Our hearts will continue beating: Reflections on Claiming Space by Crystal Smith de Molina

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Our hearts will continue beating

 

Let me take you on a tour

Over there is our ancestors from the North

There…. Our ancestors from the South

If you walk this way…our ancestors from the East

And here are our ancestors for the West

 

If you are silent

You can still hear their hearts beating

They are now immortal

“Reminders of a distant past”…

That just happened yesterday

Some 50 years ago

And the majority are the fruit of theft 100 or so years ago

 

Living breathing beings…

Sometimes, my beings hurts

Hurts to see life without death

 

Museums should be translated that way

Museums mean: life without death

 

Though our ancestors will never rest

We are Claiming Space

Our people are still living breathing beings

And we are taking over museums

Exhibit by exhibit

 

No longer will the voices

Of our ancestors stand alone

We will shake the walls of colonialism

With our art

With our words

With our power

The kind of power that cannot be bought

 

 

Let me take you on a tour

Over there is our ancestors from the North

There…. Our ancestors from the South

If you walk this way…our ancestors from the East

And here are our ancestors for the West

 

And we are here

An Indigenous population

Alive and thriving

 

Creating our art to confuse

Creating our art to confide

Creating our art to confront

Creating art in new ways

Creating art in old ways

Creating in a mix of ways

 

And if you are silent

You can hear our hearts beating

If you won’t be silent

Our hearts will continue beating

 

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The Candy Meister

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The Candy Meister 

WARNING! This film is terrifying. Just in time for Halloween, this short film was part of the Phrike Filmfest 72 Hour Competition for which Cowboy Smithx of Noirfoot Film won Best Director.

Noirfoot Film is a Blackfoot Niitstitapi style collaborative filmmakers society dedicated strengthening the skills and talents of Directors, Cinematographers, Actors, Writers, Producers, Editors, Sound Designers, Production Designers, Story Editors, and production people from every department. The Candy Meister

This film was submitted by FNSP student Reba De Guevara.

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Spatial Resurgence: Reflecting on Claiming Space by Laura Mars

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Spatial Resurgence: Reflecting on Claiming Space
by Laura Mars

Walking through the museum of anthropology (MOA) to reach the Claiming Space exhibit was a dichotomous and affective experience. Standing in the central part of the museum, I was in full view of the lush xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) lands that surround and house this campus, this city, myself and other settlers, and the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island to whom the land is rightfully and inherently bound. I felt that I was being pulled in two directions. In the first I was overwhelmed by the beauty of these pieces, which remained powerful in spite of their context, and of the landscape surrounding them, which I am often astounded and overwhelmed by. In the second I understood the museum—and the presence of these stolen artifacts—as part of the system of settler-colonialism from which I benefit from continually as a settler, and through which Indigenous peoples are continually dispossessed. With these things in mind, I hurried through the first part of the museum, in hopeful pursuit of an exhibit that would contrast what seemed like the overarching theme of the so-called ‘permanent collection.’

As I entered the Claiming Spaces: Voices of Aboriginal Youth exhibit, I immediately sensed a shift: this specific gallery was a site of Indigenous power, agency, and reclamation. As I walked through and observed art created by Indigenous youth, I was reminded of the work of Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg writer and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, who conceptualizes Indigenous resurgence through art as the creation of “decolonized time and space” (Simpson 96). In her book Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence, Simpson discusses her experience viewing an exhibit titled Mapping Resistances – specifically the work of Nishnaabe performance artist Rebecca Belmore:

“[The piece] reminded us that we as Nishnaabeg people are living in political and cultural exile. Yet, it disrupted the narrative of normalized dispossession and intervened as Nishnaabeg presence — not as victim, but as a strong non-authoritarian Nishnaabekwe power…Indigenous artists like Belmore interrogate the space of empire, envisioning and performing ways out of it. Even if the performance only lasts twenty minutes, it is one more stone thrown in the water. It is a glimpse of a decolonized contemporary reality; it is a mirroring of what we can become.” (98)

I felt a similar disruption of this narrative of dispossession in Claiming Space, leaving room for the powerful message of Indigenous reclamation and resurgence. In Mixed Tribes, a zine created by the 2013 Native Youth Program students, Musqueam and Anishnaabe artist Kelsey Sparrow counters the complicated location of the exhibit within the walls of the museum of anthropology in her piece “This Is Not Native (?)”: “…if you want to go to Haida Gwaii because you love all the art here you should know that I have never met anyone in Charlotte City who really gives two shits about Bill Reid. This museum is about anthropology, not native people. You can learn about a part of us but not all.”

I viewed this exhibit as an incredibly necessary physical and temporal unsettling of an otherwise colonial space. Each work carried a powerful message of resurgence—even those, such as the video performance piece by Jeneen Frei Njootli, that unflinchingly tackled the ongoing effects of colonial violence upon Indigenous women in particular. I am turned back to Leanne Simpson and this idea of decolonized time and space, and art that is transformative. The Rebecca Belmore performance piece she is referring to in this discussion took place in Peterborough, which “is a bastion of colonialism” as experienced by Indigenous people (Simpson 97). “But,” Simpson says, “for twenty minutes in June, that bastion was transformed into an alternative space that provided a fertile bubble for envisioning and realizing Nishnaabeg visions of justice, voice, presence, and resurgence” (97). With a specific focus on the new medias that Indigenous youth are engaging with and shaping, Claiming Space is an important exhibit that is teeming with brilliant works of art and a powerful message of Indigenous resurgence.

_________________________________________________________________________

Belmore, Rebecca. X. 2010. Peterborough, Ontario. Performance.

Simpson, Leanne. Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence. Winnipeg. ARP Books, 2011. Print.

Sparrow, Kelsey. “This Is Not Native (?).” Mixed Tribes. Museum of Anthropology Vancouver. 2013. Web.

_________________________________________________________________________

Laura Mars is a settler student and activist originally from former Yugoslavia, living on unceded Musqueam territory. A recent addition to the First Nations Studies program, she is in her fourth year of a double major in FNSP and GRSJ. She is interested in Indigenous new media studies, intentional communities, and anti-colonial feminisms.

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FNSSA Meets Richard Wagamese

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fnssa

The First Nation Studies Students Association along with the UBC Graduate School of Journalism had the pleasure of meeting with celebrated Ojibway journalist and writer, Richard Wagemese. Richard spoke to us about storytelling and his journey as a journalist. His accounts were both profound and insightful with just the right amount of humour; the marks of a truly gifted orator and storyteller. Thank you to Richard for taking the time to speak with us and to UBC Journalism for hosting the event.

Richard was in Vancouver to speak at the Vancouver Writer’s Fest with Thomas King and Lee Maracle.

richard

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‘rhythms’ of river grass (məθkʷəy̓)

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‘rhythms’ of river grass (məθkʷəy̓)

Joey Levesque’s musical piece was put together playing on the concept of ecological ‘rhythms’ of river grass (məθkʷəy̓). Levesque felt it appropriate to compose this piece given UBC’s location on Musqueam territory. The piece was written entirely on that territory and incorporates sounds thereof (knocking on a coastal Douglas Fir and using it as a percussive element). There are several melodic elements that ‘fade’ and return cyclically, a reflection on the Musqueam name-story as detailed here. The aesthetic is not by any means ‘natural’, but I don’t see that as a contradiction.

_________________________________________________________________________

Joey Levesque is a student of English at the University of British Columbia. He hails from Vancouver and aims to enter law school after graduation, with particular interest in aboriginal, environmental, and digital issues. Joey works in music production and as a research coordinator for UBC.

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The Invisible Sun by Crystal Smith de Molina

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The Invisible Sun

Invisible

Walking as ghosts

Talking as mutes

Looked through like an endless prairie

We are Indigenous woman

The ones who are not seen

The ones who are not heard

The ones invisible

We work hard

We live

We breathe and eat

We are women

We are human

The sun

The invisible sun

The star up in the sky

They choose not to look at

Are incapable of hearing the power it lashes out

We are Indigenous woman

The ones who are not seen

The ones who are not heard

The ones invisible

We are like the sun

We hold a power

A power that is chosen not to be seen

A power unheard of

A power that burns if neglected

We are Indigenous woman

The ones who will be seen

Ones who will be heard

Ones who will bring light to their darkness

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Spirit of Our Sisters #SOSmmiw

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The First Nation Studies Student’s Association and the First Peoples Writing blog supports Blackfoot photographer Blaire Russell’s campaign to raise awareness around the over 1200 Missing and Murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Over the weekend, a group of six Indigenous women from the University of British Columbia participated in a photo series envisioned by Blaire. We participated to show our support as a group of friends who have all connected in an urban setting away from our homes.

With the emergence of several campaigns and hashtags (#n8vgirls, #AmINext, #MMIW) in response to the staggering number of missing and murdered Native women and girls on Turtle Island, Blaire and Blog Editor Anna wanted to create a platform that captures the emotion and spirit of contemporary Indigenous women and men. The feather represents our missing and murdered Native sisters. Our expressions reflect our emotions on the subject: protectiveness, sisterhood, love. In addition, photograph’s have been taken in a multitude of spaces, including the Vancouver DTES.

The photo’s create a powerful space to challenge narratives of erasure. Indigenous women are here and we are in both urban and rural spaces. Our stories are not limited to those of violence. We are diverse, intelligent and hold integral roles within our families and communities. We are mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, friends and foundational leaders in our many communities. 1200 women and girls  is an appalling number. It needs to end here.

Support the campaign through reposting and following the hashtag #SOSmmiw on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.

Follow the on-going campaign on Instagram (@spiritofoursisters).

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Always Already by Molly Billows

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Always already.

 

You like to label Indigenous peoples as a vanishing race,

try to erase us from the collective mind of the colonized State.

I imagine it’s easier for you, more convenient

if we have this inevitable fate hanging over us.

Easier, more convenient, to mourn for what was lost

rather than acknowledge your own role in destroying it.

Easier to hide behind your Imperialist Nostalgia.1

More convenient to continually frame Indigeneity as fragile, as

always already.

 

Always already vanishing.

Always already lost.

Always already dying.

Always already past.2

Always already.

 

Always: a strict checklist of prescribed expectations.

Always: leaving no room for unexpected behaviors, and definitely no alterations, but

always allowing for just a few anomalies– to reinforce imposed limitations.

Set definitions. Confine possibilities, so that

always already expectations become believed inevitabilities.3

Always already.

 

Expectations become so naturalized,

we forget to question where they came from in the first place.

Forget to question the ethnographic voice of Imperialist Anthropologists,

who whisper definitions in our ears as we sleep.

Forget that this ‘objective’ voice has mastered the art of telling dehumanized stories:

Observations void of emotions, then

we wonder where this notion of the ‘Stoic Indian’ came from, when

annotations about cultures leave no room for feelings or relationships.

Stuck in time. Snapshot definitions leave no room for malleability or transition.

 

And these constructed shadows of cultures still echo through history textbooks,

contextualizing the Native experience always already in the past tense:

 

 

As we become objects instead of subjects

in the sentences you create to justify your dominance.

 

In the same way women are objectified

so violence against us can become somehow justified in the eyes of the oppressor.

 

For us Inconvenient Indians,4

you use the same convenient reasoning:

 

Bodies inherently rapeable.

Land inherently invadable.

Resources inherently extractable.5

Cultures inherently erasable.

Whole peoples inherently incapable of being real.

 

But as much as you seek to steal,

our land,

our language,

our identities,

 

We are still here.

And that is your secret fear:

that actually, we will never disappear;

that we have always,

and will always,

be right here.

 

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________

1 Rosaldo, R. (1989). Imperialist Nostalgia. In Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis

(68-87). Boston: Beacon Press.

2 Lew, J. (2014). Lecture given in FNSP 300: Writing First Nations. Vancouver, BC.

3 Deloria, P. (2004). Introduction. In Anomaly and Expectation (3-14). Lawrence: University

Press of Kansas.

4 King, Thomas. (2012). The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North

America. Canada: Anchor Canada.

5 Smith, A. (2014, January 24). Decolonizing the Anti-Violence Movement. Lecture given during

UBC’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month. At Sty-Wet-Tan Hall, Vancouver, BC.

 

 

Molly Billows is from the Homalco Nation. She is in her final year studying Indigenous Peoples and Land Health in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems. She wrote this poem last semester during FNSP 300 Writing First Nations, taught by Janey Lew. 

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Message from the President

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Hey there, Matthew Ward here, incoming President of FNSSA and also UBC’s unofficial resident pizza-lover. I am from Driftpile Cree Nation in Northern Alberta and am going into my…5th (ugh) year here at UBC and have been involved with the First Nations Studies Program (yay!) for 2 years. During this time, I’ve done a lot of learning, and with that, a lot of growing.

I’ve had to take seriously questions surrounding my identity; my Cree father and white mother, and the critical identity politics that surround being a full-status, yet mixed-identity Indigenous person. I’ve had to confront my queer identity, as a gay man, and how that positions me within my school, Vancouver, my family, my community (Driftpile Cree Nation), my hometown (Slave Lake, Alberta), my relationships, my language, and my culture. It seems hard to believe that I’ve only been involved with FNSSA for a year and a half, and in that time have been able to contribute to the community through supporting the fantastic projects that have come to life through this student group; from the journal (coming soon!) to the blog (where you’re reading this!). From our fantastic member-appreciation events (Double DD Pizza anyone?) to the successful fundraisers (like the $1200 raised this past Spring!). None of this would have been possible without the support of our team, and the community we have built. Our support for one another is matched only by our accountability to each other. With FNSSA, I’ve been given the opportunity to explore my identity and ask difficult questions around people that, not only genuinely care, but are experiencing these life changing (and often crisis-inducing) questions too!

As a club, we operate so closely in our personal lives, our academic lives, and our extracurricular activities that we get comfortable sitting together, walking together, spending every waking moment together (kidding, but only a little). I’m here to tell you that you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about if you are wanting to get involved with our tight group! FNSSA is an inclusive community that values all of its members, new and old, and the wonderful contributions they make! What made becoming a part of FNSSA so easy is that I didn’t need to know everything about myself or the world, I didn’t need to be able to explain how I live decolonization through my life, and I definitely didn’t need to be Indigenous (though I am). What mattered to this group of people was that I supported the work we felt was right, ensured everything we did was rooted in giving back to the community, and to make sure we held each other accountable to our actions. It is through these values that I’ve lived the last 3 years of my life at UBC, and it is these values that I give credit to for the many successes our student club and its fantastic members have achieved. This club has supported me at my highs and lows, and has been a contributing factor in my decision to continue my studies in academia. As one of many leaders in FNSSA, I want to ensure that this space, this club, continues to offer that to FNSP students, UBC students, Indigenous peoples, and non-Indigenous peoples. All it took was for me to show up at a meeting where I didn’t know a single person (which happened to be the first meeting for the journal) and 1.5 years later, here I am among many others, working to better our communities, challenging each other, growing, and having fun along the way.

It is my hope that through this post, you will see just how amazing FNSSA has been; a highlight of my experience here at the University of British Columbia, and I want you all to be a part of it. FNSSA is always looking for fun, passionate, and excited people to take on a multitude of projects. Among those already stated, we’ve presented at conferences (F-Word, Student Leadership Conference), we’ve facilitated workshops, and we manage online content through our blog and a social media presence on Facebook. We’ve engaged multiple levels of community organizations, faculties, and student groups in dialogue around Indigenous issues on and off campus. We’ve got a number of upcoming projects in the works too AND we host really fun parties so we can get our groove on!

All this and more could be yours, and I sincerely hope you get to experience what I’ve had the opportunity to experience being a part of this fantastic student club. If you’re interested in getting involved, like us on Facebook to find out when our meetings are, send an email to fnssa.ubc@gmail.com. As an alternative, you can contact me personally at mattward.ubc@gmail.com.

I look forward to (hopefully) getting a chance to know you!

Many thanks, and keep it real,

Matt Ward

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