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In this edition, we consider Ancestral materiality, intellectual traditions and expressions spanning the great oceans, skies and lands connecting the kin and Country of First Peoples from around the world. We see the artistic, economic and cultural paradigms as a reflection on life and death, on black holes and shining stars illuminated as constellations in the night skies from the times of our Ancestors and traced in the footprints made on the lands we travel.

Artists and cultural practitioners from Indigenous communities around the world are increasingly in the international spotlight. As museums and curators race to consider the planetary reach of their art collections and exhibitions, this publication draws upon the challenges faced today by cultural workers, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to engage meaningfully and ethically with the histories, presents and futures of Indigenous cultural practices and world-views. Sixteen Indigenous voices convene to consider some of the most burning questions surrounding this field. How will novel methodologies of word/voice-crafting be constituted to empower the Indigenous discourses of the future? Is it sufficient to expand the Modernist art-historical canon through the politics of inclusion? Is this expansion a new form of colonisation, or does it foster the cosmopolitan thought that Indigenous communities have always inhabited? To whom does the much talked-of 'Indigenous Turn' belong? Does it represent a hegemonic project of introspection and revision in the face of today's ecocidal, genocidal and existential crises?"--Page 4 de la couverture. Autres auteurs/titres:edited by Katya García-Antón ; contributors, Daniel Browning, Kabita Chakma, Megan Cope, Santosh Kumar Das, Hannah Donnelly, Léuli Māzyār Luna'i Eshrāghi, David Garneau, Biung Ismahasan, Kimberley Moulton, Máret Ánne Sara, Venkat Raman Singh Shyam, Irene Snarby, Ánde Somby, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Prashanta Tripura, Sontosh Bikash Tripura.

During the last five decades we have witnessed an increase in activity among artists identifying themselves as Sami, the only recognised indigenous people of Scandinavia. At the same time, art and duodji (traditional Sami art and craft) have been organized and institutionalized, not least by the Sami artists themselves.

This article aims to answer two questions. The first is: What is a Sámi art museum? The second question considers whether there is no Sámi art museum, as assumed by the Nordnorsk kunstmuseum (NNKM) as the title of a museum performance and exhibition in 2017. To answer the first question, it is necessary to tell the long story of the Sámi cultural-historical museum in Karasjok, Samiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (SVD). This museum was inaugurated in 1972 as an act of resistance against the increasing assimilation politics towards the Sámi population in the post-war period. The building that was erected became a cultural and political centre, and a living cultural institution that housed the increasing Sámi ethno-political movement and its energy. Furthermore, as I will argue, the activity that took place at the site became a part of Sámi cultural heritage. The museum has also collected art since 1972 - a collection that today comprises 1400 artworks. Since the 1980s, various plans have been made for a Sámi art museum in a separate building, somehow connected to SVD, however, none of these plans have yet been realised. The article discusses the different reasons for this, and points to the connotations embedded in the SVD building as a cultural and political centre as one of the contributing factors. To answer the question of whether there is no Sámi art museum, a critical reading of the Nordnorsk kunstmuseum’s 2017 museum performance There Is No is necessary. My answer to the question is that NNKM, unfortunately, fell into several traps in their attempt to focus on the fact that there is no physical building. One such trap, that is very common in Western museums displaying indigenous art, is their use of traditional art-historical models as interpretive lenses when displaying indigenous art. A different concept of what an art museum could be today, as a place where things happen, where we could meet counter narratives, or Sámi art and culture could be presented as being part of the present as well as the past and future, would have been closer to a Sámi art museum. I offer this conclusion both through the deeper understanding of Sámi cultural and ethno-political movements as offered in the story of SVD, and through my reading of the theories of the indigenous American scholar John Paul Rangel. While there may indeed be no physical building claiming to be a Sámi art museum, it does in fact exist through the Sámi concept of árbevierru.

Performing Resistance/ Negotiating Sovereignty: Indigenous Women’s Performance Art In Canada investigates the contemporary production of Indigenous performance and video art in Canada in terms of cultural continuance, survivance and resistance. Drawing on critical Indigenous methodology, which foregrounds the necessity of privileging multiple Indigenous systems of knowledge, it explores these themes through the lenses of storytelling, decolonization, activism, and agency. With specific reference to performances by Rebecca Belmore, Lori Blondeau, Cheryl L'Hirondelle, Skeena Reece and Dana Claxton, as well as others, it argues that Indigenous performance art should be understood in terms of i) its enduring relationship to activism and resistance ii) its ongoing use as a tool for interventions in colonially entrenched spaces, and iii) its longstanding role in maintaining self-determination and cultural sovereignty.

Homi Bhabha’s pivotal 1994 book,The Location of Culture, begins with an epigraph from Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking”: “A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from whichsomething begins its presencing.” Cultural engagement, whether antagonistic or affiliative in nature, is produced performatively – not as a reflection of something that is given or set in stone, but as an ongoing process of negotiation.

his thesis documents and explores community-based and socially engaged art by Indigenous women artists. Their artwork is impacting and strengthening communities in Manitoba. The Thesis explores the use of dialogical aesthetics in performance and socially-engaged art by Indigenous women artists in rural and remote areas of Manitoba, and relates these aesthetics to the concept of activism through their art and relationship to their community. The aim of this research and this paper is to document, support and expose the work of a small pocket of Indigenous women artists in Manitoba who are acting as activists or social change agents based on their artwork. I have arrived at this conclusion first by their personal testimonies, second, by their art being socially conscious and lastly, by their art practices entrenched in the framework of dialogical aesthetics, community-based and site-specific ideologies.

The cityscape holds the memories of indigenous bones and bodies that resurrect a deep sense of place that exists in the landscape of the city of Toronto. This deep sense of place is part of a connection to the land and stories of place. In this article, the author bridges the creative work of Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore with the living histories of the indigenous bodies and bones that are buried beneath the ground of the city of Toronto and the city of Vancouver. She argues that Belmore's artwork is part of the living archive that performs cultural memory and employs telling as part of an embodied experience and a political act. Belmore's performance work creates, records, and stores indigenous stories of place. This article uses the ideas of cultural theorists Katherine McKittrick, Mishuana Goeman, and Matthew Sparke. Each of these people brings a different element to theories of the body and space. This article also uses feminist geographers Alison Blunt and Gillian Rose's work in women's colonial geographies to unpack the affects of the map in colonial spaces and the colonial gaze. (Contains 4 figures and 50 notes.)

"This book investigates international Indigenous methodologies in art curatorial practice from the geographic spaces of Canada, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia. From a perspective of Indigenous peoples important place within society, this collection explores how Indigenous art and culture operate within and from a structural framework that is unique and is positioned outside of the non-Indigenous cultural milieu. Through a selection of contributions, Becoming Our Future articulates this perspective, defines Indigenous curatorial practice and celebrates Indigenous sovereignty within the three countries. It begins to explore the connections and historical moments that draw Indigenous curatorial practices together and the differences that set them apart. This knowledge is grounded in continuous international exchanges and draws on the breadth of work within the field. With contributions by Nigel Borell, Nici Cumpston, Freja Carmicheal, Karl Chitham, Franchesca Cubillo, Léuli Eshraghi, Reuben Friend, Jarita Greyeyes, Heather Igloliorte, Jaimie Isaac, Carly Lane, Michelle LaVallee, Cathy Mattes, Bruce McLean, Kimberley Moulton, Lisa Myers, Julie Nagam, Wanda Nanibush, Jolene Rickard, Megan Tamati-Quennell, and Daina Warren."-- Provided by publisher.

Art, performance, and spoken or now written text, all belong to the same register of cultural practice in the First Nations I am familiar with or belong to: ceremony. This ceremonial register takes place in a set of spaces created to enact cultural responsibilities to place, people and balance. Galleries and museums, as sites of cultural production and presentation, have the potential to nurture new ceremonies and new working methods.

L’auteure soutient que le documentaire de 2016 d’Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Angry Inuk (Inuk en colère), crée, grâce au cinéma, des espaces de « souveraineté visuelle » centrés sur l’« agentivité sensorielle » inuite (Raheja, 2010 ; Robinson, 2016). La réalisatrice propose un recadrage, selon un point de vue inuit, de la rhétorique dominante entourant la chasse aux phoques, pratique décriée violemment par des groupes de défense des droits des animaux. Plus qu’une simple réfutation de ces discours sudistes, ce film met de l’avant les connaissances inuites en lien avec le territoire et la gestion des ressources et remet en question les argumentaires libératoires soutenus par ces organismes, dont les raisonnements reconduisent des dynamiques coloniales plutôt que de les ébranler. Comme l’évoque son titre, le documentaire riposte à l’ire des protestataires anti-chasse aux phoques (dont la voix s’impose souvent au détriment des voix inuites, généralement tues), en créant un espace d’expression pour la colère inuite, présentée à la fois comme carburant et comme point de départ légitime et valide de la lutte contre les organismes en question. De façon centrale, le film met en scène des récits de chasse aux phoques s’appuyant sur une « agentivité sensorielle » inuite qui, aux yeux de Dylan Robinson, se manifeste sous la forme de « modes d’expression qui, à la fois, affirment une force culturelle et exercent une puissance affective auprès des personnes présentes ». Arnaquq-Baril propose ainsi des représentations de rires partagés, d’un froid ressenti, de sons joyeux de consommation communautaire de diverses parties du phoque, de même que des photos tirées de la campagne Twitter menée autour du mot-clic #sealfie ; cette campagne médiatique, ancrée dans une célébration humoristique et fière de la chasse inuite aux phoques, se veut en ce sens un contre-point au discours affectif simpliste et méprisant des organismes anti-chasse. En s’articulant autour de la résilience complexe propre aux Inuits, Inuk en colère incarne en soi une forme de souveraineté inuite, s’imposant au sein des récits qui participent à la sensibilisation du public quant aux enjeux entourant cette chasse. En outre, le film invite l’auditoire à réfléchir aux avenirs autochtones et à envisager de quelles manières l’activisme pour la défense des droits des animaux peut être décolonisé afin qu’il ne mène pas à la reconduction de dynamiques violentes d’extractivisme et de colonisation.

Haerenga Wairua / Spiritual Journeys explore le cinéma maori en tant que 4e cinéma, dans son articulation de la spiritualité maorie comme un ensemble de croyances et de pratiques vivantes et d’une grande pertinence pour ce XXIe siècle. Après une brève description des termes et croyances clés, l’auteure analyse deux longs-métrages de fiction récents, The Strength of Water (Armagan Ballantyne, scr Briar Grace-Smith, NZ & Allemagne 2009) et The Pā Boys (Himiona Grace, NZ, 2014) comme emblématiques des pratiques cinématographiques autochtones, en ce qu’ils mettent fortement en avant différents niveaux et expériences de transformation spirituelle, via divers voyages au propre comme au figuré : voyages réels, voyages psychologiques ET expériences après la mort, donc voyages spirituels. Positionnant ces films dans le contexte des traditions spirituelles de narration littéraire et cinématographique, l’auteure explore les diverses techniques filmiques et cinématographiques mises en œuvre pour rendre l’expérience spirituelle, via le son et l’image, en mettant en évidence les liens avec la Terre, l’Eau et l’environnement naturel en tant qu’éléments spirituels et souvent surnaturels. Alors que ces derniers sont généralement interprétés par les critiques et chercheurs allochtones comme étant de l’ordre du fantastique, dans le discours établi du réalisme magique, l’auteure avance plutôt que les représentations autochtones ne peuvent être ni expliquées ni contenues de manière adéquate par ce terme, et propose à sa place celui de « réalisme spirituel autochtone ». L’auteure conclut en soulignant la pertinence de voix autochtones comme celles-là, qui expriment une spiritualité enracinée dans l’interdépendance de tous êtres et de toutes choses : force de guérison dans notre planète meurtrie.

In this interview, multidisciplinary artist Caroline Monnet discusses how acts of critical self-representation open up new spaces for territorial, linguistic, and identity negotiations and affirmations for Indigenous creators. In this sense, Monnet expresses her desire to put forward exuberant, strong, and diverse representations of Indigenous women in order to counter pervasive rhetorical dynamics of victimhood conveyed by mass media and cinema. As she presents some of the visual and discursive techniques she develops through her films, installations, and photographic works, Monnet reflects on the constructive dialogues – as well as the moments of incommunicability – that emerge and fade within various spaces and contexts of creation and reception. She considers that her individual and collective creative projects fall within a pivotal period of self-determination for Indigenous artists; she thus provides a critical overview of current discourses of (re)concililation.

This article examines how “colonial time” is called into question in two short films of the National Film Board of Canada’s series Souvenir, from 2015. The question of time lies at the heart of this series, for which the NFB commissioned contemporary Indigenous filmmakers to take up their archives of visual material on Indigenous peoples. The colonial temporal framework is at work in the vast archives of ethnographic and documentary film and photography on Indigenous peoples dating back to the early twentieth century, in which Indigenous people are often represented as part of “vanishing” cultures. Thus, in this article, I underscore the temporal interruptions that occur when ethnographic visual material of Indigenous peoples is put into the hands of contemporary Indigenous artists. I focus first on what it means to repurpose dehumanizing colonial archives and ask whether visual sovereignty is in fact possible within the archives. By analyzing the reappropriation of archival footage in the short films Mobilize by Caroline Monnet and Etlinisigu’niet (Bleed Down) by Jeff Barnaby, I elucidate how the filmmakers break with modes of colonial time through what I propose to call “reframings” that offer alternative ways of conceiving of time. By rehabilitating ethnographic images, these filmmakers refuse to project the material into the distant past and complicate the readability of Indigenous images in the archives, revealing how the reappropriation of old images can be just as powerful as the production of new ones.

Cet article se penche sur les relations et collaborations récentes entre les cinéastes autochtones et québécois. Une brève exploration des représentations autochtones antérieures et du contexte contemporain de co-réalisation Québec/Autochtonie nous permet d’esquisser un portrait plus nuancé des nouvelles configurations transnationales du paysage cinématographique québécois. De même, les notions d’autochtonisation du médium, de souveraineté visuelle et de survivance nous aideront à mieux cerner les œuvres de fiction réalisées par des cinéastes autochtones, qui contribuent à l’enrichissement d’un cinéma qui propose de nouvelles façons d’habiter les territoires québécois/autochtones.

Marie-Hélène Cousineau, qui regroupe des femmes inuits de la communauté d’Igloolik, utilise la vidéo pour démontrer l’importance de la femme inuit dans le développement et la cohésion de l’unité sociale et familiale de l’Arctique (passé, présent et futur). Soulignant la spécificité culturelle des femmes d’Igloolik, ainsi que la portée universelle de questions reliées par exemple à la maternité, au pouvoir et au potentiel des femmes qui sont considérées comme des agents de changement sociétal participant à la transmission et au renouvellement de la connaissance traditionnelle, les cinéastes d’Arnait ont participé à des projets novateurs (telle que l’initiative Live from the Toundra) où les outils technologiques (Internet, blogues, capsules vidéos, radio, satellite) ont servis à établir des ponts entre les di érentes communautés du Nord."

Résumé livre : "L’intersectionnalité, telle qu’élaborée par les féministes noires dans les années 1980, permet de réfléchir aux rapports de pouvoir dans leur complexe enchevêtrement. Au-delà d’un certain effet de mode, cette éthique est plus que jamais nécessaire pour comprendre le monde, à l’aube d’une décennie marquée par un virus ayant partout exacerbé la violence et les inégalités, et mis en évidence les systèmes de privilèges. Et qu’arrive-t-il lorsque l’on porte ce regard attentif sur les médias ? Les textes rassemblés dans cet ouvrage explorent avec aplomb les questions de l’inclusion et de l’exclusion médiatiques. Que décoder du traitement média réservé au port du hijab dans le sport, aux agressions sexuelles à l’endroit des femmes noires et autochtones, ou encore, de la place de la sourditude et des transidentités dans l’espace public? Un recueil qui amène son lot de réponses éclairantes et douloureuses, une rareté dans le paysage des études culturelles et médiatiques francophones."--Page 4 de la couverture

"Between the late 1970s and the early 2000s, at least sixty-five women, many of them members of Indigenous communities, were found murdered or reported missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. In a work driven by the urgency of this ongoing crisis, which extends across the country, Amber Dean offers a timely, critical analysis of the public representations, memorials, and activist strategies that brought the story of Vancouver's disappeared women to the attention of a wider public. Remembering Vancouver's Disappeared Women traces "what lives on" from the violent loss of so many women from the same neighborhood. Dean interrogates representations that aim to humanize the murdered or missing women, asking how these might inadvertently feed into the presumed dehumanization of sex work, Indigeneity, and living in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Taking inspiration from Indigenous women's research, activism, and art, she challenges readers to reckon with our collective implication in the ongoing violence of settler colonialism and to accept responsibility for addressing its countless injustices

In the last decade or so, cinema has revealed itself to be an ideal medium for the transfer and/or remediation of the spoken word as well as stories coming from oral tradition and Indigenous culture. Indeed, cinema is a place of expression which favours cyclical creativity and contributes to the decolonization of stereotyped images propagated by external voices that do not understand the subtleties of languages (real and symbolic) that are anchored in indigenous peoples’ cultural memory. By exploring indigenous cinema as practised by women of diverse nations, this piece demonstrates how cinema can induce the compression and dilation of time, to bring to the audience the fluidity of a story that has been reconfigured according to a new time and carried by spoken words that have chosen to either emancipate themselves from the image or to materialize themselves in it. Furthermore, this article illustrates how a new generation of Indigenous women use cinema to retrace and/or rewrite their personal narrative with the help of autobiographical or collective stories that travel back in time to fill in the blanks left by a fragile memory and to express their will to make peace with a difficult colonial past. Finally, the writings of Lee Maracle (I Am Woman, 1988) and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine (Manifeste Assi, 2014) are being brought forth to show how films such as Suckerfish (Lisa Jackson, 2004) Bithos (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, 2015) and Four Faces of the Moon (Amanda Strong, 2016) contribute to the individual and community healing of Indigenous peoples of Canada, through an aesthetic of reconciliation. The exploration of these works, therefore allows us to shed light on and better understand the roles/internal mechanisms of visual autobiographies in the larger context of reconciliation with individual and collective stories/memories.

Les porte-bébés et les paniers d'écorce autochtones sont, en tant que réceptacles, conçus pour porter et tenir. Outre cette fonction, ils sont aussi détenteurs d'histoires, de mémoire, et de liens familiaux. Créés individuellement et ornementés avec soin, ces objets constituent une sorte de portrait des femmes qui les ont produits, ainsi que des générations qui ont hérité des pratiques et des motifs servant à les fabriquer. En élargissant la définition de la notion de portrait de famille, cet article considère deux objets provenant de Bear Island, en Ontario. Le premier est un porte-bébé ayant appartenu à Madeline Katt Theriault, et le deuxième est un panier d'écorce vraisemblablement créé parson arrière-grand-mère Angele Katt. Par leur parenté, ces réceptacles englobent une histoire multigénérationnelle qui s'étend de l'arrière-grand-mère à son arrière-petite-fille