal and Cree professional skateboarder Joe Buffalo. Buffalo is also a residential school survivor and shared his experiences with the students. The project culminated in the students’ work being showcase at a local skateshop for over a month.

Grade 12 student Georgia Lantz displays her skateboard design. (CBC/Dave Bajer)

As a Digital Arts / Graphic Production teacher, I find Basarada’s project incredibly inspiring. He authentically ties together teen culture, history, maker-skills, and the community. Skateboards have a history of pushing the underrepresented out from under the rug of Mainstream Culture. Candian Dimension has an excellent interview with Micheal Langan, owner of Colonialism Skateboards. “Riding is resistance. Every kickflip, nose grind, or ollie in an occupied territory like Canada is an act of thrashing colonialism” (Sean Carleton, 2018).

References:

CBC/Radio Canada. (2020, November 29). Sherwood Park teacher wins GG award for course linking skateboard design, Indigenous history | CBC News. CBCnews. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/sherwood-park-teacher-wins-gg-award-for-course-linking-skateboard-design-indigenous-history-1.5816784.

Sean Carleton. (2018, June 13). Thrashing colonialism: Skateboarding, history, and the power of education. Canadian Dimension. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/thrashing-colonialism-skateboarding-history-and-the-power-of-education.

– Laura Ulrich