{"id":53217,"date":"2019-01-24T16:39:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T21:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=53217"},"modified":"2025-10-10T11:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T15:19:10","slug":"indigenous-art-activism","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/indigenous-art-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous Art and Activism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Indigenous Art and Activism\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Cans of paint and ink, jars full of brushes, silkscreen frames and squeegees and stacks of canvas rectangles are in position atop plastic-covered tables in Carleton University\u2019s Fenn Lounge on a cold and sunny weekday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple dozen students are sketching designs on long sheets of paper, mapping out the silkscreen banners they\u2019re making alongside renowned M\u00e9tis artist Christi Belcourt<\/a> and Ojibway artist Isaac Murdoch<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belcourt\u2019s national touring exhibition, \u201cUPRISING: THE POWER OF MOTHER EARTH<\/a>,\u201d a retrospective with Murdoch, has just opened at the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG<\/a>), and this participatory art-making workshop is part of her approach to blending art and activism.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThese banners are going to be sent \u2014 for free \u2014 to water protectors and land protectors,\u201d Belcourt tells the students.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThis is what we love to do. This is what we have to do. They\u2019re on the front lines, putting their bodies on the line for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Indigenous
Christi Belcourt and a student work on a silkscreen frame.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe opening at the gallery last night was fun, but this is more fun. This is how we build community.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe only have five hours, but there\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t make a few hundred,\u201d adds Murdoch, advising that an \u201cassembly-line mentality\u201d will be required to produce banners without letting the screens dry.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cIt feels really good to contribute to front-line actions around Canada and the United States. This is the very least we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Belcourt explains what needs to be done \u2014 unwrap bags of canvas, water down paints, six people over here, four people over there \u2014 and with little direction, people seamlessly move into their stations and get to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within minutes, black ink on white canvas banners with a Belcourt-designed image of a fist holding an arrow and the words \u201cwater is sacred,\u201d and other banners with similar slogans accompanying the artists\u2019 designs, are hung on lines to dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more students and community members arrive and join in, and the number of banners flapping in a breeze whipped up by a couple of large fans quickly approaches a hundred.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Indigenous<\/figure>\n\n\n

Exploring the Traditions of Indigenous Art<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cUPRISING: THE POWER OF MOTHER EARTH,\u201d which is co-produced by the Thunder Bay Art Gallery<\/a> and CUAG, will remain on display until the end of April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the exhibition consists of large, colourful beadwork-like textured acrylic paintings featuring iconic natural images (flowers, roots, birds, fish and other animals), as well as more abstract aquatic landscapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It includes more than 30 major Belcourt paintings, some of which are darker than others, such as \u201cBloodletting: Does This Make You More Comfortable with Who I Am?\u201d (2004), a dramatic self-portrait in which the artist challenges viewers to question their assumptions and beliefs about personal and cultural identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike generations of Indigenous artists before her, the majority of her work explores and celebrates the beauty of the natural world and traditional Indigenous worldviews on spirituality and natural medicines while exploring nature\u2019s symbolic properties,\u201d reads Belcourt\u2019s official bio<\/a> on her website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Indigenous
Isaac Murdoch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFollowing the tradition of M\u00e9tis floral beadwork, Belcourt uses the subject matter as metaphors for human existence to relay a variety of meanings that include concerns for the environment, biodiversity, spirituality and Indigenous rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belcourt, whose work is in the collections of institutions such as the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario and Canadian Museum of History (all of which loaned paintings to \u201cUPRISING\u201d), has a long list of accomplishments as an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her stained-glass work \u201cGiniigaaniimenaning (Looking Forward)\u201d was created \u201cto commemorate the resilience and strength of residential school survivors and their descendants,\u201d according to her website, and was permanently installed above the main entrance for MPs in Centre Block on Parliament Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also designed the competition medals for the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games in Toronto, and is the founder and lead co-ordinator of \u201cWalking With Our Sisters<\/a>,\u201d a community-driven project that honours missing and murdered Indigenous women and was presented at CUAG in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe thing that we enjoy the most is working with community, and having people come out and participate in creating art to try and save the world,\u201d Belcourt told CBC<\/a> when \u201cUPRISING\u201d opened at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in June.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe want people to come out of here feeling empowered and feeling like they really are a part of this Earth and that it\u2019s worth fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Indigenous<\/figure>\n\n\n

Fighting for Indigenous Rights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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The exhibiion by Belourt and Murdoch, who comprise the Indigenous artist and environmentalist Onaman Collective<\/a> with Erin Konsmo, opened alongside another CUAG exhibition rooted in Indigenous activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy Mom, kahntinetha Horn, the \u2018Military Mohawk Princess<\/a>,\u2019\u201d curated by Carleton Indigenous and Canadian Studies Prof. Kahente Horn-Miller<\/a>, presents a series of photographs of kahntinetha Horn<\/a> \u2014 a model and actress who became an activist and leader and worked as a public servant in what was then the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are photos of Horn when she was crowned the 1963 \u201cIndian Princess of Canada\u201d by the National Indian Council, where she served on the doard of directors; outside 10 Downing Street when she went to London to try to deliver a letter to the Queen; being arrested at a protest on the Canada-U.S. border in 1968; images of Horn on The Dick Cavett Show <\/em>and doing a news conference on Parliament Hill, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo
Prof. Kahente Horn-Miller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Horn-Miller\u2019s exhibition came about last year as a result of a chapter about her mother that she was writing for a book on Indigenous celebrity, edited by former Carleton Prof. Jennifer Adese<\/a>, Carleton\u2019s Zoe Todd<\/a> and University of Saskatchewan Prof. Robert Innes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was doing research, interviewing her mother and sisters, and wrote a Facebook post that caught the eye of CUAG Director Sandra Dyck, who asked Horn-Miller if she wanted to curate an exhibition. The answer was an immediate yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing a lot of thinking about how my mother\u2019s story gets passed on,\u201d says Horn-Miller, explaining that it was only in 1990, during her family\u2019s participation in the land dispute known as the Oka crisis, that her mother became more open about her activism. \u201cShe had put it aside to raise her kids. At Oka, she re-emerged onto the Indigenous rights scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis idea \u2014 putting aside your actions to raise kids \u2014 really speaks to my mother\u2019s motivation. She was doing it for the young people. She wasn\u2019t a lone voice, but she was pretty loud.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horn, whose father was an ironworker who worked in New York City, started to model in part to make money to fund her work to address what Horn-Miller calls \u201cthe issues that she saw around her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horn\u2019s grandparents helped raise her and her siblings, teaching them their traditional Kanien\u2019kehak\u00e1 (Mohawk) language, \u201cwhich gave her a true sense of who we are as Indigenous people,\u201d says Horn-Miller, \u201cand how grounded we are in terms of our relationship to the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mother understood her responsibility to her people, and that motivated her activism\u201d \u2014 a role that included being \u201ca thorn in the side of government\u201d during her career at Indian Affairs, compelling Ottawa to pay attention to issues such as the dangers of cold water drowning (which is significant in communities where people fish and hunt to feed their families) and the forced sterilization of Indigenous women.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe are her greatest legacy \u2014 she has four daughters who are doing different and diverse things,\u201d continues Horn-Miller, noting that her sisters are a medical doctor, an Olympian and health advocate, and an actress.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe are doing what we can for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as her mother did. Just as artists such as Belourt and Murdoch do.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Indigenous<\/figure>\n\n\n

Click here<\/a><\/strong> for more stories from the Carleton Newsroom.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cans of paint and ink, jars full of brushes, silkscreen frames and squeegees and stacks of canvas rectangles are in position atop plastic-covered tables in Carleton University\u2019s Fenn Lounge on a cold and sunny weekday morning. A couple dozen students are sketching designs on long sheets of paper, mapping out the silkscreen banners they\u2019re making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":53222,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28],"cu_story_tag":[1930,1927],"class_list":["post-53217","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_tag-equity-diversity-and-inclusion","cu_story_tag-indigenous"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/53217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/53217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97635,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/53217\/revisions\/97635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=53217"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=53217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}