chair /
- Marc James Léger, Independent
Land acknowledgements have become a common feature of conference presentations. For a few consecutive years, UAAC-AAUC presenters have been encouraged to give presentations on Indigenous studies and practices. What are the contradictions of race, identity and class in a global era of “progressive neoliberalism,” where the politics of recognition contrast with the realities of Indigenous life? Beyond the needs of the creative industry’s professional-managerial class, how does the decolonial turn in contemporary art and activism serve the interests of Indigenous peoples themselves? In what ways are “necropolitics” embedded in postmodern claims that history has ended? How does the state and corporate embrace of diversity and Indigeneity compromise those radical movements whose goal it is to protect our shared commons and attend to the demands of social reproduction as well as emancipation? This panel is particularly interested in but not limited to papers that deal with contemporary issues and practices.
keywords: First Nations, decolonization, recognition, neoliberalism, creative industry
K.2.1 Exploring Territory Network Methodology in Research/Creation
- Emily Davidson, NSCAD University
This paper discusses a territorial network methodology I am currently developing to trace Indigenous territories connected to the chain of production of my artworks. The complex global networks required to produce art materials extends far beyond the conception of place and land normally attributed to the production of objects under neoliberal colonial capitalism. This methodology aims to disrupt coopted notions of land acknowledgement by visualizing the way Indigenous lands are interconnected in everyday objects and experiences–often through the ongoing violent dispossession of Indigenous lands by settler-colonial states and corporations. I will explore how this research/creation methodology connects to frameworks of settler responsibility (Alexis Shotwell, Eva Mackey, Carla Taunton, Leah Decter, Amy Spiers) and aims to implicate me (Sarah Ahmed, Eve Tuck, K. Wayne Yang) in contemporary colonialism and continued land theft of Indigenous territories as a white settler artist. My goal is to disrupt simplistic notions of ‘local’ and to problematize rote land acknowledgment practices that refuse to implicate settler individuals and institutions in ongoing colonialism. I do this by exposing how the consumer products I use in my art production are extracted from, assembled in, and transported through numerous Indigenous territories across Turtle Island and globally. I will also theorize ways to resist potential problems that arise from my territorial network methodology, which include but are not limited to: 1) complexity becoming an additional excuse for settler disengagement (i.e. the notion that it is ‘too overwhelming’ for settlers to seek and maintain relations with multiple Indigenous nations); 2) distraction from practical solidarity efforts and treaty adherence in Mi'kma'ki (the territory where I am currently settled); 3) disingenuous portrayal of colonial metropole sites as ‘Indigenous’ based on the globalized nature of production.
keywords: land acknowledgment, settler responsibility, decolonization, settler decolonial methods
Emily Davidson is a white settler artist, activist and graphic designer based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Her artistic practice uses printmaking as an entry point to investigate histories, imagine new futures, and agitate for social justice causes. Her current research/creation focuses on the entangled relationship of print media in historic and ongoing colonization of Indigenous lands across Turtle Island and interrogates and the role printers played in Transatlantic Slavery in the territories that became Canada. Emily graduated from NSCAD University in 2009 (BFA, Interdisciplinary) and is a current MFA candidate at NSCAD University. Emily is a Research Assistant at the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery, NSCAD University. She is a recipient of the Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master’s Program in Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
K.2.2 Terre de nos aïeux: Land Acknowledgements, Labour, and Listening
- Susan Ingram, York University
This paper discusses the practice of land acknowledgements adopted by the York University Faculty Association’s Stewards Council over the past two years as part of the union’s efforts to not only recognize but prioritize the need to make the union more inclusive. To show up the inadequacy of the rote recitation of official texts, stewards were invited to volunteer to make a short presentation at the beginning of each meeting on something that helped them realize precisely that inadequacy. Examples came from a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds, and because the meetings took place via Zoom, integrated a wide range of media. An analysis of this material points to the benefits but also the limitations of this approach, something that will be demonstrated with the example of Terre de nos aïeux (2022), a recent bilingual music video by Innu artist Kathia Rock. A contribution to the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls movement, the video’s title reveals that it understands itself as a counter-anthem to the French version of ‘O Canada.’ A reading of it through the lens of trauma theory probes the tension between amplification and appropriation, the challenges of navigating various meanings and levels of nation, and the importance of listening to community building.
keywords: Kathia Rock, Innu, national anthem, music videos, unions
Susan Ingram is Professor in the Department of Humanities at York University, Toronto, where she serves as Vice-President Internal of YUFA and Coordinator of the Graduate Diploma in Comparative Literature. She is the general editor of Intellect Book’s Urban Chic series and co-author of the volumes on Berlin, Vienna, and Los Angeles. A past president of the Canadian Comparative Literature Association and its current web systems administrator, her research interests revolve around the institutions of European cultural modernity and their legacies.
K.2.3 An essay on Immigration and Geopolitics
- Guillermo Trejo, Ottawa School of Art
This paper discusses my work An essay on immigration and geopolitics (2018). I will explain specific aspects of this work, its inspiration, and how I use art-based research to translate these topics into bidimensional exercises, which encourage nonlinear interpretation through connecting elements like maps, drawings, personal history, and found objects. I am interested in addressing three main points: 1) the dysfunctional, controversial, and sometimes abusive employment of temporary agro-industrial workers in Canada, with a focus on how these immigrants, many of them from rural and indigenous territories, must travel to work in a different country as consequence of the predatory capitalist system that preys on cheap labour and that diminishes farm work in the form of unskilled work; 2) the agro-industry, globalization and capitalism, in particular, how these social relations have created a system where avocados are consumed in Canada as a progressive healthy choice and at the same time avocado farms are some of the less ecological farms destroying the indigenous biodiversity of central Mexico; 3) how do we define the ownership of work and production? The phrase ‘La tierra es de quien la trabaja’ (the land belongs to those who work it), by Emiliano Zapata, the indigenous leader of the Mexican revolution, raises the question: Are the farm workers—who are central American Mayas or Ladinos, Mexican indigenous or Mestizos, or Caribbean blac—with all their knowledge and skills the owners of their work? And if yes, does the land belongs to them? La land es de quien la trabaja—Capital es dead labour—Power migrante!
keywords: immigration, geopolitics
Guillermo Trejo, MFA, is a Visual Artist, Educator and Art Administrator. Originally from Mexico, he currently works at the Ottawa School of Art and is an Associate Co-curator at Studio Sixty Six Gallery. He has worked at the National Gallery of Canada as an Assistant Curator and was a Board Member of SAW Gallery from 2012 to 2016. He was appointed as one of the three artist directors of the Ottawa Art Gallery board in 2016. In his role as an artist representative on the board, he is interested in ensuring inclusive and healthy relationships between the Art Gallery and the local arts community.
