“REPERCUSSIONS:” INDIGENOUS NEW MEDIA ART AND RESURGENT CIVIC SPACE by Jessica Jacobson-Konefall A thesis submitted to the Cultural Studies Program In conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (September, 2015) Copyright © Jessica Jacobson-Konefall, 2015 i Abstract This dissertation investigates Indigenous new media artworks shown at Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery, located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I argue that Urban Shaman is an institution of Indigenous resurgence and translocal citizenship in Winnipeg. The new media artworks I examine operate as authoritative civic spaces by drawing upon Indigenous aesthetic traditions and new media technologies. The first chapter centers on new media artworks by artists Scott Benesiinaabandan (Anishinaabe) and Rosalie Favell (Métis), conveying Winnipeg’s histories through their artistic renditions of personal and public archives that frame Winnipeg’s city spaces. The chapter locates these works in conversation with artists Terril Calder (Métis) and Terrance Houle (Blood) whose new media artworks reframe and restage civic archives in Toronto and Calgary. The next chapter considers how new media artworks at Urban Shaman by Jude Norris, Nadia Myre, Jordan Bennett, and Terril Calder enact what I am calling Indigenous civic ecology, relating human and non-human elements of the city through Cree, Anishinaabe, Mi'kmaq and Métis genealogies. The final chapter discusses how new media artworks by Jason Baerg (Cree/ Métis), Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe), and Scott Benesiinaabandan (Anishinaabe) advance a lexicon of aesthetic values, particularly “travelling traditional knowledge” and “blood memory,” in response to globalization. This dissertation illustrates how new media artworks shown at Urban Shaman embody critical Indigenous methodologies in relationships of ongoing praxis. Ultimately, it demonstrates that Indigenous new media art functions as, and through, practices of translocal Indigenous citizenship, rearticulating urban civic ecology, and ii resurging, maintaining, and developing Indigenous epistemology and values in Winnipeg. iii Acknowledgements I must first of all thank my husband, Jason Hasselmann, for providing friendship, love, spiritual support, emotional connection, childcare, meals, and a lovely home to work within. Without him, my life would be impossible. Thank you to my daughters Sarah and Iris, for inspiring me in every area of my life. My supervisor Susan Lord’s support also made this dissertation possible. Susan models for everyone in her life what it means to live your convictions as a scholar, as an administrator, and as a person. Thank you to my committee, Susan, Dylan Robinson, Michelle Raheja, Asha Varaharajan, and Carla Taunton for your brilliant, compelling analysis of this work. Your suggestions and criticisms have made powerful impressions that continue to work on me moving forward. Thank you to Daina Warren, Director of Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery. Thanks also to Dr. Sherry Farrell-Racette, for funding my initial work for her Aboriginal Art History project. Without these two women, I would not have written about Urban Shaman: this dissertation would not exist. Due to their support, I have had innumerable opportunities to share my research that I undertook at Urban Shaman, and to continue to curate, archive, and develop digital humanities methods for an art history of Urban Shaman online whether through the Virtual Museum of Canada or ArtCan2.0. Thank you especially to the artists who discussed their work with me, and gave permission for their works to be reproduced in this dissertation. This research was supported through grants from Queen’s University and a Joseph- Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. iv Thank you to Canada Research Chair Dr. Diana Brydon, whose project Brazil/Canada Knowledge Exchange: Building Transnational Literacies helped me to flesh out these ideas through perspectives, Indigenous and settler, from the global North and South. My undergraduate students at the University of Winnipeg, in English, Art History, and Religion and Culture have been valuable interlocutors. Specific teachers and friends had disproportionate impact on my path. Dr. Scott Morgensen at Queen’s University was one of these people. He taught me lessons about unsettling knowledge production that took me to the end of writing this dissertation to learn. In some ways, I will always be learning these lessons. My dear friend Joni Lee Aikens, whose anti-oppressive praxis and artistic methodologies left me completely undone. Thanks also my many friends who supported me and this project along the way: Libe Garcia Zarranz, Jamille Pinheiro Dias, Whitney Light, Erin Sutherland, Robert Falcon-Ouellette, Liz Garlicki, James Patterson, May Chew. Thank you to my family. v Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………iii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………vi List of Figures………………………………………………………………………….ix Chapter One: Locating Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba Introduction……………………………………………………………….……………1 1.1 Keywords…………………………………………………………………………..15 1.2 Civics Lessons……………………………………………………………………...25 1.3 Civic Practice: Urban Shaman……………………………………………………..31 1.4 Methodology……………………………………………………………………….35 1.5 Chapter Descriptions………………………………………………………………49 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..52 Chapter Two: Civic History: Anticolonial Winnipeg Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….53 2.1 Biopolitical Codes of Settlement…………………………………………………..54 2.2 Theoretical Framework: Indigenous Aesthetic Ecology…………………………...72 2.3 Settler Urban Media Codes…………………………………………………………81 2.4 Media Art and Civic Ecology………………………………………………………93 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...102 Chapter Three: Media Archives and Civic Personhood in Indigenous New Media Art Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..106 3.1 Indigenous Theories of Archival Citizenship in the Arts…………………………..111 3.2 Archival Provenance, Materials, Access, Interpretation: Juxtaposing Views……...114 3.3 Reframing Winnipeg’s Main Street: Benesiinaabandan and Favell………………..118 3.4 Repercussions and Landscape: Figuring Agency in Concrete Terms……………...140 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………..161 Chapter Four: Indigenous New Media Art and Civic Ecology Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..169 4.1 Indigenous Relational Materialism and Civil Society……………………………...172 vi 4.2 Euro-American Materialist Theories: Biopolitics, Animals, and Land…………….180 4.3 Land-Based Animal-Human Relationalities in Indigenous Media Arts……………185 4.4 Resurgent Animals on the Land: Bennett and Calder New Media Memories……...205 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...220 Chapter Five: Power in the Blood: Indigenous Visions of Globalization in New Media Art Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….226 5.1 Blood Memory and Indigenous Arts……………………………………………….231 5.2 Euro-American Abstraction and ‘Bloodless’ or Legitimate Knowledge…………..237 5.3 Jason Baerg: Travelling Traditional Knowledge…………………………………..242 5.4 Belmore and Benesiinaabandan: Screening Blood Memory………………………272 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..286 Chapter Six: Conclusion……………………………………………………………….292 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………310 vii List of Figures Figure 1. KC Adams. Perception. 2014. Digital photograph. ww.kcadams.net/art/photography/phtotal.html. Web. 10 Jul. 2015. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist………………………………………………………………………8 Figure 2. Mondragon Worker’s Collective. Video still. 2010. Youtube. Web. 08 Jul. 2015. Digital image..……………………………………………………………………32 Figure 3. Bryan Scott. “Banker’s Row.” http://winnipeglovehate.com/. 2008. Digital photograph. 10 Jul. 2015..………………………………………………………………..84 Figure 4. Jessica Jacobson-Konefall. Plaque at Forks Heritage Site. 2014. Digital photograph...……………………………………………………………………………..88 Figure 5. KC Adams. “Cyborg Hybrid Niki.” Cyborg Hybrids. 2006. Digital print. http://www.kcadams.net/art/photography/phtotal.html. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist. ……………………………………………………………………………………..95 Figure 6. Rebecca Belmore. Here. 2014. Installation. http://www.roewancrowe.com/here-with-rebecca-belmore/. Web. 10 Jul. 2015. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist……………………………………………………………119 viii Figure 7. Rebecca Belmore. Here. 2014. Performance. http://www.roewancrowe.com/here-with-rebecca-belmore/. Web. 10 Jul. 2015. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist..…………………………………………………………119 Figure 8. Scott Benesiinaabandan. Boy with a Fish. “Boy with a Fish.” 2010. Digital print. http://benesiinaabandan.com/#/downmain/. Web. 10 Jul. 2015. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist..…………………………………………………………………122 Figure 9. Scott Benesiinaabandan. Boy with a Fish on Main. “Boy with a Fish.” 2010. Digital print. http://benesiinaabandan.com/#/downmain/. Web. 10 Jul. 2015. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist..…………………………………………………………125 Figure 10. Scott Benesiinaabandan. Untitled. “Boy with a Fish.” 2010. Digital print. http://benesiinaabandan.com/#/downmain/. Web. 10 Jul. 2015. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist. ………………………………………………………………………………126 Figure 11. Scott Benesiinaabandan. Untitled. “Boy with a Fish.” 2010. Digital print. http://benesiinaabandan.com/#/downmain/. Web. 10 Jul. 2015. Digital image. Courtesy of the artist. ………………………………………………………………………………..128 Figure