Métis curator, teacher and writer Cathy Mattes studies Aboriginal artists and artworks inspired by the community. The Louis Riel monument in Winnipeg is a controversial statue she has written about.
Jennifer Dales
Jennifer Dales is a writer living in Ottawa. She has reviewed art, poetry and non-fiction for the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Arc: Canada's National Poetry Magazine and The Danforth Review. Her poetry has appeared in several journals, including Prairie Fire. She teaches in the professional writing program at Algonquin College. Her interest in First Nations art, literature and politics spans more than 20 years.Cathy Mattes: Art as engagement
It is Feb. 15th, Louis Riel Day in Manitoba, and Métis curator and writer Cathy Mattes is talking about two of her favourite subjects -- art and Louis Riel. She is telling a story about two very different monuments to Louis Riel that were created for the Manitoba Legislature.
"In 1971, a statue depicting Louis Riel as a naked, tormented figure was erected on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature as part of Manitoba's centennial celebrations," Mattes explains.
Landmarks of time and place: The art of Mary Longman
In Saskatchewan, long-present landmarks and sacred objects can be found alongside the trappings of contemporary life: buffalo rubbing stones, tipi rings and medicine caches reside a few kilometres from recently-built cities. The interplay of past and present, on the land and within people, is the subject of Saskatchewan-based artist and art history professor Mary Longman's art and research.
Steven Loft: A curator with chutzpah
Steven Loft has a lot of chutzpah. This Mohawk-Jewish curator, writer and media artist is the first to hold the two-year position of curator-in-residence, Indigenous art, at the National Gallery of Canada. His overall career goal is impressively ambitious: “I want to change the way mainstream Canada thinks about Aboriginal art.”
Trickster art: The digital storytelling of Chris Bose
In Nlaka’pamux (pronounced ng-khla-kap-mh) country in south-central British Columbia, you can hear coyotes howling in the canyon at night, and glimpse them disappearing into the woods. For the Nlaka’pamux people, coyote is a trickster, using his creativity to transform the world, while rebelling against and disrupting established order.
As a scavenger, coyote is the ultimate survivor, constantly adapting to changing times.
Chris Bose, a photographer, filmmaker, digital storyteller, poet and musician, has a lot in common with coyote.
Place like home: The art of Arthur Renwick
Arthur Renwick comes from two places in northern B.C. -- Kitamaat, the ancestral home of the Haisla people, and Kitimat, an Alcan company town, built in the fifties to house the aluminum smelter’s workers.
To get to Kitamaat, the Haisla village, you have to turn left at the entrance to the company town, and drive 14 kilometres to the other side of the channel. There, you will find the tiny Haisla community, where Arthur spent his childhood summers playing with his cousins, and where he used to sit and listen to his grandmother Ella drum and sing in the Haisla language. She was an important elder in the Haisla village, and played a central role in keeping the community and culture alive.
Artists steal photography scene
The Steeling the Gaze exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada reinvents and turns upside down the traditional notion of the portrait. At the same, it critiques and undermines at every turn the way Native peoples have been represented, taking apart such myths as the noble savage, the stoic and the warrior. It features works by some of Canada's most influential First Nations artists.
This exhibition of photographs, etchings, collages and videos offers viewers the chance to
understand more deeply the Aboriginal struggle for healing and wholeness through portrayals that question, play with and reconstruct identity.
