The Witness Blanket

The Witness Blanket was created by artist, Carey Newman Hayalthkin’geme, to bring educational awareness to residential schools. This art installation was designed out of reclaimed pieces from “residential schools, churches, government buildings and traditional and cultural structures including Friendship Centres, band offices, treatment centres and universities, from across Canada.”

Nogojiwanong Project

The Nogijiwanong Project was developed between local Indigenous communities and the city of Peterborough, Ontario, in recognition of the 200^th anniversary of Rice Lake Treaty No. 20, one of the treaties that governs this area. Nogijiwanong, is the Anishinaabeg word for “place at the foot of the rapids,” which describes a gathering space at the bottom of the Otonabee River. This area was renamed Peterborough by settlers.

#Next150

#Next150 is project that encourages people from all over Canada to participate in a number of challenges. These challenges are used as a tool to educate people on the topic of reconciliation. It is something that promotes the idea of learning on your own. For example, one challenge that can be completed was given by Ryan McMahon called ‘Indigenous mixtape’.

Our Story Teacher’s Kit

Indigenous Arts and Stories is a writing and art competition for Indigenous youth. They have developed a toolkit mainly to help teachers who are in turn helping Indigenous youth participate in this competition. The toolkit aims to help students discuss sensitive issues surrounding the history of Canada. While the toolkit is primarily aimed at Indigenous youth, it expresses the importance of teaching history and the impact of colonization to all students. The kit is directed to all teachers, not only those teaching Indigenous students.

Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre

The Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre showcases the history, culture, art, and Okanagan people of the Osoyoos Indian Band. Located in what is now southern British Columbia, in Canada’s only desert, the Centre displays indoor and outdoor exhibits available to visitors. Located on a 50 acre site, the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre is home to a primary museum, a reconstructed traditional village with a traditional pit house and sweat lodge, desert walking trails, an outdoor sculpture gallery and more. Visitors can learn about the legends of the Okanagan people in two multi-sensory theatre experiences located on the property.

Haida Heritage Centre

The Haida Heritage Centre opened in 2007 as a place to celebrate and share the stories, art, knowledge, language, and history of the Haida people. Positioned on the site of the ancient Haida village Kay Llnagaay or the “Sea Lion Town,” the multi-building centre was built with specific features to resemble the village. The Haida Gwaii Museum is located at the Centre, housing a variety of artifacts, rare archival documents, and art and showcasing the knowledge and history of the Haida people.

Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum

The Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum showcases the culture and art of local Inuit people in Iqaluit, Nunavut. As the only museum within the region, Nunatta Sunakkutaangit serves as the sole institutional educational and historical interpretation of local Inuit art,

University of Toronto Indigenous Initiatives

The University of Toronto’s office of Indigenous Initiatives has worked on bettering the university’s relationship with Indigenous students. A few examples of their initiatives are the following:

The university took on the responsibility to increase the Indigenous spaces available on campus. This included space in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and just outside of the Indigenous Law Students’ Association office. These spaces include Indigenous artwork and other postings promoting Indigenous language, health, etc.

Reconciliation Pole raised at University of British Columbia

The Reconciliation Pole, a 55-foot totem pole carved by acclaimed Haida artist 7idansuu “Edenshaw” James Hart, was installed at a place of honour at UBC on April 1, 2017. The ceremony, taking place on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people, began at 1 p.m. with the pole raising beginning at 2:30 p.m. on the Main Mall between Agronomy Road and Thunderbird Boulevard. The artist, a master carver and Haida hereditary chief, created a storyline on the pole, which shows the periods before, during, and after the Indian residential school system, a racist and assimilationist system ran in tandem by the Canadian government, religious institutions and the education system, beginning in the 1800s and ending with the last school closure in 1996.

#callresponse

Strategically centering Indigenous women as vital presences across multiple platforms, #callresponse is a multifaceted project that includes a website, social media platform, touring exhibition and catalogue (forthcoming in 2017). The purpose of #callresponse is to support the work of Indigenous North American women and artists through local art commissions that incite dialogue and catalyze action between individuals, communities, territories and institutions. To stand together across sovereign territories as accomplices in awakened solidarity with all our relations both human and non. The goal is to ground art in responsible action, value lived experience, and demonstrate ongoing commitment to accountability and community building. To respond to re/conciliation as a present day negotiation and reconstruction of communities in the aftermath of colonial trauma.

Ogimaa Mikana: Reclaiming/Renaming

Ogimaa Mikana is an art project that began in Toronto in 2013. It is an initiative of Hayden King and Susan Blight, two Indigenous artists and activists. The goal of the project is to restore original place names (i.e. street names, paths, roads, etc.) in Toronto, a city that often invisibilizes the history and contemporary realities of Indigenous peoples. The first action the artists took was

Claiming Space: Voices of Urban Aboriginal Youth

This exhibit, curated by Pam Brown from the Heiltsuk Nation, took place at the Museum of Anthropology at University of British Columbia and the website is rich with videos and interviews with artists.  The exhibit’s goal is to educate Indigenous and non-Indigenous

Canada Council for the Arts: {Re}conciliation

The {Re}conciliation initiative, aims to promote artistic collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, by investing in the power of art and imagination, to inspire dialogue, understanding and change. The six projects by Indigenous artists explore the ongoing process of conciliation and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

Perceptions: KC Adams Photo Series

The project, spearheaded by the city’s Urban Shaman Gallery, showcases the work of visual artist KC Adams. With Perception, Adams asked prominent indigenous Winnipeggers to pose for two photos: “I want you to look right into the lens. I’m going to say something. I don’t want you to react. I just want you to think of the words.”

Adams’s art is being displayed “on billboards, in storefronts and in bus shelters. On Jets game nights—those rare nights when the city’s largely white, suburban population floods the downtown—massive images will be projected onto buildings. By fall, financial backers, including the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, hope the project will stretch to the suburbs and the University of Manitoba’s south-end campus. This is just the start. Perception will inaugurate an annual indigenous art project in a city divided along racial lines, which has long struggled with deeply rooted racism.”

URL: http://www.kcadams.net/art/photography/PERCEPTION.html

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/winnipegs-new-art-project-stares-down-racism-in-the-face/

VIVA Project

The VIVA project was a five year long, multi-national community arts-based research project that culminated in the publishing of a book entitled ¡VIVA!: Community Arts and Popular Education in America. The project was a collaboration between artists, activists, and educators in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, the United States, and Canada, and it was predicated on a mutual interest in Freirean popular education and community-based art.

Walking With Our Sisters

Walking With Our Sisters in a commemorative art installation for missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. The website states:

It is estimated that 600+ native women in Canada have gone missing or have been murdered in the last 20 years. Many have vanished without a trace with little to no concern paid by the media, the general public or politicians. This is a travesty of justice.