Honouring Water in Vancouver

'Dying of Thirst' an Indigenous screen gathering put together by artist/curators Tannis Nielsen (Canada) and Jenny Fraser (Australia) to showcase and honour tribal lands and waterways was held in Vancouver on Thursday October 27th. Featuring a range of performances and moving image works from Canada, Australia and Mexico representing various artforms and cultural backgrounds including Aboriginal, Native Canadian, Mayan and others. The event was held in solidarity for the many water protectors campaigning around the world at the moment, particularly the struggle at Standing Rock in the neighbouring Turtle Island community. 

Dying of Thirst : Thirst Days

"With this video program we affirm the urgency of defending land and water, now and for the next seven generations to come. We compel the viewer towards taking action in the protection of our planet and present some of the voices of international indigenous women’s struggle and resistance, safeguarding our inter-connectedness with the sacredness of all living things. These voices speak to the recognition and respect of indigenous sovereignty and against the colonial, capitalist resource extraction industries that rape our ancestral territories. They speak toward the seen and the known; animated in their resistance by the fires of prophecy, the love of the land, the people(s), and all of our relations. By sharing these subjectivities and prophecies we hope to begin to recognize each other, to unify and work together toward building an encyclopedia of international emancipatory strategies" affirmed curators Tannis Nielsen and Jenny Fraser. 

Jenny Fraser and Tannis Nielsen (Via Skype) introducing Dying of Thirst 2016 photo by Mique'l Dangeli

Local Coast Salish woman Lee Maracle commented in a new video for this screen conversation between Indigenous Women Internationally. Lee Maracle is from the Sto:Lo nation. She was born in Vancouver and grew up on the north shore. She is the author of Ravensong and Daughters Are Forever. Throughout her entire career, Lee Maracle has advocated tirelessly towards women’s, land and water rights. Known internationally as an acclaimed poet, Lee’s voice was sought for the territorial and geographical grounding of the exhibitions concept. Work from other artists included Mique'l Dangeli (Tsimshian), Jenny Fraser (Yugambeh), Helen Knott (Dane-Zaa), Zoila Jiménez (Mayan), Jules Koostachin (Cree/Attawapiskat), Tannis Nielsen (Métis/Anishnawbe + Danish), Rona Scherer (Mamu + Kuku Yalanji), Alex Wilson (Neyonawak Inniwak Opaskwayak Cree), Rita Wong. 

Lee Maracle on video for Dying of Thirst 2016 photo by Jenny Fraser

Lori Blondeau performed live at the event, and appropriate to the title “offerings’, Lori graciously offered the creation of a new work, specifically ‘gifted’ towards the Dying of Thirst thematic of water and resistance. The performance was also a tribute to Inuk woman artist Annie Pootoogook who recently died and was pulled from the water in Ottowa, a tragic loss to the Native Canadian Artworld. This month Lori won an excellence award in her home Territory of Saskatchewan. She describes her performance art as high-tech storytelling, drawing from personal experience. “My own stories, my mothers and grandmothers, I draw from the women in my life that are close to me, my experience being an Indigenous person living in this crazy time". She has also recently been concentrating on water in her work such as a focus on the historic Mistassiny stone, blown up while creating the Gardiner Dam. “I wanted to pay homage to the people who have fought to preserve these sites, to these stones that represent who we are as Plains Indians. Elbow kept a remnant of Mistassiny at the Elbow marina so I did a photo shoot of me wrapped up in red velvet on top of it” said Lori Blondeau. 

Lori Blondeau performing 'offerings' live for Dying of Thirst 2016 photo by Jenny Fraser

The Vancouver opening ceremony for 'Dying of Thirst' also included a 'Feast for the Peace' organised by Rita Wong, sharing food in solidarity with the Treaty 8 Stewards of the Land, who delayed clear cutting for 62 days in -30 weather this past winter. The proposed Site C dam would flood over 100 km of the Peace River Valley, destroying the last 20% of the free running Peace River. This $9 billion dollar dam violates treaty rights and is currently being challenged by several law suits. Instead of waiting for the law to rule, the BC government has instead started clear cutting the river valley to prepare for this mega dam. There is still time to stop this mega dam, which would take 9 years to build. If built, it would likely be used to power fracking and the tar sands, since there is no domestic demand for its energy. The dam will destroy a crucial wildlife corridor that stretches from the Yukon to the Yellowstone and reduce much needed forests that capture carbon in a time of global warming. It would also destroy fertile soil for farming, and make Peace farmers homeless. The intention behind the feast was to honour the food that the land provides, and to assert its importance to our future. 

Feast for the Peace for Dying of Thirst 2016 photo by Alisha Weng

Mique'l Dangeli on video for Dying of Thirst 2016 photo by Jenny Fraser

'Dying of Thirst' is part of Thirst Days which is Vivo Media Art Centres monthly series of video, film, performance and ceremony events overseen by the projects curator/artist-in-residence Jayce Salloum. He asks 'how can this, how can we, contribute to the establishing of a momentum that may have once been here in waves or pieces but over time was squandered, and defeated, with the imposition of capital triumphantly declaring its colonial (un)consciousness in our enclave by the water. Surrounded by a possible serene beauty, grief and sadness, love and hate, what encounters do we inscribe into our psyches and into our beings, what can art do to fulfil a mandate of hope and agency. What can we contribute?'

'offerings' performance remains by Lori Blondeau for Dying of Thirst 2016 photo by Alisha Weng

Dying of Thirst Curated by

Tannis Nielsen + Jenny Fraser

VIVO Media Arts Presents

thirstDays

No. 09

Love, intimacy and

(com)passion, in a

geopolitical context

Thirst Days http://thirstdays.vivomediaarts.com 

facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/1824785947752218

Dying of Thirst Program : 

Tannis Nielsen + Jenny Fraser

Lee Maracle

Lee Maracle

15:00, video, 2016

Throughout her entire career, Lee Maracle has advocated tirelessly towards women’s, land and water rights. Known internationally as an acclaimed poet, Lee’s voice and wisdom was immediately identified to be a central component of our project as we recognized her as being the impetus, embodiment – territorial and geographical grounding of our concept.

Mique'l Dangeli

Sm Łoodm ‘Nüüsm (Mique'l Dangeli) +  Tim-kyo’o’hl Hayats’kw (Nick Dangeli)

Aks Gyigyiinwa̱xł (water prayer)

video, Sm'algyax (Tsimshian) with English subtitles, Nick Dangeli: camera; Duane R. Grant: sound, 2016

The making of this film is a prayer offered by a mother and son (Diiłda Noo ada Ługuułgm), spoken in Tsimshian (Sm’algya̱x). Bringing together cedar, eagle down, copper, and ocean, it calls upon us to think critically about our relationships to the precious life-giving waterways inside our bodies and those of fresh and salt water that we are surrounded by. It is made in solidarity with efforts to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, to protect the flora beds around Lelu Island, to end Transboundary Mining, and with all people who are resisting capitalism by challenging resource extraction, defending salmon habitats, and praying with and for water around the world.

Jenny Fraser

Jenny Fraser

Saltwater Freshwater

15:51, video, 2016

Jenny speaks toward the history, memory, arts, culture and society of her home territory in Australia. She discusses the destruction of territory – sacred places – and the negative effect upon her Peoples, while simultaneously calling upon the audience to resist environmental degradation and the importance of working together as community to create change.

Zoila Jiménez

Zoila Jiménez

Mayan Lords Knowledge

1:50, video, 2016

Zoila Jimenez presents teachings about her significant relationship to water from a Mayan perspective.

Jules Koostachin

Jules Koostachin

NiiPii - Water Teaching

6:33, video, 2016

My grandparents taught me if we continue to disregard the gifts of the Earth, Water and the Sky then we are no longer living, we are merely surviving.

Although the verbal communication between Jules’ Cree grandparents and her was severed because of the residential school experience, they continued to build their relationship by spending a lot of time together in the north. She spent much of her childhood observing her grandparents and helping them clean and smoke hide, she also supported the household with chores like preparing hide, cutting wood and fetching water. Her family never really spoke about the experiences of being Native; they lived their lives together and enjoyed the company of family, friends and community.  Her family comes from the Moskekowok territory, both her grandparents (non-English speakers) are hunters and trappers, and lived off the land for most of their lives. This land-based existence was part of the everyday, the respect for land, sky and water was inherent, it wasn’t spoken about -- they lived it.  

Rona Scherer

Rona Scherer

Spirit Flow

1:46 video, 2016

"For over 75,000 Aboriginal people of Australia have had a wonderful and consistent involvement with water. It forms part of our stories, our dreaming, our living, our agriculture, our play, in fact, it’s pretty much a part of everything we are as Aboriginal people. In less than 250 years since European settlement, our waterways are now struggling. The new settlers to this country, had no knowledge or ignored basic science of how trees draw water to the surface of the land, cutting and clearing great swathes of land for their own agricultural or construction purposes. This process not only denied Aboriginal people access to traditional food sources and their own country, but it has caused many parts to be now arid with high salinity and slow running or dry river beds. Once crystal clear waterways, now run murky with silt washed down through generations of inappropriate farming techniques causing imbalance where dependent ecosystems struggle to survive. In western countries, where a household can use up to 20 litres of fresh water daily to flush toilets, we must take advantage of innovative products humans so brilliantly devise to stem this abhorrent waste of water. We must do it now, before it is too late.”

Alex Wilson

Alex Wilson

10:00, video, 2016

Dr. Wilson is one of many organizers with the Idle No More movement, integrating radical education movement work with grassroots interventions that prevent the destruction of land and water. She is particularly focused on educating about and protecting the Saskatchewan River Delta and supporting community based food sovereignty efforts. Having co-developed a Masters program in Land-Based Education at the University of Saskatchewan, she is now in the process of creating an international Indigenous Land –based PhD program.

Rita Wong

Rita Wong

Feast for the Peace

Tonight we’ll Feast for the Peace, sharing food in solidarity with the Treaty 8 Stewards of the Land, who delayed clear cutting for 62 days last winter. Helen Knott, from the Prophet River First Nation, is one of the people named in BC Hydro’s SLAPP suit against Peace River protectors. The Site C dam would flood and destroy 100 km of wildlife habitat and farmland. This $9 billion dollar megadam violates treaty rights and is challenged by several law suits. Not waiting for the courts, BC has started clear cutting the river valley. There is still time to stop this dam that would be used to power fracking and the tar sands. We feast to honour the food that the land provides, and to assert its importance to our future.

Helen Knott

Helen Knott: On the Site C Treaty

5:00, video, camera: Reg Whiten, 2016

Helen Knott, Dane-Zaa Activist from Prophet River First Nations speaks about her call to protect the homelands of the Treaty 8 region and development of a third Dam on the Peace River (Site C). Helen shares her views on the importance of the sacred peace treaty, and doing what she can to raise awareness about the potential for permanent loss of critical heritage, old growth forest river ecosystems, and fish/wildlife habitat in the Peace River Valley.

Lori Blondeau

Lori Blondeau

offerings

20:00, performance, 2016

Appropriate to the title 'offerings’ Lori is graciously offering us the creation of a new work, specifically ‘gifted’ towards the dying of thirst  thematic of water and resistance.

'Deluge' video artwork by Tannis Nielsen screening for Dying of Thirst 2016

Tannis Nielsen

Deluge

1:30, video, 2016

Being screened in VIVO’s lobby entrance, inspired by Winona Laduke’s quote “women are the direct manifestation of Earth in human form”, Tannis performs the idea of this, by embodying the pain and violence upon Indigenous women’s bodies caused by resource extraction industries.  

Tannis Nielsen

Binaakwe-Giizis/falling leaves moon

2:00, video, 2014

For the past seven years Tannis has been utilizing static electricity, water and the reflections and sound of both the sun and moon on bodies of water in order to speak toward Anishnawbe stories of creation. The ambient images animated here were recorded under a full moon, on lake ontario. The video was later mirrored and slowed down so that the viewer may be better abled to access the sentient being of water. Using two channel projections of water, Tannis provides the elemental fundamental linkages between the women’s voices/video who are heard speaking about water here.

Biographies :

As a Cree/Saulteaux artist, Lori Blondeau’s artistic practice continues to explore the influence of popular media and culture (contemporary and historical) on Aboriginal self-identity, self-image, and self-definition. She has been an artist, instructor, and curator for the last 20 years and is currently exploring the impact of the colonization of traditional and contemporary roles and lifestyles of Aboriginal women by strategically deconstructing popular images of the Indian Princess and the Squaw. Blondeau uses humour as a performative storytelling strategy to reconstruct these stereotypes, reveal their absurdity, and reinsert them into the mainstream. The performance personas she creates, like Belle Sauvage, refer to the damage of colonialism and to the ironic pleasures of displacement and resistance. 

Mique'l Dangeli was born and raised in Metlakatla, Alaska. She belongs to the Lax̱sgiik (Eagle Clan) and carries the Tsimshian name, Sm Łoodm ’Nüüsm and Tlingit name Táakw Shaawát. She served her community for eight years as the director of the Duncan Cottage Museum. She has also worked for the Annette Island Service Unit in Metlakatla as the curator of their Healing Art Collection. She is a dancer, choreographer, and dance group leader. Since 2003 she and her husband, Nisga’a/Tsimshian/Tlingit artist, carver, and singer Mike Dangeli, have shared the leadership of the Git Hayetsk (People of the Copper Shield), an internationally renowned Northwest Coast dancing group. She is currently an Assistant Professor, at the University of Alaska

Jenny Fraser was the first Murri to have her video art broadcast into outer space in the 2015 Forever Now project – a follow-up to the NASA Voyager Golden Records sent into space in 1977. She has a PhD in the Art of Healing and Decolonisation from Batchelor Institute in the Northern Territory (Australia). Jenny recently received the 2016 Mana Wairoa Award for Advancing Indigenous Rights, and she received an Australia Council fellowship for her project Midden in 2012. She founded the online gallery cyberTribe in 1999, the Blackout Collective in 2002, andWorld Screen Culture in 2015. She is on the National Advisory Group for the Centre for Indigenous Story, and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at The Cairns Institute.

Zoila Jiménez was born in 1978 and is a native of Merida, Mexico.  She studied at the Autonomous University of Yucatán in the Faculty of Anthropological Sciences in the specialty of Social Anthropology where she completed her  thesis ‘Religious diversity. Beliefs and rituals in a Mayan community.’’ Her work focused on the the Department of Social Sciences at the Autonomous University of Yucatan, in the CIESAS Peninsular, The University of Florida and the Center for Comparative Migration Studies at the University of California-San Diego.  Zoila is part of theKayche Collective that runs El Festival de Cine y Video Kayche' Tejidos Visuales, “which is a window that evokes dialogue in order to promote self-representation, and demand catalysts for change in an unequal world.”

Jules Koostachin is Cree from Attawapiskat First Nation. She was born in Moose Factory, northern Ontario. Her grandparents in Moosonee raised her, as did her mother, a survivor of Ste. Anne’s residential school. After many years as a performance artist she completed graduate school at Ryerson University in Documentary Media where she was awarded an Award of Distinction and an Academic Gold Medal for her thesis Remembering Inninimowin. Her activism, artistic and educational endeavors focus on environmental and Indigenous issues. Jules’ companyVisJuelles Productions Inc. co-produced a youth television series entitled AskiBOYZ. The series was created, written and directed by her and is now airing on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

Lee Maracle is a member of the Sto:Lo nation. She was born in Vancouver and grew up on the north shore. She is the author of Ravensong and Daughters Are Forever. Lee has also published a book of poetry, Bent Box, and a work of creative non-fiction, I Am Woman. She is the co-edited My Home As I Remember and Telling It: Women and Language across Culture. Lee is an instructor at the University of Toronto, Traditional Teacher for First Nations House; the Centre for Indigenous Theatre; S.A.G.E. (Support for Aboriginal Graduate Education); and at the Banff Centre for the Arts. In 2009, she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from St. Thomas University.

Tannis  Nielsen is of Metis (Anishnawbe) and Danish ancestry. She holds a Masters in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto. Her dissertation addresses the need for asserting localized Indigenous contexts accurately within the structures of the academy by illustrating the negative consequence of colonial trauma on Indigenous culture, land, language, familial relationships, and memory. Tannis’ thesis also sought to decolonize the structures of an English literacy, by repudiating the politicized devices of punctuation and capitalization. In doing this, she refused to use the language of the colonizer because “to use the language of the colonizer was to pay homage to them” (Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o). Tannis is currently teaches at The Ontario College of Art and Design University.

Rona Scherer comes from the far North Queensland areas of Australia, born to a Mamu woman and a Kuku Yalanji man. Although her early interest in art through ceramics took a backseat to assisting her children with their education and living costs, a fat tax cheque some years ago allowed her to invest in a camera and begin exploring photography. She hopes to document her people and homelands in a meaningful and connected way. Rona is connected with elders and traditional custodians from other homelands and is looking forward to recording unique moments which do them justice in a cultural context.

Alex Wilson gathered her first lessons on leadership in her home community Opaskwayak Cree Nation. “I have always been surrounded by women who lead, most of them leading steadily, some quietly, a few raucously, but always with love in their actions.” This understanding – that the most valuable leadership is driven by love for the people – has been borne out in her work as a scholar, educator, community activist, and mentor. In 2007, Alex became the first First Nations woman in Canada to receive a doctorate from Harvard University. Her groundbreaking work on the identity development of two-spirit people is widely cited and has become a touchstone for many LGBTQI Indigenous people. As Associate Professor, University of Saskatchewan’s College of Education, Alex co-developed a Masters program in Land-Based Education. She is an organizer in Idle No More, which works to honour Indigenous sovereignty, and the protection of land and water. Alex’s home remains in Opaskwayak, where she has helped to established a community garden and nutrition program.

a news article from The Koori Mail, p61, Edition 639 Wednesday November 16, 2016