Stewardship #callresponse Christi Belcourt, IV Castellanos CIRCUIT 4/5, Take Care and Esther Neff, Marcia January 8–27, 2018 Crosby, Maria Hupfield, Ursula Blackwood Gallery Johnson, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Isaac Murdoch, Tanya Tagaq, Tania Willard, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory

Co-organizers: Tarah Hogue (curator) Maria Hupfield (artist/curator) Tania Willard (artist/curator)

Take Care’s fourth circuit, Stewardship, decentres the isolated individual as the privileged recipient or the primary site of care. Against the calam- itous futures wrought by extractivism and the state forces that enable it, this circuit explores stewardship as a potential counter-modality of care- taking. Relationality, shared responsibility, custodianship, interdependency, community governance, and intergenerationality: the contested lexicon of stewardship is difficult to avoid in efforts to respond to the crises of care cascading across multiple domains of life—ecological, social, cultural, political. Stewardship scales up care, and names the relational work of Notes tending to a world, a resource, an artefact, a memory, a community, a 1 Tarah Hogue, engaging the work knowledge system, an institution, a future. Stewardship forefronts ideas of Audra Simpson, in “#callresponse: presence across platforms,” and practices of care that centre upon relationships to land, territory, and MICE 02, ed. Radiodress (2016): http://micemagazine.ca/issue-two/ water, and that undo hierarchies between human and nonhuman. While callresponse. irreducible to stewardship alone, this circuit’s exhibition—#callresponse— Front cover: repositions the crisis of care within and against the intersecting forces of Only Available Light (detail), from the nation state, colonialism, land dispossession, and patriarchy. As co- the series Only Available Light, 2016. Archival film (Harlan I. Smith, organizer Tarah Hogue writes in relation to #callresponse, “the resistance The Shuswap Indians of , 1928), projector, of Indigenous peoples exposes the precarity of settler sovereignty and selenite crystals, and photons, opens possibilities for alternate conceptions of care and responsibility 8:44 min. Original composition by Leela Gilday. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. towards one another.”1 – Letters & Handshakes COURTESY THE ARTIST AND .

3 CALL Murdoch; Maria Hupfield and IV Castellanos the geographically diverse sites and pro- #callresponse grew out of collective discus- To support the work of Indigenous and Esther Neff; Ursula Johnson and Cheryl vides opportunities for networked exchang- sions about the importance of Indigenous L’Hirondelle; Tania Willard and Marcia Crosby; es. As both a title and hashtag, #callresponse feminisms in grounding our lives and work women from across Turtle Island and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and Tanya draws from activist movements and cam- in reciprocal relations, while critiquing and through art commissions that drive Tagaq. Following the initial commissions, paigns such as #IdleNoMore, #BlackLives- refusing the intersections of colonialism and dialogue and mobilize action on the a touring exhibition opened at grunt gallery Matter, #MMIW, and #ReMatriate that uti- patriarchy. This includes work with other topic of reconciliation with Indigenous in in 2016, with selected repre- lize social media to generate awareness, humans, more-than-humans, and territory Peoples. To stand together across sentations of each project continuing to discussion, and action around important beyond narrow definitions of land as seen evolve with each geographic location to cultural, economic, environmental, political, throughout the commissioned projects. sovereign territories as accomplices1 which it travels. and social justice issues facing marginalized #callresponse does not privilege re/concil- in awakened solidarity with all our communities. iation as central to the work and lives of relations, both human and non. Blackwood Gallery invited the co-organizers Indigenous women but rather reorients the to engage with the institution’s collection Indigenous languages, oral narratives, song, vital presence of Indigenous women—their RESPONSE of Inuit Art as a site-specific response to ceremony, and land-based knowledge be- work and their embodied experiences—as the thematic of Stewardship, the fourth come akin to hashtags in how they recall central, as defining, and as pre-existing To ground art in accountability, value circuit of the Take Care project that occa- and accrue embodied knowledge. These current appeals for a reconcilable future.3 lived experience, and build upon sys- sioned this iteration of #callresponse. The technologies move in ways that are intimate, The project acknowledges how artists are tems of support. To enact strategies co-organizers invited Beatrice Deer, an Inuk attentive, specific, and responsive. Recog- already working to complicate and unsettle, of resurgence, resilience, and refusal singer from Nunavik, to select works from nizing the fundamental shifts that can occur following Audra Simpson’s call that our “day- against ongoing multiple articulations the collection to be hung on the University when the intersections of gender, race, and to-day lives be critically engaged” with an of Mississauga campus. These colonialism are considered seriously as the “ongoing, active attention to what is before of power and the structural colonial works are accompanied by textual respons- locus of systemic and symbolic violence, us and a continuing care and vigilance over violence of nation states. es written in English and Inuktitut from #callresponse uses the hashtag as a device each other.”4 The artists’ works are grounded Deer’s own perspective as an Inuk woman. to give voice to the importance of Indige- in the communities of significance through Guided by Anishnaabe Nation intelligence as A number of other local responses have nous North American women in creating a which they move, both urban and rural, told by Washkigaamagki (Curve Lake First also been commissioned, including a “vis- more equitable, just, and balanced future. online and in-person, in spaces where the Nation) Elder Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams), itation” of Ursula Johnson’s durational song- The intention of #callresponse is to populate artists live and work, as well as those plac- we act in the spirit of Nanaboozho, who is based performance Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: as many spaces, and many media, with the es they traverse in their various roles and interpreted in the following text by Leanne The Land Sings with Cherish Violet Blood hashtag, to broadcast the message and to responsibilities.5 Betasamosake Simpson as Kwezens, whose and Rosary Spence, song workshops for catalyze bodies. –#callresponse “very presence simultaneously shatters the youth led by Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Ursula disappearance of Indigenous women and Johnson in partnership with Peel Aborig- girls from settler consciousness. … [She inal Network Friendship Centre, a “writer- propels] us to rebel against the permanence in-residence” who will take over the proj- of settler colonial reality and not just ‘dream ect’s social media platforms, and a panel alternative realities’ but to create them, on discussion unpacking the concept of stew- the ground in the physical world, in spite of ardship in relation to Indigenous and artistic Notes being occupied.”2 considerations. 1 We take up the term “accomplices” 3 David Garneau writes: “Re-con- 4 Audra Simpson, “Reconciliation as a politicized alternative to ciliation refers to the repair of a and its Discontents: Settler “ally,” following Jaskiran Dhillon’s previously existing harmonious Governance in an Age of #callresponse is an artistic and curatorial Shining a light on work that is both urgent “On Becoming an Accomplice.” relationship. This word choice Sorrow.” Lecture, University of collaboration co-organized by Tarah Hogue and long-term, #callresponse is structured Paper presented at Accomplice & imposes the fiction that equanimity Saskatchewan, March 2016. Art Practice—Indigenous Feminist is the status quo between https://www.youtube.com/ along with project artists Maria Hupfield as a connective support system that strate- Activism & Performance, Yale Aboriginal people and .” watch?v=vGI9HkzQsGg and Tania Willard. The project begins with gically centres Indigenous women across University, New Haven CT, March Conversely, “conciliation,” “calls to 2016. mind the meeting of two previously 5 This text is, in part, adapted from a series of five local art commissions by multiple platforms. It moves between spe- separate parties. Applied to the Tarah Hogue, “#callresponse: Indigenous women and artists whose home cific sites, online space, and the gallery. The 2 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Canadian situation, it allows the presence across platforms,” territories are located in the Canadian na- project focuses on forms of performance, “Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg picturing of First Nations and MICE 02, ed. Radiodress (2016): intelligence and rebellious Inuit people having an independent http://micemagazine.ca/ tion state. Each artist invites respondents process, and translation that incite dialogue transformation” in Decolonization: existence prior to contact.” David issue-two/callresponse. to consider her work, and their responses and catalyze action between individuals, Indigeneity, Education & Society 3, Garneau, “Imaginary Spaces of no. 3 (2014): 8. Conciliation and Reconciliation” are also included in the exhibition. The communities, territories, and institutions. in West Coast Line 74 46, no. 2 pairings include Christi Belcourt and Isaac On social media, #callresponse connects (Summer 2012): 35.

4 5 #call #response

Christi Belcourt and Isaac of being and place-based knowledge; the Murdoch (Onaman Collective), act of offering is a direct, embodied action of respect, acknowledgement, connection, Reconciliation with the Land and balance of the human order with spirit and Waters, 2016. Plywood panel. and nature. Together, these actions function Original buffalo robe gifted to as ongoing resistance against exploitative Onaman Collective by Grand resource extraction industries and work Chief Derek Nepinak. towards informing future possibilities.

Reconciliation with the Land and Waters Belcourt and Murdoch painted records of challenges hierarchical power dynamics their ceremonial activities in the following and questions who is in need of reconcil- locations: Whitefish River First Nation, ON ing. Informed by their ongoing work as the (June 2015), Gabriel’s Crossing, SK (August Onaman Collective (founded by Belcourt, 2015), Serpent River First Nation, ON (Sep- Murdoch, and Erin Konsmo), the artists tember 2015), Espanola, ON (November 2015), worked collaboratively, positioning the land Mississauga First Nation, ON (March 2016), as the respondent to their activities and Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, asking the more-than-human world to recip- ON (March 2016), Spanish, ON (April 2016), rocate their gestures. Belcourt and Murdoch Garden River First Nation, ON (July 2016), led ceremonies at multiple gatherings on Gabriel’s Crossing, SK (August 2016). Indigenous governance throughout Mani- toba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, demon- The buffalo robe has been returned to the strating an ongoing commitment to build- artists where it will continue to be activated ing relationships with the land and waters, at Nimkii Aazhibikong, Culture Camp Forever, recognizing the way in which these rela- a permanent camp for the restoration and re- tions, and the everyday practice of making vitalization of Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) offerings, have been interrupted by colo- language, and where youth can be connect- nization. Belcourt and Murdoch’s ceremo- ed to the land and the traditional knowledge nies prioritize revitalizing Indigenous ways of the Elders.

#call

Maria Hupfield, Bag, 2013–2016. 2016), Ursula Johnson and Cheryl L’Hirondelle Industrial felt with satin ribbon at FADO Performance Art Centre (Toronto, and polyester thread. From the 2016), and Rosalie Favell at Axené07 (Gatineau, QC, 2017). In this work, Hupfield adapts the performances Post Performance/ highly mediated format of a public art talk Conversation Action, Artist into one of community building and inter- Field Trip, and Artist Tour Guide. generational solidarity. As cultural insiders, Hupfield, her invited guests, and helpers A series of conversations were staged as prioritize Indigenous women as individual and performances with guest artists Alanis collective voices, to claim and mediate space Obomsawin at Galerie de l'UQAM (, on their own terms through conversation. Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch (Onaman Collective), Reconciliation with the Land and Waters, 2016. Acrylic on buffalo robe. Buffalo robe gifted to Onaman Collective by Grand Chief Derek Nepinak. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. COURTESY THE ARTISTS AND GRUNT GALLERY.

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IV Castellanos, Maria Hupfield, Feet on the Ground is a participatory group and Esther Neff, Toolbox, 2016. performance and art collaboration on how to decolonize yourself, featuring a custom- Wood, metal with an assortment made toolbox designed by the artists. Using of handmade and found items a combination of individual and collective including handmade tools, three actions, the artists invite the audience to hand-sewn banners, and a large participate in empowering the absurd and acrylic hand-printed cotton irrational, using items from the toolbox. Con- ducted as an ongoing series of workshop- banner. From the performance style performances across multiple venues, Feet on the Ground. this project is based on survival strategies of politically minded performance artists.

IV Castellanos, Maria Hupfield, and Esther Neff,Toolbox , 2016. Wood, metal, with an assortment of handmade and found items including handmade tools, three hand-sewn banners, Maria Hupfield, Bag, 2013. Industrial felt with polyester thread. From the performance and a large acrylic hand-printed cotton banner. From the performance Feet on the Ground. Post Performance/Conversation Action, FADO Performance Art Centre, 2016. COURTESY THE ARTIST. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. COURTESY THE ARTISTS AND GRUNT GALLERY.

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Ursula Johnson and Cheryl This work was created by drawing a line on Cherish Violet Blood, Ursula L’Hirondelle, Nikamon Ohci Askiy a topographical map from Georgina Island Johnson, and Rosary Spence, First Nation south to the performance ven- (Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew): The ue in downtown Toronto, using graph paper Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: The Land Land Sings, 2016. Cree lyrics and to plot a line based on the distance, peaks, Sings, 2017. Audio, topographical songline on grid paper. Song and valleys of the line traversing the land- maps, vinyl songline. lyrics for “okâwîmâw” co-written scape. Johnson gave this composition to by Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Joseph L’Hirondelle to interpret, who then wrote Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: The Land Sings is a Naytowhow; song melody a song in nêhiyawin (Cree) with Joseph series of ongoing performances or “visita- Naytowhow. tions” in Indigenous territories where Ursula co-written by Cheryl L’Hirondelle Johnson collaborates with language speak- and Ursula Johnson. Nikamon Ohci Askiy translates to “songs be- ers, singers, and hand drummers to create cause of the land,” building on L’Hirondelle’s a song from and for the land. Through these Nikamon Ohci Askiy (Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimi- practice of walking through the city and sing- long duration performances, the singers and kew): The Land Sings is an audio-based en- ing the landscape she encounters. This fol- drummers enact their relations and respon- durance performance that offers an apology lows from the Australian Aboriginal idea of sibility to the land and waters. In the pro- to the land for the ways in which our human songlines, which describes landscape hav- cess of collaboration, the song takes shape impact has shaped the landscape and dis- ing been “sung” into existence; the songs and gains a new title in the language of the placed the voices of Indigenous peoples. allow them to traverse the territory. participants.

Ursula Johnson and Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Nikamon Ohci Askiy (Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew): The Land Sings (performance documentation), 2016. Created for FADO Performance Art Centre’s MONOMYTHS program. Ursula Johnson and Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Nikamon Ohci Askiy (Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew): The Land Sings, 2016. Song lyrics co-written by Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Joseph Naytowhow, song melody co-written by Cree lyrics and songline on grid paper. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. COURTESY THE ARTISTS AND GRUNT GALLERY. Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Ursula Johnson, © 2016 Miyoh Music/SOCAN. PHOTO: HENRY CHAN. COURTESY THE ARTISTS.

10 11 #call Tania Willard, Intergenerational and the self-medicating work of communities effects (I found these in the BUSH), addressing trauma in the wake of the resi- Only Available dential school system and colonial experiences Tania Willard, Basket Rescue formance artist refers to finding from the series of Settler occupation. In the bottles, amongst Operation (talking to Peter Morin cultural objects in thrift stores as a “rescue Light, 2016. Vintage glass Listerine loose beads the colour of mouthwash, par- and remembering Dana Claxton’s operation,” acknowledging the dispossession bottles, seed beads and digital tially obscured images show children in the and market influences of Indigenous artists’ prints. back of pickup trucks on their way to resi- talk for the CAMDO in Whistler), work. The text on the basket is a quote from dential school, and an image of the selenite from the series Only Available Lakota media artist Dana Claxton given at a The objects here, found on the artist’s reserve, windows in the Basilica of Saint Sabina, a Light, 2016. Birch bark basket panel discussing Indigeneity at the Canadian reference dark histories of substance use historical church in Rome, Italy. (reclaimed from antique store), Art Museum Directors Association (CAMDO) conference. The work points to historical cedar root, copper foil, laser cut and present-day institutional critique of the text. circulation and management of Indigenous art by non-Indigenous agents and institu- Referencing dialogue with peers and col- tions, and the museumification of Indigenous leagues within Indigenous contemporary aesthetics. The work is an act of valuing art practice, this work is the material culture ancestor artists and references resurgent of a citation. The birch bark basket was found practices of awakening ancestral objects by the artist at an antique store; Tahltan per- within institutions…or thrift stores.

Tania Willard, Basket Rescue Operation (talking to Peter Morin and remembering Dana Claxton’s talk for the Tania Willard, Intergenerational effects (I found these in the BUSH) (detail), from the series CAMDO in Whistler), from the series Only Available Light, 2016. Birch bark basket (reclaimed from antique store), Only Available Light, 2016. Vintage glass Listerine bottles, seed beads, and digital prints. cedar root, copper foil, laser-cut text. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GRUNT GALLERY. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GRUNT GALLERY.

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Tania Willard, Only Available Light, Pacific Expedition (1897–1902). Willard’s in- Marcia Crosby, "New Cultural from the series Only Available tervention into the film physically obstructs Practices, 1900–1926," previously and distorts a clear view of the imagery. By Light, 2016. Archival film (Harlan I. confronting the desire of settler society to published in Lawrence Paul Smith, The Shuswap Indians of consume and exotify Indigenous cultures, Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories, British Columbia, 1928), projector, Willard transforms Smith’s ethnographic vid- eds. Karen Duffek and Tania Willard selenite crystals, and photons, eo and renders it unavailable to viewers; in- (Vancouver, Berkley: Figure 1 stead, it comes only as light, as a meditation on Publishing and the UBC Museum 8:44 min. Original composition loss and resilience transposed through time. by Leela Gilday. of Anthropology, 2016), 109-130. Willard has screened the film in her home Reproduced with permission Tania Willard’s work combines archival re- community at BUSH Gallery, during the of the author, editors, Figure 1 search and materials to question anthropo- Luminocity Festival programmed by the Publishing, and the UBC Museum logical representations of her Secwepemc Art Gallery, at the Vancouver Art community. The work departs from an educa- Gallery for ReFuse, and Only Available Light of Anthropology. tional film by archaeologist Harlan Ingersoll was exhibited at Gallery 44 Centre for Con- Smith, a member of the infamous Jesup North temporary Photography (Toronto). Haida and Tsimshian cultural historian, Marcia Crosby (Ph.D), acted in the capacity of a mentor in the development of Willard’s proj- ect. Willard’s interest in complicating the overly simplistic narratives of Indigenous peoples propagated by anthropologists like Smith and others benefits from Crosby’s writings. For the exhibition, Crosby’s text “New Cultural Practices, 1900-1926: A Photo Essay” was chosen to bridge academic and studio practices. In the essay, Crosby gives a detailed account—accompanied by his- torical images—of the Indigenous “leaders, governments and organizations that had emerged in B.C. during the first half of the 20th century,” who “were made up of di- verse inter-tribal and inter-First Nations political unions”1 in order to establish the agency of these peoples against their asso- ciation with dominant structures of colonial power.

Notes Only Available Light (detail), from the series Only Available Light, 2016. Archival film (Harlan I. Smith,The Shuswap 1 Crosby, "New Cultural Practices, Indians of British Columbia, 1928), projector, selenite crystals, and photons. 8:44 min. Original composition by Leela Gilday. 1900–1926," 111. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GRUNT GALLERY.

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Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Timiga nunalu, sikulu is a performance for video Tanya Tagaq and Laakkuluk Timiga nunalu, sikulu (My body, the set in the landscape on the edge of winter as Williamson Bathory, Timiga nunalu, new growth begins to take hold. Animated by land and the ice), 2016. Installation the vocals of Celina Kalluk, with accompany- sikulu (My body, the land and the with coleman camp stove, red ing string instrumentation by Chris Coleman, ice), 2016. Video, 29:26 min. bird matches, and single-channel the work is both sweeping and intimate. Performance presented in part- video, 6:28 min. Videography nership with Native Education by Jamie Griffiths, music by Chris Uaajeerneq is a Greenlandic mask dance College (NEC), October 28, 2016. involving a wild array of expressions that Coleman, featuring vocals by play with elements of fear, humour, and sex- Celina Kalluk. uality. In being confronted by these often Tanya Tagaq joined Williamson Bathory for taboo emotions, viewers of the dance are a collaborative response to Timiga nunalu, Timiga nunalu sikulu (My body, the land and taught how to respond when faced with sikulu (My body, the land and the ice), pre- the ice) is a film juxtaposing the ferocious these emotions in real life. The black face sented in partnership with Vancouver’s Na- surprise of an uaajeerneq mask with the paint represents the extremes of life in the tive Education College. Having witnessed aesthetic found in the rubenesque figure. Arctic, along with the magical and unknown Timiga nunalu sikulu on video for the first The film explores tranquility and intimacy, realms of existence. The red of the mask time, Tagaq responded with a range of vo- and encourages viewers to pause and gaze. symbolizes the power of life, love, and the calizations informed by throat singing that Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory challenges as- temperament of our relations. Finally, the evoke the land, animals, and the more-than- sumptions about the female body and the white streaks evoke bones and thus the human world. Her vocalizations animated land, showing herself sunbathing nude on the ancestors, as well as a clearness of the mind Williamson Bathory’s transformation into sea ice behind her home in Iqaluit, Nunavut. and purity of intention. uaajeerneq, an expression of the power of life in all its iterations. Comfortable in claim- ing their own and one another’s sexuality, they came together to sing as sisters, the rhythm and the gravel of their voices inter- mingling, pushing, and pulling in balanced tension, in call and response—a shared animation between body and voice.

Following spread: Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Cultural Radiation: Arnaagama. I am an Inuk woman., 2017. Digital image printed on acrylic billboard, 72in x 108in. Photo: Toni Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Timiga nunalu, sikulu (My body, the land and the ice) (still), 2016. Video, 6:28 min. Hafkenscheid. COURTESY THE ARTIST. Video by Jamie Griffiths. Music by Chris Coleman, featuring vocals by Celina Kalluk.COURTESY THE ARTIST.

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Public Programs Feminist Lunchtime Talks Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: Indigenizing Institutions The Land Sings Artists-in-Residence: program to support diverse perspectives on Wednesday, January 10, 12–2pm Performance by Cherish Violet Blood, Cherish Violet Blood, Beatrice the project. A Call for Proposals was circu- Blackwood Gallery Ursula Johnson, Rosary Spence lated in November 2017 across social media Presented in partnership with Wednesday, January 10, 3–8pm Deer, Ursula Johnson, Cheryl platforms in search of Black, Indigenous, or L’Hirondelle, Rosary Spence POC-identified writers, artists, and content Women and Gender Studies Innovation Complex Rotunda, UTM January 2018 creators engaged with questions of intersec- Blackwood Gallery tional feminism(s), Indigeneity, community- Following the publication of Canada’s 2015 Ke'tapekiaq Ma'qimikew: The Land Sings is building, stewardship, and other forms of criti- Truth and Reconciliation Commission report an audio-based endurance performance cal care, social justice, and solidarity work. and resistance to celebrations of Canada’s that offers an apology to the land for the 150th anniversary in 2017, many Indigenous ways in which our human impact has shaped Social Media Writer-in-Residence Through this process, Aylan Couchie was selected to compose visual, textual, and audio groups and allies have called for greater the landscape and displaced the voices of Aylan Couchie responses to the #callresponse exhibition and attention to the legacies of discrimination many Indigenous peoples. Johnson’s proj- December 15, 2017 to January 27, public programs. Making creative use of so- and oppression that have shaped the devel- ect posits song as a positive force that brings 2018 cial media platforms, the Social Media Writer- opment of the nation. This panel responds people together in the act of singing. The in-Residence will help build a network of to these calls by asking what it means to land is recognized as a feminine body and #callresponse and the Blackwood Gallery support for the ongoing work of Indigenous effectively Indigenize an institution, in a a matriarch by many Indigenous nations, created a Social Media Writer-in-Residence women past, present, and into the future. society deeply shaped by settler colonial- and many cultures determine their move- ism. Our esteemed panel of discussants ment on the land through song. In the pro- will share their experiences of Indigenizing cess of collaboration, the song takes shape Ursula Johnson and Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Nikamon Ohci Askiy (Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew): institutions in the GTA and across Canada, and gains a new title in the language of the The Land Sings (performance documentation), 2016. PHOTO: HENRY CHAN. COURTESY THE ARTISTS. including the problems, paradoxes, and participants and in response to the land on possibilities of these efforts. which it is performed.

Participants: Jill Carter, Assistant Professor, Centre for Opening Reception and Drama, Theatre and Performance and Cen- C Magazine Launch tre for Indigenous Studies, University of Wednesday, January 10, 5–8pm Toronto Blackwood Gallery Tarah Hogue, Senior Curatorial Fellow, Indigenous Art, Vancouver Art Gallery In conjunction with the opening reception, Denise Booth McLeod, Indigenous and C Magazine launches c136 Site/ation, a Community Engagement Coordinator, To- special issue guest edited by BUSH gallery ronto Birth Centre (represented by Tania Willard and Peter Kris Noakes, President, Peel Aboriginal Morin)—an experimental, land-based, In- Network digenous-led artist rez-idency. The issue focuses on Indigenous and non-Western Moderator: Nicole Laliberte, Assistant art practices outside of city centres and Professor, Geography, University of Toronto gallery systems, and questions where and Mississauga how art exists on the land, in rural settings and communities. With words and images by Billy-Ray Belcourt, Karyn Recollet, Ga- brielle L'Hirondelle Hill, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Marianne Nicolson, Anique Jordan, Ashok Mathur, Toby Lawrence, Michael Turner, and Jeremy Dutcher, among many others. This issue also features an artist project by Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan, who col- laborate under the name Native Art Depart- ment International.

21 Song workshops with Ursula Savage States: Settler Governance in line with global trends, away from overt FREE Contemporary Art Bus Tour Johnson and Cheryl L’Hirondelle in an Age of Sorrow violence to what are seen as softer and Exhibition tour to Blackwood kinder, caring modes of governing but gov- Thursday, January 11 Public Lecture by Audra Simpson, erning, violently still and yet, with a language Gallery, Bradley Museum, and the Presented in partnership with JHI Distinguished Visiting Fellow of care, upon still stolen land. She asks not Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brandt. Peel Aboriginal Network Friendship Wednesday, January 17, 4–6pm only in what world we imagine time to stop, Sunday, January 28, 12-5pm Centre Jackman Humanities Institute but takes up the ways in which those that 208 Britannia Road East, Unit 1 170 St. George Street, Room 100 survived the time stoppage stand in critical relationship to dispossession and settler Reader-in-Residence Session Mississauga Toronto governance and apprehend, analyze, and act with Art Metropole upon this project of affective governance. Public reading by Maggie Groat #callresponse develops locally responsive In what world do we imagine the past to be Here an oral and textual history of the no- programming arising from community desire settled in light of its refusal to perish and Wednesday, January 24, 12–1pm tion of "reconciliation" is constructed and Blackwood Gallery and partner venues’ existing or emergent allow things to start over anew? What are analyzed with recourse to Indigenous crit- relations with Indigenous communities and the conditions that make for this imagining, icism of this affective project of repair. organizations. The Peel Aboriginal Network this fantasy, or rather, demand of a new Friendship Centre provides a social setting start point? In this lecture, Audra Simpson to foster cultural awareness and education considers the world of settler colonialism, All Our Relations: The Art of through a range of programs and services which demands this newness, a world in Land and Indigenous Stewardship in support of the region’s Aboriginal peoples. which Native people and their claims to This song workshop follows from Cheryl territory are whittled to the status of claim- Panel Discussion L’Hirondelle’s ongoing community-engaged ant or subject in time with the fantasy of Friday, January 19, 4–6pm and participatory projects (such as her their disappearance and containment away Jackman Humanities Institute song-writing collaboration with incarcer- from a modern and critical present. This 170 St. George Street, Room 100 ated men, women, and detained youth), and fantasy extends itself to a mode of gover- Toronto Ursula Johnson’s collaborative and duration- nance that is beyond institutional and ideo- al song-based work in #callresponse. logical but is, in this study, deeply affective. This roundtable discussion seeks to unpack Simpson examines how the Canadian prac- the concept of “stewardship” from perspec- www.peelaboriginalnetwork.com tice of settler governance has adjusted itself tives rooted in place and culture. What is stewardship in relation to Native Feminisms, Indigenous concepts of land, gender, and ter- Ursula Johnson and Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Nikamon Ohci Askiy (Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew): The Land Sings (performance documentation, detail), 2016. PHOTO: HENRY CHAN. COURTESY THE ARTISTS. ritory? How does stewardship intersect with sovereignty, artistic practice, and collections?

Participants: Beatrice Deer, Program Officer, Avataq Cul- tural Institute, the Inuit cultural organization of Nunavik (Northern ) Lisa Myers, Artist and Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University Lindsay Nixon, Indigenous editor-at-large, Canadian Art Eve Tuck, Associate Professor of Critical Race and Indigenous Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto

Moderator: Michelle LaVallee, Director at Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Art Centre

23 Winter Camp Scene, response by Beatrice Deer

Pitseolak Ashoona’s Winter Camp Scene is a piece that an artist from my generation could not create because it is a scene that we did not live. The communal igloo lifestyle isn’t practiced anymore, and hasn’t been since the establishment of our communities in the Arctic in the 1950s and 1960s, when Inuit started living in permanent structures in one place. I was born in 1982 and I lived in one village, in modern housing, for my whole upbringing. Interconnected igloos are no longer built today. Igloos are only built for cultural purposes and as emergency shelters by hunters stranded in snow storms out on the land.

Ashoona created her piece from her memory. She lived in igloos into her adulthood. I can only imagine what life must have been like in those days, when one was completely reliant on the environment and on his or her knowledge: her knowledge of food preparation, her skills in sewing to make clothing for everyone, and her experience taking care of children; his knowledge of his surroundings, his understanding the land and snow to build igloos, to track and hunt animals for food and clothing. Each knowing very well that it is their actions that sustain the camp.

Pitseolak Ashoona, Winter Camp Scene, 1969. Stonecut, 20.24x23cm. PHOTO: JENNA EDWARDS. COURTESY BLACKWOOD GALLERY.

Inuk singer, seamstress, and health advo- cate Beatrice Deer was invited by the exhi- bition co-organizers to select and respond to works from the Blackwood Gallery’s collection of Inuit prints and sculptures, sharing her perspective on the works as an Inuk woman. Deer’s selections are in- stalled in the University of Toronto Missis- sauga’s library and are accompanied by her responses in English and Inuktitut.

24 25 Participant Biographies maternal and paternal grandparents, par- traveling exhibition The One Who Keeps on ents, and communities inform her work as Giving premiered at The Power Plant in a writer of Indigenous histories. Crosby 2017 and was featured in Art in America. Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory is a per- his life to the preservation of Anishinaabe has examined the diverse ways that First She has received national recognition in former of uaajeerneq, a contemporary cultural practices and has spent years Nations groups have incorporated external the USA from the prestigious Joan Mitchell Greenlandic mask dance, and a recog- learning from Elders of the North Shore, politico-economic forces into their existing Foundation for her hand-sewn industrial nized storyteller, poet, and actor. She is Saskatchewan, and Alberta. patterns of cultural life. She is the author of felt sculptures and in 2016 exhibited at SITE Inuk of Greenlandic origin, living in Iqaluit, the influential 1991 essay, “Construction Santa Fe Biennale. She co-owns Native Nunavut. Laakkuluk is a founding member Jill Carter (Anishinaabe/Ashkenazi) is a of the Imaginary Indian.” Art Department International with artist and Programme Manager at Qaggiavuut, Toronto-based theatre practitioner and Jason Lujan. a non-profit society advocating for and Assistant Professor with the Centre for Beatrice Deer is a singer, seamstress, and supporting Nunavut performing artists. Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies; advocate for good health. Originally from Ursula Johnson is the winner of the 2017 the Aboriginal Studies Program; and the Quaqtaq, a tiny village in Nunavik on the Sobey Art Award. She is an interdisciplin- Christi Belcourt is Michif originally from Transitional Year Programme at the Uni- northeast coast of Quebec, Deer is now ary artist and an enrolled member of the Manitou Sakahigan (Lac Ste. Anne, AB). versity of Toronto. Her research and praxis based in Montreal with her two children. Eskasoni First Nation Mi’kmaq Community With deep respect for the traditions and base themselves in the mechanics of story Her music features both lyrical and throat on Cape Breton Island, currently based in knowledge of her people, her work explores creation (devising and dramaturgy), the singing in Inuktitut and English. Deer has Dartmouth, NS. She is active in Mi’kmaw the beauty of the natural world and is processes of delivery (performance on the released four albums, and received the language revitalization and descendent grounded within her relationships with land, stage and on the page), and the mechanics award for Best Inuit Cultural Album in 2005 from a long line of esteemed basketmakers. water, animals, and Anishinaabek Peoples of affect. at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. Her nationally touring solo show Mi'kwite'tmn of the North Shore of Lake Superior. She (Do You Remember) considers the consump- initiated Walking With Our Sisters, a proj- IV Castellanos is a sculptor and perfor- Maggie Groat works in a variety of media tion of traditional knowledge within co- ect that honours the lives of missing and mance artist based in Brooklyn, NY. They including works on paper, sculpture, tex- lonial institutions. Johnson was awarded murdered native women. Together with are the founder of the IV Soldiers Gal- tiles, site-specific interventions, and pub- The Hnatyshyn Foundation’s 2017 Reveal Isaac Murdoch and Erin Konsmo, Belcourt lery in 2014 and co-founder of Feminist lications. Her current research examines Indigenous Art Award. founded the Onaman Collective. Art Group. IV has created work with No shifting territories, alternative and deco- Wave Performance Task Force and Social lonial ways-of-being, methodologies of Nicole Laliberte is Assistant Professor, Cherish Violet Blood is a professionally Health Performance Club, and is in on- collage, and the transformation of salvaged Teaching Stream in the Department of trained, seasoned performer with active going performance collaboration with materials. She has taught at the University Geography at the University of Toronto followings in the national Native and To- Amanda Hunt. of Guelph, the University of Toronto, and Mississauga (UTM). Her research is locat- ronto theatre community. She is an actor, at Emily Carr University of Art and Design ed at the intersection of geography, femi- storyteller, comedian, activist, and Black- Aylan Couchie is an Anishinaabe artist and as the 2014 Audain Artist Scholar in Resi- nist theory, and critical development stud- foot woman from the Blood Reserve, AB, writer hailing from Nipissing First Nation. dence. In 2015 she was longlisted for the ies. She studies systems of violence, in- with extensive traditional hand drumming She received her BFA from NSCAD Univer- Sobey Art Award. cluding settler colonialism, as well as and contemporary singing skills. A graduate sity and is currently an MFA Candidate in feminist and anti-oppression pedagogies of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in the Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design Tarah Hogue is a curator and writer of in the undergraduate classroom. Profes- Toronto, Blood has performed all over North program at OCAD University where her Métis and Dutch Canadian ancestry. She sor Laliberte serves on the Board of Di- America and is a member of New York’s research focuses on decolonizing Indige- is the inaugural Senior Curatorial Fellow, rector’s of UTM’s Women and Gender Spider Woman Theater company. nous monuments and public art. Her work Indigenous Art at the Vancouver Art Gal- Studies Program, and on UTM’s Indigenous explores First Nations realities/histories lery and was the 2016 Audain Aboriginal Initiative Task Force. Isaac Murdoch Bombgiizhik is fish clan from a Two-Spirit, feminist perspective, Curatorial Fellow at the Art Gallery of Great- and Anishinaabe from Serpent River First and has been shown nationally and inter- er Victoria. Hogue was curator in residence Michelle LaVallee is a curator, artist, and Nation, Ontario. Isaac is a well-respected nationally. She maintains a presence on arts with grunt gallery between 2014–2017, and educator of Ojibway ancestry and a mem- storyteller, visual artist, and traditional advisories, juries, and boards, and she’s has curated exhibitions at the Morris and ber of the Nawash Band in Cape Croker, knowledge holder, widely recognized for received awards from the International Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Or Gallery, and Ontario. She worked as a curator at the his research and expertise in traditional Sculpture Center, Native Women in the SFU Gallery. MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, SK from pictographs, symbolism, harvesting, cul- Arts, and Colleges Ontario. 2007-2017, and has recently been appointed tural camps, oral history and storytelling, Maria Hupfield is martin clan, Anishinaabe as the new director at the Indigenous and birchbark canoe making, and knowledge Dr. Marcia Crosby’s lived experiences with and a member of Wasauksing First Nation, Northern Affairs Canada Art Centre in of birchbark scrolls. He has committed her Tsimshian and Haida (British Columbia) Ontario, based in Brooklyn NY. Her solo Gatineau, Quebec. LaVallee won the award

26 27 for Excellence in Arts Related Service at a collective making operas-of-operations Tanya Tagaq’s album Animism earned the and School Pushout (Routledge, 2012) and the Mayor’s Arts and Business Awards in and a laboratory site for performance proj- 2014 Polaris Music Prize for the best full- Place in Research (co-written with Marcia Regina in 2013 and has been a chosen par- ects. She is a collaborative and solo per- length Canadian album. She is a multi-Juno- McKenzie, Routledge, 2015). ticipant for a number of International Ca- formance artist, independent theorist, and award-winning vocalist informed by Inuit nadian Curator Delegations in Australia, member of Feminist Art Group, Social Health throat singing and combining avant-garde Tania Willard is from the Secwepemc New Zealand, and Italy. Performance Club and Organizers Against improvisation, metal, and electronica in- Nation, Interior British Columbia. She works Imperialist Culture. In February 2017 her fluences. She delivers fearsome, elemental to connect shifting ideas around contem- Letters & Handshakes is a collaboration work and research included a dedicated performances that are visceral and physi- porary and traditional with bodies of knowl- of Greig de Peuter (Department of Com- month-long series of operations entitled cal. Her album Retribution was released in edge and skills from Indigenous and non- munication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier Univer- Embarrassed of the Whole. October 2016. Indigenous cultures. Her co-curatorial proj- sity) and Christine Shaw (Blackwood Gal- ects include the nationally touring Beat lery and Department of Visual Studies, Lindsay Nixon is a Cree-Métis-Saulteaux Eve Tuck is Associate Professor of Critical Nation: Art Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture University of Toronto Mississauga). curator, editor, and writer. They are the Race and Indigenous Studies at the Ontario (Vancouver Art Gallery, with Kathleen Ritter), Indigenous Editor-at-Large for Canadian Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxwelup- Cheryl L’Hirondelle is an award-winning Art, and the editor of mâmawi-âcimowak­ , University of Toronto. She is a William T. tun (Museum of Anthropology, with Karen and community-engaged interdisciplinary an independent art, art criticism, and lit- Grant Scholar (2015-2020) and was a Ford Duffek),Nanitch: Historical BC photography, artist, singer/songwriter, and curator. She is erature journal. Nixon currently resides in Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in 2011. and Landmarks2017/Repères2017. Her re- Cree/Métis and German/Polish from Papas- Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyaang, unceded Haude- Tuck's writing and research is on urban lational art practice centres around BUSH chase First Nation/amiskwaciy wâskahikan nosaunee and Anishinaabe territories (Mon- education and Indigenous studies, and is gallery, a site of land-based experimental (Edmonton, AB) and works at the intersec- treal), where they co-founded the Black the author of two recent books, Urban Youth and conceptual Indigenous art futurity. tions of Cree nêhiyawin worldview and Indigenous Harm Reduction Alliance and contemporary time-space. Critical Sass Press. Their forthcoming cre- ative non-fiction collection, tentatively ti- Maria Hupfield, Post Performance / Conversation Action at Galerie de l'UQAM, 2016. Denise Booth McLeod is Anishnaabe (Ojib- tled nîtisânak, is to be released in Spring PHOTO: MAXIM PARÉ-FORTIN. COURTESY THE ARTIST. way) and her ancestral lands are Sagamok 2018 through Metonymy Press. Anishnawbek First Nation on the North Shore of Lake Huron. She has worked close- Kris Noakes is an Anishinaabe citizen of ly with urban Indigenous communities in Nipissing First Nation and the President of Toronto as the Cultural Coordinator at the Peel Aboriginal Network. She is active in Native Canadian Cultural Centre, Urban the community and serves in many advi- Indigenous Family Violence Prevention, sory roles including in a First Nations ad- and Culture Coordinator at the Native visory role on the City of Mississauga’s Women’s Resource Centre. She is cur- Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Commit- rently the Indigenous and Community tee and as a part of the Toronto Area First Enagement Coordinator at Toronto Birth Nation, Métis, and Inuit Educational Leads Centre. for the Indigenous Education Office of the Ministry of Education. Lisa Myers is an independent curator and artist with a keen interest in interdisciplin- Rosary Spence is a recognized Indigenous ary collaboration. Myers has a Master of singer, steeped in time-honoured rhythms Fine Arts in Criticism and Curatorial prac- and styles. Spence's debut album Mas- tice from OCAD University. She is currently kawasiwin (a Cree word for “strength”) was an Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of released in 2015. She is a featured artist Environmental Studies at York University. on a variety of albums and collaborations, Myers is a member of Beausoleil First Na- most recently a 12-track compilation titled tion and she is based in Port Severn and Women's Voices For Attawapiskat, dedicated Toronto, Ontario. to the people of Attawapiskat First Nation. Spence is originally from the coastal Cree Esther Neffis the Founder and Co-Direc- community of Fort Albany First Nation, off tor of Panoply Performance Laboratory, the coast of James Bay.

28 Acknowledgments CIRCUIT 1 Labour of Curation #callresponse is co-organized by Tarah The Blackwood Gallery gratefully September 11–30, 2017 Hogue, Maria Hupfield, and Tania Willard. acknowledges the operating support of We acknowledge the politics of violence in the Canada Council for the Arts, the North America as it relates to Indigenous Ontario Arts Council, and the University CIRCUIT 2 lands and bodies including on the many of Toronto Mississauga. Indigenous territories where the projects Care Work take place, whether they are ancestral, traditional, unceded, unsurrendered, urban, October 16–November 4, 2017 rural and/or reserve.

#callresponse, Blackwood Gallery, and CIRCUIT 3 Letters & Handshakes extend deepest thanks to all the participating artists, Infrastructures and Aesthetics of Mutual Aid respondents, and the networks that November 20–December 9, 2017 support the important work they undertake at all levels. Thank you also to those who have led and participated in the programming The Blackwood Gallery is grateful for CIRCUIT 4 around the exhibition. the generous support of #callresponse from the Jackman Humanities Institute Stewardship Take Care Artist-in-Residence Program, the January 8–27, 2018 September 11, 2017–March 10, 2018 BC Arts Council, and grunt gallery, with Curated by Letters & Handshakes additional support from the Department of Visual Studies, Women and Gender CIRCUIT 5 Encompassing a five-part exhibition series, Studies (UTM), and C Magazine. performances, and workshops, Take Care Collective Welfare mobilizes more than 100 artists, activists, curators, and researchers confronting the February 12–March 10, 2018 crisis of care. Take Care unfolds as a series of five exhibition themes, or circuits of care.

Staff Christine Shaw, Director/Curator Jayne Wilkinson, Assistant Curator Petrina Ng, Exhibition Coordinator Blackwood Gallery Alison Cooley, Curatorial Assistant and University of Toronto Mississauga Collections Archivist 3359 Mississauga Road Fraser McCallum, Outreach and Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6 Publications Assistant* 905-828-3789 Joy Xiang, Curatorial Research Assistant* blackwoodgallery.ca

Gallery Hours Installation Technicians *Funding for additional staff support was made possible Uros Jelic, Matthew Tegel through the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organiza- Monday–Friday: 12–5pm tions program, Department of Canadian Heritage. The Wednesday: 12–9pm Canadian Museums Association administers the program Micropublication Design on behalf of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Saturday: 12–3pm Matthew Hoffman The Blackwood Gallery promotes LGBTQ2 positive spaces and experiences and is barrier-free. Micropublication Printing The gallery is FREE and open to the public. Thistle Printing Ltd.

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