Indigenous Art, Resistance, and Representation

Flashcards covering vocabulary, key artists, historical events, and activism movements related to Indigenous art and decolonization.

Dentalium shells

Marine shells exchanged between Indigenous communities for thousands of years, used as a trade material and for personal adornment.

Catlinite (pipestone)

A specific type of pipestone from Minnesota traded among Indigenous nations for over $2,000$ years.

Teri Greeves

A Kiowa artist raised on the Wind River Reservation who blends traditional beadwork with contemporary subjects and materials.

Yvonne Walker Keshick

An Odawa artist known for creating birch bark containers and porcupine quillwork using techniques passed down through generations.

Nadia Myre

An Algonquin artist from the Kitigan Zibi Reserve who created the project Indian Act ($1999–2002$), where participants beaded all $56$ pages of the legislation.

Rebecca Belmore

An Anishinaabe artist who created Trace, an installation using over $10,000$ clay beads to address colonial violence and land concerns.

Expo 67 – Indians of Canada Pavilion

A $1967$ exhibit where Indigenous artists rejected a romanticized image of their culture to instead reveal the realities of colonization.

Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporated (PNIAI)

Founded on April $1$, $1975$, and known as the "Indian Group of Seven," this group demanded recognition as professional artists rather than creators of museum artifacts.

The Spirit Sings Exhibition

A $1988$ exhibit boycotted by the Lubicon Cree because it was sponsored by Shell Oil while the company exploited resources on Lubicon territory.

Carl Beam

In $1986$, he became the first Indigenous artist to have his work enter the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Aboriginal Curatorial Collective

Founded in $2005$ to promote Indigenous curatorship and Indigenous control over cultural representation.

Christi Belcourt

A Métis artist who created Walking With Our Sisters in $2013$ to honor Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Walking With Our Sisters

An art installation consisting of $1,818$ pairs of decorated moccasin vamps contributed by more than $1,400$ artists to provide a sacred space for healing.

Grassroots Movement

A community-driven effort, typically originating at the local level with volunteers, aimed at bringing attention to social issues.

Bikai Wa'atin and Inuk Nu'ot'en

A Wet'suwet'en law dictating that it is a husband's duty to protect his wife's sovereign territory.

Unist'ot'en Camp

A resistance community formed as traditional watchmen to block pipeline construction on Wet'suwet'en lands.

The Oka Crisis

A $1990$ standoff in Quebec involving the Mohawk Nation and Canadian forces over a proposal to expand a golf course on a burial site.

Idle No More

A movement founded on $11/10/2012$ by four women in Saskatchewan to protect Indigenous lands and protest legislative changes like Bill C-45.

"Protector"

A term that replaced "protester" in the $2010s$ to emphasize land defense and the safeguarding of waterways.

Indigenous Futurism

A storytelling genre that envisions futures where Indigenous peoples are the primary agents shaping the world, rejecting standard dystopian tropes.

kitaskînaw 2350

A story by Chelsea Vowel set in the year $2350$ that serves as a "love letter" to her ancestors and a vision of Indigenous resiliency.

nêhiyâwêwin

The Plains Cree Y Dialect spoken by characters in the future scenes of kitaskînaw $2350$.

Relational Accountability

An Indigenous framework where the artist, audience, and subject are active agents in a shared and mutually constituted act.

Salvage Ethnography

A tradition focused on recovering or fetishizing a recovery narrative of a perceived "vanishing race."

In the Land of the Head Hunters

A $1914$ film by Edward S. Curtis that used staged traditional sets and removed evidence of modernity to create an "authentic" Indigenous past.

Artifact Piece ($1986$)

A work by James Luna where he displayed himself in a museum case alongside childhood artifacts to deconstruct the ethnographic gaze.

Modest Livelihood

A $2013$ film by Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater that explores hunting, treaty rights, and the ethics of resource sharing.

Daphne Odjig

Known as the "Grandmother of Indigenous Art," she was a co-founder of the PNIAI and the first Indigenous artist exhibited in the Winnipeg Art Gallery as a fine artist ($1972$).

Mi'kmaq (Quillwork)

Known as "The Porcupine People" due to their exceptional traditions in crafting with porcupine quills.

The Indian Act (Beadwork project)

A collaborative artwork by Nadia Myre where participants beaded over the text of the Indian Act to transform colonial legislation into a visual critique.