Tag Archives: indigenous arts

Digital Storytelling as Inquiry (M3P4)

In their paper, “Digital Storytelling as Arts-Inspired Inquiry for Engaging, Understanding, and Supporting Indigenous Youth”, Englinton et al. investigated how youth explore their personal and cultural idnetities trough multimedia narratives. The creation, reflection on, and sharing of these stories provided “opportunities for these youth to represent, perform, and thus construct their identities using the cultural artifacts available to them” (p. 14). The authors argue that this medium, in this case short (under 5 minutes) multimedia narratives, is a powerful amplifier of marginalized voices. They base their workshop on the Freirean model which uses images to spark dialogue and illuminate collective themes or issues.

This process can be taken a step further into the digital-art niche by creating such narratives with animation. There is an abundance of support for stop-motion (sometimes called slowmation) animation for supporting learning. Pavlou (2019) details its strengths for facilitating digital storytelling, such as its power to encourage creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. For an example of an Indigenous stop-motion, see the video below:

From the Video’s Description: This animated documentary follows the journey of an Indigenous photographer as she travels through time. She witnesses moments in her family’s history and strengthens her connection to her Metis, Cree and Anishnaabe ancestors. This is a personal story told through the eyes of director and writer Amanda Strong. The oral and written history of her family reveals the story — we witness the impact and legacy of the railways, the slaughter of the buffalo and colonial land policies. Four Faces of the Moon contains no English language, relying on sound, image and Indigenous voice to tell the story. This multi-layered approach to storytelling may leave you with more questions than answers: it is an invitation to look into your own understanding of history, legacy and the importance in knowing who you are and where you’re from.

 

References:

CBC (2017, March 21). “Four Faces of the Moon” – Canada’s dark colonial past | Animated Short Doc [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/rWe–sysNkk

Englinton, K. A., Gubrium, A., & Wexler, L. (2017). Digital Storytelling as Arts-Inspired Inquiry for Engaging, Understanding, and Supporting Indigenous Youth. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 18(5). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1136731.

Pavlou, V. (2019). Art Technology Integration: Digital Storytellying as a Transformative Pedagogy in Primary Education. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 39(1), 195–210. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12254

Contemporary Indigenous Artists (M3P3)

In this post, I am weaving together three different resources. When teaching visual art education, sometimes it is useful to direct learners towards other artists as sources of inspiration or research. Sending students exclusively to sites like Behance, Instagram, or Pinterest runs the risks of overwhelmingly Western content. The following resources can help lead students to contemporary Indigenous Artists:

Digital Mural is a collection by Indigenous youth. The gallery includes visual images, audio, video, and digitally rendered work. A central theme to the collection is the creative responses to change, community, and resilience. You can focus the collection by selecting certain categories (ex: Figure, Indigenous Futurism, Land, etc.) or tags (ex: Digital, Illustration, Photography, etc.). Clicking on the individual works will provide information about the piece and/or artist.

The Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada seeks to empower Indigenous women and to create a safe and inclusive space to conserve and share cultural knowledge. In their purpose statement they say: “For Indigenous people, art is the very soul of our spirituality. It’s our every movement, dance and song – it is in every stroke of paint, every bead sewn, every feather placed.” The website has an Artist Directory, where you can browse by artist or by artform, and a Marketplace to support Indigenous artists.

The Secwepemc Artisan Catalogue (2013) showcases Indigenous artists in and near Kamloops, BC. Each artist has a bibliography and samples of their work, from beading to painted headphones.

 

References:

Community Futures Development Corporation of Central Interior First Nations. (2013, October 28). Secwepemc artisan catalogue. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/npankewich/secwepemc-artisan-catalogue.

Digital Mural. (n.d.). https://digitalmural.ca/gallery.

Welcome. Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada. (2021, June 28). https://passthefeather.org/.

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.

 

Concordia’s Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (M2P1)

Concordia University’s Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC) was established in 2005. It is a network of artists, academics, and technologists whose goal is to ensure Indigenous-populated spaces in Cyberspace. In 2017, Concordia shared a curated collection from AbTeC through an art show, Owerà:ke Non Aié:nahne / Combler les espaces vides / Filling in the Blank Spaces. This show “illustrate[ed] a multitude of ways in which Indigenous artists, researchers, educators, designers and community activists are creating and employing new media to strengthen and complement their cultures and communities” (Jason Edward Lewis, co-founder of AbTec, as cited by Dunk, 2017).
The AbTeC website includes a gallery of projects, both past and present. One of the projects, She Falls for Ages, was created by AbTeC’s other co-founder, Skawennati. The project’s website describes it as a “sci-fi retelling of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) creation story reimagines Sky World as a futuristic, utopic space and Sky Woman as a brave astronaut and world-builder.”
How the Loon Got Its Walk, created in a Skins machinima workshop

How the Loon Got Its Walk, created in a Skins machinima workshop at the MacKenzie Art Gallery

One of their ongoing projects is the Skins Workshop, which is part of their Indigenous Futures initiative:

The Skins Workshops teach Indigenous youth how to adapt stories from their community into experimental digital media, such as video games. One of our goals is to encourage our youth to envision themselves in the future while drawing from their heritage. We believe this helps to promote and preserve our stories, languages and cultures while also exposing our youth to the digital tools of today and tomorrow.

References:
Dunk, R. (2017, October 30). Indigenous digital art — past, present and future. Concordia University News. https://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/stories/2017/10/30/indigenous-digital-art-leonard-bina-ellen-art-gallery.html

 

M.1 P.4 ImagineNATIVE Film & Media

“Screen Memories” by Faye D. Ginsburg (2002) has led me to explore the Indigenous film, media, and television world a little deeper.

imagineNATIVE is the world’s largest presenter of Indigenous screen content.

“The organisation is recognised locally, nationally, and internationally for excellence and innovation in programming and as the global centre for Indigenous media arts. imagineNATIVE (legal entity: The Centre for Aboriginal Media) is a registered charity committed to creating a greater understanding of Indigenous peoples and cultures through the presentation of contemporary Indigenous-made media art including film, video, audio and digital media.” (imagineNATIVE, n.d.).

imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival launched in 2000 and presents in Toronto every October. They also present the annual imagineNATIVE Film & VR Tour across Canada with a focus on remote communities. This website has past archives of previous festival films and media, as well as an INdigital space for digital and interactive creations. You can find dramatic features, documentaries, feature-length and short format films, podcasts, audio works, VR, and interactive games all created by Indigenous artists.

One example of a film you can find on imagineNATIVE is this stop motion picture BIIDAABAN (The Dawn Comes). A beautifully compelling story about maple syrup and shapeshifters.

BIIDAABAN (THE DAWN COMES)

References

Ginsburg, Faye D., “Screen Memories: Resignifying the Traditional in Indigenous Media in Media Worlds: Anthropology on a New Terrain, eds. Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 39-57.

imagineNATIVE. (n.d.). Original. Indigenous. https://imaginenative.org/about

Strong, A. (Director). (2018). Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes). [Film]. CBC Gem. https://imaginenative.org/imaginenative-playlist/2020/4/6/atanarjuat-the-fast-runner-2j7rb-aw7xs