Tag Archives: art

Module #4 – Post #3: Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival

The Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival (VIMAF) recently wrapped up its third annual event last week. This year’s festival ran from the 6 – 11 of November and hosted a number of events across downtown Vancouver, with venues ranging from the Central Library to SFU Woodwards to the NFB. The festival is an opportunity for indigenous artists working in the field to showcase their works, and perhaps even more importantly, for the public to engage with these artists in the issues surrounding indigeneity in a contemporary context.

While the works featured and the topics discussed at VIMAF may diverge from traditional indigenous artistic expression, the organizers of the festival stress the underlying element that ties together the variety of works showcased over the course of the week: storytelling. In this sense, new media technologies have provided indigenous artists with a new venue, a new voice in which to relate their histories, traditions, and contemporary issues with not just their own communities, but with the wider public.

The festival’s programming includes screenings, panel discussions, workshops and networking opportunities that help indigenous artists in the field to build personal and industry connections. Full details from this year’s festival can be found here.

Module 3 Weblog – Post #5 – Promoting Indigenous Media Arts

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After viewing the numerous short films and documentaries offered in Module 3, and in my continuing research to understand the role of digital media in Indigenous culture and education, I have been seeking out resources having to do film making and new media creation. One such source of these resources that I have recently discovered is the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition (NIMAC). NIMAC is the Indigenous branch of the Independent Media Arts Alliance (IMAA).

NIMAC promotes and advocates for the work of Indigenous media artists and arts organizations. The coalition has a variety of initiatives including advocacy, the commissioning of works, artistic residencies and the maintenance of resources for Indigenous media artists on the NIMAC website. Two very helpful sections of the NIMAC website are the Training and Education page and the Tool Kits. These two areas of the site provide a very thorough idea of the organizations and programs across the country that support the development of new media materials by and for Indigenous people.

Module #3 – Post #5: A.I.R.S. Art Project

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As part of the Truth and Reconciliation Week in Vancouver this past September, survivors of the Alberni Indian Residential School were honoured in a ceremony that formally announced the return of an important link to their past: their art.

The former art teacher at the school had kept approximately 80 pieces of artwork created by students over 40 years ago, which were bequeathed to the University of Victoria upon his death. As part of the TRC initiative, the university set out to locate the surviving artists and their families to return the works to their rightful owners.

As Chief Councillor Jeff Cook acknowledges in his speech, the art classroom was, for many children, the only escape from the regimented schedule and demands of life in a residential school. Considering that many children upon first arriving at a residential school could not speak English (or French), art provided them with an opportunity to express themselves non-verbally. From the collection that the university acquired, several recurring themes and images appear, from depictions of their communities, the land and way of life, to expressing emotions surrounding life in the residential school.

The artwork not only provides us with a greater sense of how children perceived their experiences at residential schools, but as Cook points out, is valuable for the survivors to confront as a means of reconciling their pasts.

Watch the entire ceremony here. The presentation by the University of Victoria and Chief Councillor Jeff Cook begins around the 21:45 mark.

Module 2 – Post 5 – Who Owns Native Culture?

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The first reading on Dr. Norman Stanfield’s UBC blog page “Canada’s First Nations Music and Dance” is a book by Michael Brown called Who Owns Native Culture? Brown has now created a website by the same name that includes current issues relating to the ownership of indigenous culture. This site has a page called “Protecting Native Art and Music” which includes many links to articles and websites related to the topic.

Module 2 – Post 3 – Ethnomusicology

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Dr. Norman Stanfield is a lecturer with the UBC School of Music where he teaches two courses. One is on the Introduction to the Study of Ethnomusicology and the other is called Introduction to the Study of Popular Music. He has a UBC blog that is used as a compliment to these courses. It includes the syllabi for his courses as well as pages on various aspects of each course. One page is titled “Canada’s First Nations Music and Dance” that includes a list of readings and links related to this field. Many of these have provided me with a great starting point to continue my research into indigenous music.

Module 2 – Post 2 – Native Drums

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The website Native Drums is a site about First Nations culture and music in Canada. While it’s focus is on the drum and indigenous music, it also includes many stories and myths about First Nations culture. There is a wealth of information on the site from videos of drum making and performance to lesson plans on the physics of sound. This site is funded through the Canadian Content Online Program of the Government of Canada’s Canadian Heritage Department. It was put together by a team from Carlton University, lead by Dr. Elaine Keillor who says the site was developed to allow Aboriginal music and musicians to “not have the information filtered through the eyes of teachers and academic(s) of the dominant culture within Canada.” (Carlton University, 2006)

Carlton University. (2006). Canadian Geographic Sounds the Beat of Native Drums. Retrieved from http://www.carleton.ca/fass/2006/canadian-geographic-sounds-the-beat-of-native-drums/

Module #2 – Post #4: An Argument for Arts-Based Education

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At the core of the DAREarts philosophy is the desire to empower students, to build their self-esteem and leadership potential, and to encourage students to become agents of change in their own lives and communities.

With its arts-based, community and holistic approach to education, its no surprise that the DAREarts program has been attractive to many First Nations (mainly in Ontario where the foundation originates) that have struggled with a steady decline in high school completion for decades. This has and continues to lead to issues such as unemployment, poverty and suicide in First Nations communities where a lack of education has resulted in a lack of opportunities for young people especially.

What leaders in communities such as Webequie FN have observed, however, is that the DAREarts program has infused the youth in their communities with a sense of purpose and belonging that the regular curriculum and school system has failed to do. Chief Cornelius Wabasse of the Webequie FN cites the fact that since the curriculum is arts-based, there is greater room for adaptability and a general feeling of accomplishment. I’d go a bit further by placing a value on indigenous knowledge, skills and culture, in addition to the holistic philosophy of the program, provides students with a greater sense of emotional fulfillment that translates into greater confidence.

Click here to read more about the impact of the DAREarts program on First Nations communities in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Module #2 – Post #2: The Work of Sonny Assu

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I first encountered Sonny Assu’s work a few years ago as part of the Beat Nation exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. What struck me about his work was the fusion of traditional coastal motifs with pop sensibilities, which had the unique effect of presenting imagery that incorporated what is considered to be traditional First Nations iconography with familiar objects derived from a Western, consumer culture. Assu appropriates aspects of consumer culture as a means of exploring the impact of Western culture and colonialism on the culture, history and identity of First Nations in Canada, something that is well-represented in works such as “Ellipsis” and “Breakfast Series.”

With “Ellipsis,” Assu forged 136 vinyl records out of copper that served to represent the audio recordings taken during the early-twentieth century of coastal First Nations songs (and also represent the 136 years of the Indian Act at the time of the instillation), which at the time of their recording were prohibited from being sung in any context, apart from requests by anthropologists who wished to document the last remnants of First Nations cultures before their perceived (at the time) demise. What is reflected in the work, therefore, is the apprehension by many indigenous cultures to make available through mass produced technologies certain cultural traditions that might be appropriated or misused for purposes that are disrespectful. In addition, the work speaks out against the racist policies that the Canadian government has inflicted upon First Nations peoples for centuries, a theme that Assu explores in a number of works including “The Happiest Future” and “Product (RES).”

I was also intrigued by the works presented in the series iDrum and iPotlach, both of which explore the contentious relationship between digital technologies and First Nations oral traditions, which the tagline: “5000 Ancestors in Your Pocket” delivers in a perhaps less than subtle fashion.

To see more, and to read some of Assu’s intriguing artist statements, make your way to http://sonnyassu.com.

Module 2 – Post 1 – Old Connections

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I had a very interesting and personal day of research for my project. While looking for contemporary indigenous musicians, I stumbled upon the SoundCloud site of one of my childhood best friend’s younger brother. Dean Hunt (a.k.a DJ Deano) is a member of an “Indigenous Audio-Visual crew” called Skookum Sound System based in Sechelt, BC. After further research, I found that he is also doing First Nations carving as his father, J. Bradley Hunt, did while we were growing up. I was able to find that my childhood friend, Shawn Hunt, is also involved in many fine arts media including carving, painting, sculpture, and jewelry. It looks like he is doing very well, as he received the British Columbia Creative Achievement Award in 2011 and has exhibited his work at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, the McCord Museum in Montreal, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and the Bill Reid Gallery and Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.

Looks like it’s time to get reacquainted with them!

Research Interest: Identity, the Arts, and New Media Technologies

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Through the use of this blog, I would like to gain a greater understanding of contemporary Aboriginal cultural identity, specifically in a Canadian context. I feel that the arts provide a valuable lens from which to explore this topic, as art forms such as music, dance, carving, and textiles have long played a pivotal role in First Nations culture. The arts provided artists and communities with ways of preserving traditions, history and affirming a shared sense of tribal identity, something that was adversely affected by the federal laws that restricted or prohibited traditional practices, and of course the residential school system that separated children from their families over several generations.

As First Nations communities attempt to heal the scars of these traumatic experiences, I’m curious to know what role the arts are playing in revitalizing Aboriginal cultural traditions and strengthening a sense of purpose and identity in the twenty-first century. In addition to revitalizing traditional art forms, new technologies such as video, audio recording and digital art software provide First Nations artists with an opportunity to create new works of art that merge tradition with modernity. The integration of new technologies, re-interpretations of traditional art forms and the influence of media produced by non-aboriginal artists, however, presents new challenges and questions about the meaning, purpose and sanctity of Aboriginal art that I feel is worth exploring.