guilt-trippin' Art

As a country, Canada tends to have a much more peaceful reputation then it's history would reveal (The previous reading room residents Katie Earle and Sarah Nesbitt tackled some of this subject matter in their thought provoking and hauntingly beautiful exhibition at the VAV earlier this fall). I have chosen to take a closer look at some of Canada's educational institutions, what's going on inside and what are the promises they are making to us as students and Canadian society as a whole. I've been trying to do some snooping around Montreal's other universities, trying to see what feels like in an UQAM student's shoes for a day, or the prestige of Mcgill's "Ivy League of Canada" repuation...damn that place has a wicked library (and reading room- but the staff at ours is way sexier). Anyways, before I get myself into too much trouble I wanted to share with you a great electronic resource from the big Mc, In my serching for some "Canadian propaganda", I came across a bank of propaganda posters from the first and second world war. enjoy

How To: Concordia's Visual Identity

all of the following information can be found on Concordia's Communications and Print Graphics Standards Manual and The Faculty of Fine Arts Graphic Standards and Procedures Manual

The overwhelming view of Concordia is that we are a daring, approachable and engaged university; an institution that is rich in diversity and committed to the highest standards of learning and research. Based on this information, University Communications Services was given the mandate to examine how Concordia communicates its key messages visually, in speeches, and through published and electronic media. They identified four characteristics as being essential guides for our visual expression and key messages. These are: high quality, daring, diversity, and approachability.

Our logo is a symbol of our commitment to innovation, excellence and involvement in our community. It reflects our growth and development, the renewal of our campuses, and above all our vision of becoming a leading university in Canada. All Concordians and alumni from each of our founding institutions should be proud of this logo. It preserves our heritage by maintaining the emblems that speak so eloquently of our past, and transforms these symbols into a dynamic expression of our confidence in our future.

-Concordia Colour Palette:
Burgundy: C = 0, M = 100, Y = 60, K = 46
Gold: C = 0, M = 25, Y = 50, K = 35
Light Gold: C = 0, M = 15, Y = 30, K = 21

- Fine Arts Visual Identity Standards:
1. Horizontal line (in Concordia burgundy) with a rough or hand-drawn feel, which represents a connecting thread between the departments, units and Faculty;
2. Required Concordia graphic signature (book element) appropriately integrated into the horizontal line.
3. Department or Faculty of Fine Arts logo (primary) with option of adding the Concordia logo where visually appropriate.
4. Gill Sans as the primary title or body text font (no Ultra Bold or Black); 5. Composite image representing each department and the Faculty, presented in a diamond-like shape on a white background withthe horizontal line running through it.

was the old logo really that bad?


and here are some P.C. tips courtesy of the Editorial Style Guide,

INSTEAD OF: Professionals and their wives….
USE: Professionals and their partners are welcome at the event.

INSTEAD OF: Each applicant must send two copies of his academic record….
USE: Send two copies of your academic record to the Registrar’s Office. Or All applicants should send two copies of their academic records.

INSTEAD OF: Professors worked closely with the Chinese on the project.
USE: The Chinese community worked closely with professors on the project.

INSTEAD OF: John Capobianco praised his grad student John-Christopher.
USE: John Capobianco gave PhD candidate John-Christopher Boyer enthusiastic praise for his contributions to their research project.

i n s i g n i a

One of my favorite forms of visual wartime propaganda are printed textiles. We are all familiar with posters of saluting soldiers and the rays of a rising sun in the background, but printed cloth was a much more subtle form of propaganda, one which could be transformed into everyday garments. The library has some great books available with many examples, like this silk scarf from Wearing propaganda: textiles on the home front in Japan, Britain, and the United States, 1931-1945

And this repeat print on cotton, which would have been used as yardage for garments from Soviet textiles: designing the modern utopia

Printed clothing is a powerful way to express your identity, weather it’s your favorite band or affirming your school pride. Much like the printed cloth mentioned above, your school sweatpants are not only a way of advertising the institution, but also reaffirming a belief in a brighter future. Just like this lady sporting her McGill gear.

Hi There

It's me, the mysterious fine arts reading room resident Pippa making my first attempt at a post here. I've been awful quiet with my research but I thought I'd share some of my findings with you. I’m currently investigating the post secondary educational institution’s visual imagery as a form of propaganda. Montreal, which houses 4 major Canadian universities and over 10 college level schools, is an ideal location to question the promises of an education and the reality of the job market and graduates drowning in debt.

First off, did anyone else notice the fine arts reading room's own Zoë Ritts in the infamous Maclean's 20th anniversary University rankings issue?

The caption “ Crafty Concordia: Fine arts students don’t just learn how to paint, they learn how to apply their talent to real-world design” was under an image of Zoë working hard on a loom in the fibres department. The article titled "No Ivory Tower here" (you can read it here) promoted Concordia’s diverse faculty of fine arts, which I interpreted as some sort preemptive apology against Concordia's defensiveness of its continual low ranking on the Maclean's list.

NEW RESIDENCY 2010-2011 BLOG STARTS HERE

come see us this wed night 7-9pm at the VAV gallery
thursday night for an amazing workshop 5pm also at the VAV and the following wed for another amazing workshop series

INFOS:

VERNISSAGE:
Wednesday, October 6 : 7pm - 9pm


WORKSHOPS:

Thursday Oct 7 @ 5pm
Voicing the earth body, with Moe Clark

A workshop to inspire translating the outer realms and the natural world through voice and body. Concepts of circle song and looping pedal will also be explored.

Wednesday Oct 13 @ 5pm:
Tiohtiake : place where rivers and people unite and divide, with Douglas Jack and Tiorahkwathe

A discussion of place, place names, mapping and the historical significance of the land we today call Montréal

FInal Show: Oct 5-15, Vernissage Oct 6!!

found object

(contained) landscape

title for one piece

I just need to record this idea i had before i forget:

something real
something imagined
something apropriated

(for the deer antler piece)

Katie is back from her trip, and the school year is about to begin again. We are coming to our final stages of the project, and it has been amazing. We met yesterday for breakfast and then went to the reading room to look at footage of our trips and discuss how we want to present the work we have done. I am quite excited to see it all come together and very greatful for the opportunity we have been given by the reading room. I move into a studio space in September, I hope to be able to begin documenting some of the installations I want to use in the final show, will try to post images when they become available. I think the show will be exciting, we have video, ongoing performance, installations, and are considering ways to make the gallery space into a magical, experiential environment.. !

some themes we are focusing on:
land
energy
landscape (human, environment, historical)

I have some great quotes and thoughts I hope to scan or type out on the subject..
okay, that's all.. just thought to get a few notes down about where things are at.

link i might need: how to construct electric fence

http://www.ehow.com/how_2122429_make-electric-fence.html

i have been considering an installation using electric fence to discuss the ways that certain things are well guarded and protected (such as in business) but other things, such as culture, emotions, ideas are often left quite exposed to be manipulated or destroyed..

by placing electric wire, or maybe i will just use barbed wire. wonder where to get that in montreal...

thoughts to be continued..

some thoughts about landscape

" How beautiful it was," said the Lone Ranger.
" Yes," said Ishmael. " How beautiful it is."
"It is ever changing," said Robinson Crusoe.
"It remains the same," said Hawkeye.
Green Grass Running Water, King, Thomas. pp. 197


“Landscape, by traditional definition in the visual arts, is a rendering or facsimile of a physical place. A painting (or photograph) of the landscape is inherently artificial, by virtue of its two-dimensionality, but also of its inertia. Landscape in the real world is not static, but constantly changing.”

Off the Map, landscape in the Native imagination, pp. 18

i think i was maybe 8 or 9 or 10. my mom had moved to saskatchewan, it was summer. my uncle jorma was so cool, he had braids and handmade string bags, one of which i somehow inherited and wore until i could patch it no more. He was handsome and outlandish, his eyebrows came off his forehead and his wild bright eye’s were like owl eyes.

He and his magical wife moved to a place in the country, we were invited to spend some time there. It was me and the cousin’s, we went at night, traveling under a tarp. We lay on our backs, the truck clanked and cluncked, i was in love with my uncles wife’s son, i think he was my first love, but it was wrong even though we had no blood between us, his sister hated him, so by default she hated me, and i was too young for that kind of love, but thats another landscape all together.

it was invigorating, the ride, the love, the hate, the smell of air free from city. summers in the city were stuffy, summers in saskatchewan were nothing but space. pure, open, starry, cool, fresh space.

the sky was dark between prince albert and clear water, the stars were so beautiful i couldn’t believe it, they made me feel alive, the space made me feel alive, the fact that it was illegal and naughty made me feel alive. i liked it.

the summers were so hot there that we (the kids) slept in our underwear on a table outside, i guess the bugs weren’t like they are now, or we wouldn’t survive. after sleeping and sweating, it was just miles and miles and miles of space and with space was possibility, beautiful, exhilarating, stunning space.

Monday July 13, 2010
entered reading room 1.30
current time: 2.27

activities:
slowly looking through footage from trip
wishing i had used my tripod more and taken longer shots of places en route to oil sands
understanding that i would love to take another trip out there... these places are very overwhelming places to absorb immediately.

books of interest:
The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian
saw it in the window of a used book store near my house, had to buy it online cuz it was gone when i went to get it the next day.

films:
edward burtynski's manufactured landscapes documentary on the plane home from alberta. also very related to the ideas i have been brewing in my head.

in other news:
spain won the world cup yesterday and montreal is going through a major heat wave.

cliché

CLICHÉ: NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN (RED), 1995. color lithograph and screenprint.
Part of having this residency is unlimited access to amazing books that the small but packed resource center of the FARR has to offer. I have always been too busy to simply sit around and immerse myself in all of the luxurious color print, many of which are recent purchases. Today I am giving myself this time, and came across this print of John Balderassi.

maps

Getting really jealous of the girl who went out West - tar sands madness and all. All Sarah's talk of maps and this new initiative of Missing Justice involving land names and mapping . . . I have been interested in maps for ever as far as I remember - these ways of envisioning land, so strange, so abstract. yet fascinating. At some point I copied from my map of the world nothing but the rivers and printed these onto different pieces of fabric I dyed or found lying around. At the same time I copied nothing but the borders. Such different relationships to land. I think our worldview is wildly affected by political maps, where chunks of land are yellow and others pink to tell between them. How does this speak to the land, the water, the geography that sustains our lives? It speaks to nations and separations and borders between people - cultures are already diverse within and without the borders. So it really is definitive of this concept of nation. Which at the same time has everything and nothing to do with land.
Anyway. This piece is a geographical map of north america printed on a doubly dyed piece of cotton. It was in a Study in Action conference that QPIRG Concordia put on this spring, though it is a bit difficult to view due to the draping of the fabric...



KATIE EARLE - WHOSE WATER IS IT ANYWAY?

"Emphasizing the waterlines on a geographical map of the continent, this piece references Indigenous rights to clean water, and questions the validity of Canada's "ownership" - and thus ability to sell - this natural resource. Most of Canada's water rights have already been 'bought' by the USA, relinquishing Indigenous rights to the water of their land. Meanwhile the Athabasca river is becoming daily more contaminated by Alberta's disastrous Tar Sands megaproject."

!!!! CALGARY !!!

CALGARY!!!!
im in calgary. really tired at the moment, so pardon if i don't make a lot of sense.

DOCUMENTATION:
I am trying to get comfortable with carrying my camera and recorder around...I haven't, so far, taken any pictures! boo! Posts are always more interesting with pictures and i think it could have been very cool to track things visually.

THE PEOPLE:
I arrived Saturday late at night, like midnight.. sunday spent the morning with my dad discussing oil and gas stuff then went out to buy a microphone so that when we talked we could have better sound quality. however, my intention was to just quickly zip out for the mic and come back to talk, but by the time we got out the door and then back the day was very much upon us and talking seemed a little bit jarring and a bit faked.

THE RECORDER:
i am noticing that it is going to take a while to get accustomed to having a recorder around, especially with my pa.. i often feel like something changes in our tone or the way i talk or my self consciousness about what questions i am asking when the recorder is on...

we tried to make a date to talk the next day in the morning, but when we got up, dad called up his buddy in the oil patch to see if we could go in and get some geological maps of well sites... so we got in the old jeep and drove downtown to do that instead.. got lots of crazy maps.. i really wish i could have just taken the ones off his wall, but of course, there is sensitive information on those ones! drats!

my interest in those maps is to try and take on the lens of the industry, look at the many different ways people look at land... it amazes me, walking around the buildings downtown, that all those people in all those offices are mostly looking at maps of land. Sitting in the city, but with a mind full of land rights, mineral rights, drilling rights, concentration of oil, rock formations, seizmic measurements.. ... ... ...


FOLLOWING INSTINCTS:

early on in my trip i got the sense that i should be going to the tar sands.. and so thats my plan... probably tomorrow or the next day im going to drive up to fort mack and hopefully connect with some people there..

A NOTE ABOUT PROJECTS:
I feel like the project is finally getting very organic.. which i am loving, i am meeting people, talking, investigating, probing, witnessing, opening.. its great.
... A NICE SURPRISE:
when i got into town, i ran into chandra melting talow on sunday at caffe beano (calgarys downtown cool spot for coffee drinking).. what a surprise, she is from here and living here! Her family is from the Siksika reserve when we saw each other we made a plan to meet up and despite my shyness I texted her and it was great to talk with her. Her family is really involved with the reserve here and she said its doing really well which is amazing. It was neat to hear her talk about the history and her family history there. I really loved the sharing. Chandra is really open and sweet in her conversation about these things which was lovely. I didn't get to talk to her much about what she is planning on talking about in October for our show, but hope that when I come back to alberta we can take a drive out to her reserve and i can ask her then.

After meeting Chandra I went to the house of my old boss and as we were leaving the house she mentioned something about someone in her family who is working as a nurse on the Moberly reserve (also in Alberta) and she mentioned in passing that on the moberly reserve there is still a lot of desperation,a lot of suicide and abuse. Still many reserves in dire circumstances, definitely, but always amazing to hear success stories such as the one Chandra talked about.

annnnyway.
...
im sleepy.. going to go to bed and make a resolve to bring my camera with me and document all the amazing people who are helping me with this project!

rough measurements

24.5 X 22 inches (map of Big river)

4 X 4 inches - size for sticky notes

spending the day at the FARR looking at bookmaking books, thinking about buying nice paper to make books.. bought a few handmade books as inspiration... JP didn't reply to me about coming to work with me, so it looks like i will have to figure things out on my own.. its probably good for me!

getting excited and scared about my trip to the prairies.. haven't even called my auntie della to confirm that she is in fact going to be around!! imagine, i show up and just pitch a tent next to the tipi i used to sleep in! it will be an adventure!

......

materials for books that make me excited:
linen paper.
its so pretty
proper book binding thread.
its also so pretty


.......

things i want to do (in my head right now):
- make a video installation of the stars and norther lights
- collect old wood and other neat things and bring them back to montreal to use and install..
- make a peel pad with images of land and reserves and stars.. the idea i have for this is that we are always using our resources but never pay attention.. the city alienates us from the production of things.. the process of stripping the land for our goods.. by putting them in this format, a disposable format, we are confronted by our ignorance of our relationship to these spaces.. (hopefully!)

- make a video with katie...

links for making notepads

links to sites with DIY instructions for making sticky peel away note pads.. which i want to do

http://www.instructables.com/id/Duct-Tape-Tear-Away-Scratch-Pad/step4/Other-ideas/

http://www.ehow.com/how_2181922_pad-peelable-paper.html

oh canada - objects of interest...

$3 at 'junktique shop' in Montreal on Mount Royal st. May 2010

update.. bookmaking... etc...

well... things are starting to feel more concrete. i am very soon, as in today soon going to make a more concrete budget for my phase 1 of bookmaking/ researching... i booked a flight to calgary where i will begin the research by hanging with my pa... i am hoping he will take me out to some of the places he worked.. not sure how i want to approach my time with him but i am excited.

I am also beginning to consider book making techniques and wowzas it is a huuuuge world! i have two books right now that I am working with.

1. The Structure of the Visual Book by Keith Smith and
2. Cover to Cover by Shereen La Plantz

the second one is more colorful and has more step by step instructions. both touch on the expansiveness of the conecpt book and show many unconventional as well as conventional formats for book binding.

It is very very cool to think about books like this. I am noticing that I feel like I am going to have to be careful to make sure I pace myself - not to get caught up in the format and forget about the content!
will keep updating with the process as it unfolds!
and thanks to JP KING for his help!

installation Eastern Bloc 2010 'Thanks dads..."

I don't think this was understood as well as I would have liked it to be, but I am still happy with it. I tried to juxtapose a 'message from our sponsors' - Suncor's message in an art book published for the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. In this 'message from the sponsor' is a good piece of PR about how they are always aware of and working with First People's on their projects (this is placed alongside a documentary called H2Oil which shows their tragic involvement in the Tar Sands which is poisioning the land and people for miles, with un-knowable catastrophic results)

I also included an interview with my father, who is/ was an oil man in Alberta, who spent much of his adult career life negotiating land rights for drilling on First people's land, as well as a picture of Cheif Pontiac which both my father and I grew up looking at.

My intention with this installation was to show the complexity of our relationships to land and people and the hidden nature of these things. Reserves are, especially in the prairies, very hidden spaces isolated and far away from most peoples view - and therefore subject to so much potential for abuse. Oil companies are always after their land, and what they do while they are there often goes unnoticed..

I also believe that we can't just point the finger at the oil companies, because they are partly just fulfilling a need - our need, government need etc.. the problem is a large and complicated one, I am not proposing answers or blame, simply an acknowledgment of the situation and my particular place in it for contemplation, discussion, growth.

home on the range lyrics

Katie and I were putting together a proposal for a gallery showing our residency related work and decided that 'Home on the Range' was a good title... i have always looooovveeed that song.. she looked up the lyrics and found this monster of a song! look at how long it is.. we thought it was pretty amazing and so thought we should share it!!

These are scans from Technology of the Self , a seminar with Michael Foucault.

I love this passage about 'knowing what you are' - When Foucault is asked about his professional title(s) the question becomes more contemplative than the usual reply. In particular, I find his answer inspiring for my project in that he compares the silliness of having to confine oneself to a title to desiring to know the end of a book before you begin writing it..

It is this kind of mind, the open, wondering, beginners mind that I wish to have through the process of making this book

a mindset which is hard to keep sometimes amidst the pressures of life!

booooook research begins

I have decided that my major project for this Residency will look like a book project, the purpose of the book, as I see it is to capture
a) the personal experiences of doing this project, this means the lovely and amazing feedback I have received from friends and strangers, the amazing exchanges which have helpped me grow and learn etc.
b) interviews and photos taken during travells to alberta and saskatchewan (Dates to be announced!)
c) critical theory / research which has informed or added to this journey.

I am planning on learning how to bind books with the help of friends Danielle Sim and JP King.. this might also come in the form of an open workshopy type of thing a ma jig. so keep yer eyes open!

"There's a lot of pain," he said. "I don't want you to agree with me, I want you to understand!"

from
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/eastbay/burners-torched-over-native-party/Content?oid=1369150

http://www.native-languages.org/art.htm

a seemingly good site to get info about where to find 'authentic' First People's arts and crafts as well as books...

Feminist Intersection: On hipsters/hippies and Native culture

by Jessica Yee

April 20, 2010

by Jen Musari, on the Native Appropriations website

Kelsey pointed me to this post on Sociological Images last week which rounds up some of the latest and greatest of this ever continuing trend.

I know my parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles have had to deal with this in their time and it’s certainly not a new thing –but it’s 2010 and not only does it still continue strongly to this day – it’s taken some interesting turns down the erasure of true origins road. This isn’t a hate letter, or reverse racism (as if there were such a thing!). It’s also not an attempt to discourage you from finding out more about Native people – and in fact I strongly ENCOURAGE you to do some actual research and knowledge seeking so you might get our culture right and think twice about things like permission and respect before you act on your appropriation.

So to the hipsters/hippies who appropriate Native culture but aren’t First Nations/Aboriginal/Indigenous, I’m asking you nicely now, to PLEASE stop annoying (the fuck out of) me with the following:

The clothing. Whether it’s headbands, feathers, bone necklaces, mukluks, or moccasins – at least put some damn thought into WHAT you are wearing and WHERE it’s from. I know our people sell these things en masse in gift shops and trading posts, and it seems like it’s an open invitation to buy it and flaunt it, but you could at least check the label to see A. If it’s made by actual Indigenous people/communities B. What does this really mean if YOU wear it?

Organic living and environmentalism as “new” concepts. One of my friends jokes that all Native people should get green energy for free because that’s how we’ve been living for centuries and also taught the colonizers how to live (which may or may not have screwed us in the end). I really do love the resurgence of the green movement and how things are becoming more environmentally friendly – but I don’t need certain members of the movement pretending like they started this or ignoring extreme realities we’re facing like environmental racism and justice. I also think we need actual Native people being in charge of and leading the responses to environmental degradation that are happening in our own territories. It’s not to say we don’t need allyship and support – but it’s also rather irritating when I read an event posting for a cause of some sort for a First Nation where there’s like two Native people in the whole place (who either barely say anything or are supposed to go along with the way the hippies organize without complaint because they’re “doing something for us”).

The appropriation of and silence about our medicines and teachings. I see direct examples of this in some of the alternative feminine and menstrual cycle products that are on the market now. I’m not hating on the DIVA cup or suggesting that the “divine goddess” isn’t a great story to hear, but I am wondering where your assertion of Indigenous midwifery knowledge is – and that in fact the absence of acknowledgment of where periods not being a bad thing or the blood from our menstrual cycles being sacred originates, is a direct erasure of Indigenous truth. It’s not enough to romanticize our medicines and teachings about women’s bodies and power and say, “Look at how thousands of years ago they used to do that!” and then capitalize your product or book off of some ancient-seeming fluff you are trying to present as en vogue. No! We are STILL doing this, we STILL believe in this, and damn it, you need to HONOR where this comes from!

We’re all one race. I’m not here to burst your bubble of unity and friendship, those things are great – but I am here to remind you that while some of you want to be our friends and ignore so-called “cultural differences” – you can’t ignore the history and current day presence of colonialism and racism. I don’t need to list off the statistics of health disparities and poverty in Native communities today to prove this fact to you – just consult the facts. I don’t want to be the angry Indian you won’t be friends with, so do me a favor and when you talk about “earth-based” things and your “right” to participate in whatever culture you want because we’re all human, know that there is such a thing as cultural protocol and that many of us are in crisis now of how to protect Indigenous knowledge.

Your grandfather’s, sister’s, cousin’s great-grandma was a Cherokee princess. This is an old one that we’ve been hearing for decades now – but it’s especially bothersome when I’m on the plane and you want me to educate you about blood quantum systems and status for the next 2 hours of the flight. I won’t do this, and I’m tired of you getting upset at me if I don’t initially present myself as Native (because no, we don’t all have braids and brown skin) but then you look at my laptop stickers and are like, “Mohawk. Hey my third cousin’s sister’s best friend is Native!” and then I just turn the volume on my IPod louder because I don’t always have the answers to your incessant questions – which are really just one question to me – why are we so invisible to you?

an amazing blog on cultural appropriation

check it out...

http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/

A slice of Bolivia's Climate Summit

This clip has a really interesting bit about indigenous language, and I think he has quite a point in that the global north will have no choice but to listen to language they do not understand quite soon. Also quite a good quote on the value of land and territory over financial gain...

“The World Is Changing in a More Progressive Way, and It’s Taking Place Here”–Boaventura de Sousa Santos on Bolivia Climate Summit

Among the thousands of participants at the World Peoples’ Climate Conference in Cochabamba is Boaventura de Sousa Santos, an internationally respected scholar and one of the leading organizers of the World Social Forum. He is a professor of sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and a distinguished legal scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/21/the_world_is_changing_in_a

Indian Country in the City by Clayton Thomas-Muller

This is just an excerpt from the entire article, which can be found here:

http://canadiandimension.com/articles/1718

"This migration phenomenon is directly connected to the harsh socio-economic realities our people face if they choose to stay in one of the more than 630 apartheid-style Indian reserves that were created by the racist Indian Act policy of the 1800s.

Many people do not understand that attached to Canada’s shameful apartheid reservation system is a national economic development policy that disproportionately sites the most harmful forms of development on or near our Indian communities. If you take a map of all Indian communities in Canada, and then overlay a map representing the siting of all of the mega-hydro, oil and gas, mining and forestry developments, pipelines and transmission lines, you will see that most of these industries operate within fifty kilometres of a First Nation or an Inuit or Metis settlement. This has led to a situation of environmental racism and cultural genocide. In many of our communities, unemployment rates reach staggering levels in excess of seventy per cent during winter months. Most of our people face limited opportunities if they stay home, and, as a result, many leave to find opportunities in one of Canada’s many urban centres.

Out of Canada’s 1.8 million Aboriginal peoples, 75 per cent are under the age of thirty, which means that we are in the midst of a profound generational shift of power. By 2016, one out of every four people in Canada’s workforce will be a Native person. This group has more capacity than any other generation before us in terms of colonial analysis and education. Many of our Indigenous prophecies speak about this time we live in, including the prophecy of my own people, which talks of a seventh generation born free of the colonial mind. Children born in the seventh generation are ready to step up and assert their right to community self-determination."

installation ribbons

Someone was asking today where the information printed on the ribbons outside of the RR is from. Some of it is from different performances and conversations, but a vast majority of the words and quotations and history was found on the website of the Indian Residential Schools Survival Society: http://www.irsss.ca/history.html

great article on whitenessssss

SOME interesting anecdotes from the lengthy but worthwhile read:

In “On Being White…And Other Lies,” James Baldwin argued that America had, really, “no white community”- only a motley alliance of European immigrants and their descendents, who made a “moral choice” (even if they didn’t realize it) to join a synthetic racial elite.

In “Towards the Abolition of Whiteness” David R. Roediger stated: “It is not merely that whiteness is oppressive and false; it is that whiteness is nothing but oppressive and false…Whiteness describes…not a culture but precisely the absence of culture. It is the empty and therefore terrifying attempt to build an identity based on what one isn’t and on whom one can hold back.”

Kanata

went to the launch of this awesome publication the other night. the painting on the cover you may recognize as local artist extraordinaire Jeska Slater's portraiture, part of her project Young Artist Warriors, a project that "wishes to reveal that our paintbrushes, microphones and chisels are the new weapons against cultural oppression and racism."
You can find out more about this incredible empowerment project at http://youngartistwarriors.blogspot.com/

the launch of this journal was full of music, I was bummed to have missed rapper N3mo, who you can also find on the youngartistwarriors blog, but I was really moved by a beautiful rendition of a song sung by a man native to Hawaii, he had a voice that really cut through into another world. And there was harmonica playing, poetry and story reading, and more song. I was reading pieces of the journal as I dyed some weavings today, and really enjoyed what I read... some honest shit.
I was especially fond of Hayden King's piece entitled Reflections on the Utility of Color & Possibility of Coalitions (or Are White People Evil?)... He starts out with a poem from Leslie Marmon Silkoe's book "Ceremony" :

The wind will blow them across the ocean
thousands of them in giant boats
swarming like larva
out of a crushed ant hill

They will carry objects
which can shoot death
faster than the eye can see

They will kill the things they fear
all the animals
the people will starve

They will poison the water
and they will spin the water away
and there will be drought
and people will starve.

quite true though tragic prose, I just was reading yesterday that the mercury count in Grassy Narrows is higher than ever... and the Tar Sands continue to pollute every living being in their radius, not to mention steal the water for miles around just to turn that sand into oil...

King goes on, though, to clarify what he believes, which is not that white people are evil, per se, for who are white people, what is identity, etcetera etcetera, but that the mentality that came with colonization and that maintains itself in "those who express their fear, ignorance and arrogance openly...and the more benign, oft allies" aka the people who tolerate but do not value other ways of life, stories, histories. . . he suggests we all get brown in our minds. I kinda loved it. He refers to a question posed by Leah Whiu "what affinity can we share with white people if they refuse to acknowledge and take responsibility for their colonialism?" and goes on to acknowledge the potential to build coalitions and to work together with those whites who acknowledge that responsibility. he quotes Harold Cardinal, telling whites wanting to work with natives to either "get Brown or get lost". essentially, strive to understand our perspective and critically reflect upon your own, or just go away.

I recommend this journal, as this was only one of many thought provoking essays and I hardly even fleshed it out. not out to blame anybody, what i have read in this journal is all about expression, moving forward and working together towards that goal. this second issue is focused on the Oka crisis.

“alien within” some thoughts on white Canadian identity

From Terry Goldie's essay The Representation of the Indigene

“The white Canadian looks at the Indian. The Indian is Other and therefore alien. But the Indian is indigenous and therefore cannot be alien. So the Canadian must be alien. But how can the Canadian be alien within Canada?

There are only two possible answers. The white culture can attempt to incorporate the Other, superficially through beaded moccasins and names like Mohawk Motors, or with more sophistication through the novels of Rudy Wiebe. Conversely, the white culture may reject the indigene: 'This country really began with the arrival of the whites.' This is no longer an openly popular alternative...

...The importance of the alien within cannot be overstated. In their need to become 'native,' to belong here, whites in Canada, New Zealand and Australia have adopted a process which I have termed 'indigenization.' A peculiar word, it suggests the impossible necessity of becoming indigenous.”

he goes on to talk of the way whites described themselves as indigenous in national bulletins, or how whites try to access this identity through writing on those who are actually native to the land...

hmmm. it is an anomaly, this creation of identity in a land that was never yours, (the you is the white Canadian here) that you cannot lay claim to and you know it, yet you cannot seem to admit it, because what else will you do, where else will you go, you were born here, etc... I mean its not an easy thing, eviction of the colonizers after all this time.

I really want to delve into whiteness studies, (we are such a strange breed) looking forward to this semester ending so that can get started...

Palestinian Land Day

March 30 coincides with Palestinian Land Day, which commemorates the day in 1976 when Israeli security forces shot and killed six young Palestinian citizens of Israel . These youth were among the thousands of Palestinians protesting Israel ’s expropriation of Palestinian land to build new Jewish-only colonies and expand existing Jewish-only cities. Today, Land Day commemorates Palestinian resistance to Israel ’s ongoing policies of illegal land expropriation, colonization, occupation and apartheid.

Since it is hard not to make links between colonization everywhere, land seizure and the works, I thought it would be appropriate in discussing land here in Canada and the identities and realities manifested through it, to pay homage to Palestinian Land Day.

so I printed pieces of the Goldstone report onto ribbon. a small act. meaningless really, but cathartic and interesting. would like to do the whole report, anyone want to fund it?

healing history

A question which arose while watching a dance piece called 'Fragments' last night at Montreal's Mai Arts and Cultural Centre was the idea of healing histories.

Is it possible to ever truly heal history, to ever truly remove the pain, to undo what's been done? In a relationship if distrust occurs, the pain may never leave, in families, pain from childhood is a lingering phantom. White people feel guilt for histories of oppression, every German potentially takes on the burden of being born into the same country as Hitler.

How do we heal?
through sharing our histories? Through art, through conceptual boxes, through forgetting or remembering?

just a thought. your thoughts?

conversations with dad

Part of the intentions which initiated my project is to start looking at perceptions held by people in my life surrounding work with and on Native land. My father is / was an oil man, and reserve negotiations were his main area of focus for many years.

As a kid, he once brought back a pair of moccasins and some pemakin. This has stuck out a lot in my mind and am interested in exploring the relationships these gifts were born of. Below are excerpts from some emails with my father about this community. They are pretty brief.

-------------------------------------------------

Dad:

The Grand Chief of the Moberly in NE BC was John Dokey, and his wife Catherine. In my experience, Chiefs are not puppets of the government and really have nothing to with them except on a low level bureaucratic way to collect the money coming into reserves. Chiefs are very often figureheads for their families, as the Chief position tends to rotate through the most important and powerful families, so they could be held in suspicion by many of the community and act only as puppets for their family.

In terms of development, things have not changed much. Well meaning companies pour money into native employment and a lot of that money gets siphoned into big native contractors (often backed by white contractors) and does not reach the grass roots very often.

xxoo Dad

---

From: Miss Nesbitt [mailto:miss.nesbitt@live.com]
Sent: March 18, 2010 4:53 PM
To: John Nesbitt
Subject: oil, land

hey pa

wondering if you have any images you could send me of oil rigs on the prairies?
also, could you send me the name of the chief you worked with, the one who's wife gave me the moccasins. You mentioned their names but I forgot them and am lazy to go through the tape recording right now.

Also, you know how its often the case that the chief is simply a figure head, even a puppet for the government, or has been in the past at least.. in certain communities. did you find this, or were they genuinely connected and respected/ respectful of the community?

also, have you been in touch with what has happened there with development, what the long term effects were?

ahhh! end of year is falling in.. its kind of intense!
love u.. xo

big river.. a place i once belonged

A lot of my memories as a child are deeply embedded in the richness of the boreal forested lands of northern saskatchewan where I spent my summers.. a little memory minning:





my uncles teepee!

Buffy

having a rough day today... listening to this beautiful song by buffy st. marie imagining being wrapped in a blanket in a Saskatchewan wheat field...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVH-x4szOEI

Saskatchewan
Hey,
wrap me in your blanket
dance me around
take me back
to where my heart belongs
Qu'Appelle valley,
Saskatchewan.

Hey!
you can travel all alone
or you can come along with me
walk the old way
walk the old way Saskatchewan

Qu'Appelle valley, Saskatchewan