Introduction

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so hello everyone i think we’re we’re live now um so

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my name is uh lindsay sharman i am the curator of the art gallery of alberta uh welcome to

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this aga live with joanne’s hollowback and david leverviere um david was selected

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to be in the 2020 biennial of contemporary art entitled borderline that was shown at

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both aga in edmonton and ravy modern in saskatoon the aga half of the exhibition that

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david was a part of is now closed uh but the saskatoon half of the exhibition is still up

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uh until february 15th so you still have a couple days uh to catch that if you’re in saskatoon

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uh to give some context to to the biennial in our conversation today the biennial is an exhibition that

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happens about every two years and looks at contemporary art in alberta

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up until this year the biennial looked only at alberta and artists that are

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working within alberta’s provincial borders for 2020

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rather than looking at that strict geographic boundary the biennial instead focused on

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the regions and borders of the number of treaty regions 4 6 7 8 and 10

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and also opened a conceptual conversation around borders which are prioritized what it means to

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cross them uh challenge them or be in proximity to them

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so the art gallery of alberta is situated on 2d6 as is our partner institution remy modern

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and joanne david and i are all coming to you from various places on treaty six

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um so before this conversation um i was asking joanne

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uh about land acknowledgements and and how to approach this one in particular um seeing as one

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of my goals for the entire biennial project um

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was to kind of complicate the idea of land or territory and in a lot of ways

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the entire exhibition is a land acknowledgement um and then after hearing joanne

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speak about land acknowledgments i i have kind of even more questions uh and i know probably

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less than i did before and uh so i i do actually want to

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to kind of thank joanne um for that because i think that um it’s in that unpacking uh where you

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realize that there’s even more to know and so i think for me it kind of sits in this sort of interesting place between

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um being both important and inadequate uh is my kind of view of where they are

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right now so i’m i’m excited to uh through this conversation kind of continue to

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um learn uh myself about um this land that i’m on and how

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um being on treaty six um for me can be um more meaningful and so i’m very

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excited to to be um able to listen to this conversation today

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um so to introduce our our speakers um joanne has worked as

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a policy analyst a researcher for various organizations

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she’s worked as a community developer for 30 years delivering workshops all across

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canada related to culture health uh indigenous research processes roles and rights of first

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nations women and cultural training workshops for rcmp corrections canada alberta health

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healthcare workers judges crown prosecutors she’s also worked with various

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indigenous organizations and government departments on strategic and tactical plans on policy research

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evaluation and program delivery she has worked as an advisor on on many

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projects and she is an artist and teacher in the broadest sense of both of those

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terms in many capacities and i should note today that

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joanne is feeling a little bit under the weather um and so with her um when when she

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comes on uh is also her her husband uh jerry saddleback uh and so uh if if joanne has to

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kind of pop out um at any time jerry’s going to to just come in and join the

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conversation with with david um so david uh

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is from edmonton but currently lives in in saskatoon he has a bachelor of fine arts from the

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u of a and m.a from goldsmiths college uh and has his work has appeared in many

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solo and group exhibitions across canada including at uh truck in calgary

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uh neutral ground in regina the mendel art gallery in saskatoon which is now also the the rainy

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um and the biennial um most recently and uh did a residency in 2018

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at open space in in victoria so david and joanne are going to talk

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for about um 45 minutes to about an hour um after which they will will answer

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questions you can put any questions you have in in the chat um album

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i’ll be monitoring the chat throughout the conversation so you don’t need to wait till the end of the talk as any

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questions come up please just feel free to put them in there before i hand it over um to

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david and joanne i would just like to take the opportunity to thank epcor

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um the epcor heart and soul fund sports all of he’s online programming

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uh and also would like to thank um adb financial for their support of the borderline exhibition

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uh and so with that um i would welcome um joanna and david

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thank you

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hello uh hi joanne i i’m going to just start uh by also just

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imparting a few thanks my heartfelt thanks and gratitude to all the

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curatorial team of the borderline uh biennial sandra fraser

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felicia gaye francesca herbert spence and in particular lindsey sharman for making also this uh

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hashtag aga live event possible and many thanks to the whole team at the gallery for all of your support i

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would also like to thank uh the other participants and collaborators in this project whose

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contributions throughout were so thoughtful and fro and profound um ruth cut hand danny knight and sean cut

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hand joseph natal and uh adam north pagan um i’m also very grateful

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uh for the invaluable support this project enjoyed from uh lana whiskey jack amanda gould and my

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sister megan the riviera my employer paved arts and my partner danielle raymond

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i’ve been very fortunate and privileged to produce this work with generous support from sk arts and the canada council for the

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arts finally i would like to thank joanne and jerry saddleback

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for their wisdom and generosity um it was truly an honor to make your

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acquaintance at the uh kakachap art and tea house in edmonton i hope i

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pronounced that okay um so uh i would like to begin this

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conversation by thinking back to that meeting because you and jerry put help to put something

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into perspective for me an element of this project is very important

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to contend with i think of the conversations that i’ve shared with

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adam north began uh ruth cut hand joseph nate tahoe daniel knight sean cut hand and yourself and jerry

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all of them as what’s that oh sorry um all of them as learning

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experiences well this is true and the experiences have been edifying

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i hope for a wider public as well there’s still looms of danger that

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threatens to undermine the whole project a danger that comes from the settler tendency to confuse

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learning with the idea of acquisition

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what became very apparent from our meeting as joanne described the deeply spiritual

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relation between the land we sometimes refer to as treaty six and the cree people is that this complex

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understanding this relationship is not something that can be acquired uh it’s not something that can

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be bought or possessed it must be lived it must be lived in what is more is that

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this lived experience for the cree people is intergenerational

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and goes back in a way that relates to a deep sense of time

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to begin our conversation today treaty is only a certain dimension of this land

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and only has to do with sovereign nations negotiating it as a space post-european

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contact whereas the indigenous people of this land have a much deeper history

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joanne would you like to share with us some of your thoughts about your relationship with this land uh what

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is the land of treaty six to your family parents and ancestors

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i think it’s important to uh first of all hello david and thank you lindsay uh i think it’s

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important to understand can you hear me all right yes okay i think it’s important to to understand

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that in the signing of those treaties in treaty six i mean i i think people need to first

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understand that we’re not a conquered people we didn’t fight a war and and we lost

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and seceded that that didn’t happen yeah we are a sovereign people and we

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signed the treaty as a sovereign people this is considered pre-territory and there

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are dots of other nations here like um the dna you know but they’re small small dots

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and compared to the the population of crete that are on the treaty six territory so for me specifically that it talks

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about a cree history in a cree relationship to to the treaty six territory and i think

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it has to be understood as well that when we were signing these treaties it was they were peace treaties that we

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agreed and we we made treaties that were unique in the history of mankind

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in that they brought their bibles and we brought our pipes and we agreed

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that we would live in peaceful coexistence forever forever

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and that we we had decided that we would we would meet together

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you know as free people about to sign treaty we met for four days and four nights and

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we had ceremony and we spoke to those those deities that that we believe in

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and spirits that help us and they told us during that time they told us to about the land and to

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make sure that we were near water they told us a number of things all the things that are in the treaty they said

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put in land put in water put in health put in education put in you know

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things that you’re going to need to not survive on this land but to thrive on this land

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and when we went to go sign the treaty for treaty six and like i say it was unique you know we

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we made we smoked that pipe we traded those spiritual connections it right away immediately

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when we were signing treaty six and we we made a promise

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to the creator and our old people say and he’s watching he’s listening how both sides

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fulfill this treaty to live in peaceful coexistence so we signed these treaties to prevent

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war we didn’t sign them post-war

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and we signed them as sovereign nations we signed it with the british with queen victoria you know

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at the time and uh from from one nation to the other that’s that’s the only people who can sign

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treaties are sovereign nations and so we signed those as as sovereign

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nations so what does treaty six mean to me it’s that it’s it’s saying that this is the

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this is the agreement that this is the land that we will continue to to

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uh protect continue to to look after you know we always had

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you know pre-treaty we had treaties between nations between ourselves before

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there was european contact and that treaty as my husband often says

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was based on one principle the creator made everything perfect

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let’s leave it as is so many people think that that means just uh

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leaving it alone and let it grow like that you would not begin to understand the sophistication

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and the science that it takes to maintain paradise yeah in order to

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to leave as small a human footprint on that as possible so it takes a lot of dedicated effort

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to keep it pristine to keep it beautiful to keep it there for like they like the

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some of our other indigenous people say you know our children don’t inherit the land from us what we’re doing is that we are

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borrowing it from our children that’s what we’re doing so we so people

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who borrow something we have to make sure that it’s returned as good or better well

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you know in this conversation of course we’re going to return i think um again and again

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to uh the kind of betrayal of that basic premise uh that

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to that that uh sovereign nations came together uh came up also uh

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in my conversation with joseph natal where um this idea that sovereign nations came

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together to make important decisions about land and water but that the the colonial betrayal of

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that is that it’s never properly happened and uh and of course what we see

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in a in the colonial land is all kinds of um of

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betrayals play out in terms of environmental uh uh catastrophe

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um i i want to just kind of turn to the premise of this exhibition

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um if we may uh because with you know this idea of borders and border

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line that is uh that became like the kind of the leaping off point for this work

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um i think it’s also a concept that’s fraught with maybe misunderstanding in that

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there’s very different conceptions of border that’s going on uh one thing i wanted to

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quickly ask helen uh would you mind putting our pictures over to the right side uh

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just for this slide i don’t know if uh yeah thank you i i just wanted to uh

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show folks that uh treaty six is the kind of light green area

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there and a lot of this project uh draws on maps that are not meant to be

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dead accurate they are basically impressions of the traditional

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uh territories of of nations and what we see here i just wanted to illustrate too how

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large the uh cree nation is uh because uh on native

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uh native hyphen land dot ca uh treaty six kind of fits into just a

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small portion at the bottom of this very large area of the cree nation so um but it does uh

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encompass the entirety of this giant landmass that we refer to as treaty 6 as well

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so returning to this idea of of borders i guess one of the things

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that really inspired me uh in a way was thinking about

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the way that the indigenous expression of border or boundary is basically

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i’m going to read this from a statement that i composed such boundaries express complex relations between language

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and land and custom and medicine and water and human and animal

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all of these elements enter into a composition forming vast dynamic bodies

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so joanne you know reflecting on that like that uh how different is or how violent

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is this colonial imposition our conception of border or or uh borderline

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is really uh violent because it doesn’t take into account this composition of

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all the elements of the land rather it cuts through arbitrarily for

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the for the purposes of segmentation and extraction and i wonder if you would like to

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respond to that well there’s two concepts there david that you remind me of

Two Concepts

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and one is is that our relationship to the land is that she is our mother yes and in ours in our history of

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creation in our and what they call a long story our creation story

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we talk about how directly we are related to to her mother and what she means to us

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and that we have this inalienable right that stems from that to protect her

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and the borders uh i mean the cree people they what really is our land or the

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the land that we’re looking at i guess i can’t call it our land the land that we were looking at as as

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what you referred to territory i mean we we refer to uh this land over here as an

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island it’s called menastic and that’s north central and south america so when you talk about

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borders i mean decree are the largest indigenous nations in north america

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the creed there’s no other nation navajo anybody in ojibwe that are as large as the cree

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nation so you look at there are more cree i mean there there are a lot of cree in

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3d6 but that’s not the only cree treaty territory that that cree are you

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know you you take uh towards eastern northern canada you find a lot of cree i mean there

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there’s a pre uh there’s cree that are in near laredo texas

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and there’s there’s just cree all over and in the language groups you know

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there’s a the stemming of the basis of the of the cree language in a lot of those language groups so it’s a it’s a huge

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nation and when you think about borders i mean we were when we talk about the past and

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the the journeys that we used to make i mean they called us nomadic but you know we weren’t the wanderers we

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knew exactly where we were going we would go on these medicine paths we’d go right into south america

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if you want to look at any kind of a border type of thing you know we were more um we went more uh

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um lateral than we were horizontal you know so as soon as you

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make a border that goes lateral you’re cutting off so much of

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the territory and my husband often talks too about you know each of those nations

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they were they were ecological experts in their own territory so they

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knew how to take care of it they knew how to how to help it you know uh thrive you

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know and to continue you know for eons and eons so the idea that people would come in and

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all of a sudden put these very random kind of borders to us

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it was very violent it cut us off from medicine pass to cut us off from so many journeys it

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cut us off from being able to keep up those relations with other cree

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other pre-tribes it uh you know cut us off from having the same agenda having the same

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goals you know when you break down treaties all of a sudden you know our brothers and sisters who

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are in northern ontario they’re in a different treaty they have different things in their treaty they have different circumstances

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in history as to how they they sign that treaty then to us here in 3d6 or 38 or you know there’s

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lots of cree and in treaty eight you know and they have it it’s different they have a different history

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so it it it really you know when you talk about this violence that happened you know my husband often

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refers to two as this tsunami of cultural erosion and when you cut us off from the

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land when you cut us off from our way of life you’re you’re cutting off the culture you’re cutting off that relationship

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in natural relationship that we have to the land so that that’s that’s what it reminds me

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of when you talk that way david indeed yeah it’s uh it’s this uh segmentation a compartmentalization

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that goes on with uh colonial uh um processes um and we really

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it’s unabating we see it today as as much as as uh from the point of contact

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well there was something that happened when they were doing this too like i say we we signed it as sovereign nations with it with the british

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you know but when canadians started settling they they wanted control they wanted

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to say over those lands and over the indigenous people and over those treaties

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like for instance we were all eligible to be members of the league of nations

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which became the united nations yeah canada was not they weren’t eligible so

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as by pure political lobbying that they stopped some applications of

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memberships to the league of nations by first nations sovereign people you know and and then they this gave

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canada a foothold into having some kind of say so when they formed their government

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in 1867 they they form the indian act you know what

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is it the next year or 1876 something like that they they formed the indian act

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so through pure politics did they ever begin to have a say and then they began to have more of a

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say in what was happening to treaty six instead of having treaty

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six as our territory they started putting us on reserves and giving us pockets of access to

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certain lands you know so they further uh deteriorated the the treaties i mean we

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signed them one year in the very next year people were figuring out how to how to corrupt them and how to how to um

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break them up break them apart you know rather than living up to the treaties i mean we had very uh you know when

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canada started you know enacting the indian act you know and they sent out indian agents

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who are supposed to be in charge of uh giving us making sure that we got what

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was in treaty like farm equipment and things like this animals guns even ammo boats you know

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fishing nets all of that equipment food and all of these foods those indian

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agents they would then decide who would get it and they kept a lot of it for themselves it was a very

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very corrupt system so that further eroded the relationships that we not only had with our land

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and what we wanted to do with it and having the proper tools to do it but it further eroded our relationship

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and our our trust of both the canadian and the and the british governments yeah um i actually as you were speaking

The Indian Act

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switch to this slide because it uh it really is the um

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the indian act was which is still of course in in force with amendments uh to this day

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um was the uh has done so much uh violence and um

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you’re already uh uh touching on uh some of the violence that

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that it has enacted uh but i i um i wanted to uh uh this is again

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returning to our conversation at the sap uh uh tea house

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um and basically uh i want you to hold i want you to hold

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your thought david okay yes because in in crete when you put a c in front of a letter it gives such it

27:16

gives it oh so it’s

27:27

sorry about that uh yeah uh i had actually written

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down for myself phonetically but i the phonetic writing i put down was also

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mistaken so cha-cha-cha perfect

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um so uh one of the subjects that we also touched upon uh was the it was the

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indian act of course first passed in 1876 and it’s still in force with amendments

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and the damaging consequences of this canadian colonial legislation um

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what what i recall from our conversation prior was uh of put what’s also uh

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touching on the social life of uh indigenous society the impacts of the

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indian act to the way that indigenous society was organized that there was a

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matriarchal uh and a a form of governance that was uh by

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consensus and uh so i i uh what the indian act did of course

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was it replaced this kind of governance it’s really stripped out that kind of

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governance and imposed a patriarchal uh colonial system

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and uh uh so i wonder if we could uh turn our attention to that particular

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impact at that time when europeans were coming

Women as Property

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over here yeah women were property they were the property of men of their

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fathers and then their husbands over here it were like you said it was matriarchal

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we set the public agenda we set the processes for decision making

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we set the the norms we we had we had and were revered for the kind

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of knowledge and perspective that we brought to our our uh tribes to our nation

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and when women were doing that they had a certain

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process of how things would be governed and it was the consensus basis we nurtured

29:48

a culture of debate it was called win win win and the philosophy of it was

29:56

i am always right you know when it took about four days to go through this

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process you know democracy is a is a is a slow process well when you come to

30:07

consensus when everybody has a voice it’s it’s even slower but everybody must

30:12

i mean but we had some things going for for us we had common experiences we had common goals we had

30:19

uh common faith and beliefs and values you know so we had those working with us

30:24

all the time but the the idea of i am always right is you can put up one thing and you can say you know

30:32

everybody gives their perspective of what this is and i might have the most unique

30:38

perspective but i am not wrong in my perspective you are not wrong in your perspective because the moment i turn around and

30:44

show you my perspective you are right again now i see your perspective i am i wasn’t

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wasn’t wrong we’re both not wrong we’re both right and we’re both always right so that’s

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that’s what it’s called i am always right so you would you would debate

31:01

from from there and that so it valued absolutely everybody’s point of view

31:08

and you had a duty you had a duty to give your point of view there was no such thing as a majority rules

31:14

or i abstain and the reason for that is that when a decision was made we are all equally responsible it is an

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incorruptible process and we are all responsible for the decision made and we

31:27

are therefore all responsible for the action taken from that decision now that’s

31:33

the way a matriarchal society rules she also knew that we people don’t know

31:39

as much as they they didn’t know that we were a matriarchal system they also don’t know that we were also a clan system and that

31:46

it was the women who held the history of those plants which we called our um

31:53

science of genetics we would put those plant systems together so if you you couldn’t marry you know as

32:00

a young couple you could marry someone from your mother’s clan someone for your father’s plan and someone from your your grandparents

32:06

plans at least that there was a time in our history where we could trace our clan heritage

32:12

64 levels and you couldn’t marry anybody in any of those clans it absolutely

32:19

uh secured healthy babies and it also promoted long long

32:25

life long life so you had people who you know at that time europeans they

32:32

were living when you were 40 years old as a european you’re considered an old person well we had

32:37

people that they were meeting who would be 200 years old you know that

32:43

so and we were very tall people we we often reached you know six feet

32:49

seven feet tall well during contact too we know it not only shortened our lives but it also

32:57

shortened our height you know as people you know so it had it had a lot of

33:03

effect on that matriarchal system it broke down those systems i mean it took me 20 years to trace my

33:10

my mother’s and and that’s the other thing is that you inherit from your mother so it took me about 20 years to chase

33:15

down my mother’s lineage and it’s too bad she wasn’t alive when i started you know looking for it

33:21

you know otherwise i could i wouldn’t have had to go through so much but you inherit from your mother you are

33:27

what your mother is in the european way you chase down your father’s bloodline and you inherit from your

33:32

from your father but in the pre-way you inherit from your mother you are what your mother is if your mother

33:38

was free you’re free it’s that simple it’s that simple you inherit all those

33:43

plans and she gave you the history of all those plans so it broke so many things it

33:49

broke a very i mean women didn’t have to worry about being raped

33:54

and murdered and trafficked and you know that that just simply didn’t happen

33:59

it just simply didn’t happen because it was a matriarchal society everything was from the philosophy of

34:07

and every law every activity that we did came from that philosophy for the

34:13

protection and provision of women and children that was the over-guided philosophy

34:19

and we did that in collectivity so it was collective so there was no

34:25

such thing as an orphaned abandoned abused neglected child uneducated child

34:31

everywhere you met you met your mother as you met your fathers you met your grandparents all the old people in that

34:38

tribe or in the nation are your grandparents so there were so many and so many things

34:44

i mean even giving birth you know it changed the way we gave birth

34:49

how we look at birth you know it changed it it cut all of those things that were

34:55

specifically governed by a matriarchal system so the

35:00

health in every aspect of the life our homes how they were designed how they were

35:07

placed you know in a in a tribe or in a village of people

35:12

you know so it changed it changed everything it changed the safety and the protection of women

35:17

and children um i uh i’m really inspired by

Democracy is Work

35:23

what you said about the the governance model as well in terms of well as you

35:31

as you set that up by saying well democracy is work um and that

35:39

that’s absolutely true but just to even to further this kind of uh form

35:45

of consensus is like a democracy pushed to the nth degree it’s like the

35:53

the work of the work and uh and we’re so far away from that like i think it’s

35:59

arguable if the settler state of canada is a democracy at all in the way that

36:04

operates as many of the insights that you just

36:10

gave us uh demonstrate like these uh sort of shortcuts of uh

36:16

uh majority rules and so on but um i want to turn to uh to the

36:23

advent of idle no more and these uh four women who

36:28

invented uh created the movement this revolutionary movement um

36:35

and uh and how women are at at this juncture in this moment

36:42

taking and playing this leadership role that maybe uh

36:49

and maybe that this is um a kind of uh return to those

36:56

strengths to to some degree oh i think so i mean they they didn’t

We Will Be Idle No More

37:03

they didn’t do it as kind of a return to matriarchal society from what i

37:08

understand was that it was based on first contaminated water and the and the

37:15

the right of people to have clean drinking water and that the government were using back

37:20

door bills to to go through the treaty

37:26

to break down through the back door you know a lot of a lot of rights that

37:31

were protected in treaty and that including water so that that was the beginning i mean it

37:37

came much larger and and it began to say we’ll be idle no more for a whole bunch of

37:43

a whole bunch of things yeah a whole bunch of rights that that were violated but the basis of it was the land the

37:50

land and the water yeah you know that the and that the government they were doing a number of

37:55

things that that violated the the treaties and uh so they

38:00

idle no more you know we had had to do have to do something about it i’m not surprised that it came from

38:07

women not surprised at all you know and i’m not surprised that it began to encompass

38:13

a whole bunch of rights that were being that were being violated yeah and that included you know murdered

38:18

and missing women you know that uh no longer were native women protected you know that we that we

38:27

were being the whole um the whole activity of domestic human

38:33

trafficking involves native women and children you know the from 7 to 12 is the average age of a

38:42

native child who’s being trafficked and there are three provinces involved you know bc alberta

38:48

saskatchewan and now man at manitoba i’ve also been told so they’re being trafficked you know between those and

38:54

there are triangles and edmonton is a great big spot it’s a great big spot where all

39:00

those triangles kind of meet you know where women and children are trafficked so the the case of murdered and missing

39:07

women has to do with the way society thinks about you know indigenous women now that we

39:14

are disposable our children are disposable so it has so far gone

39:21

from being a matriarchal society yeah to having a society that treats indigenous women as

39:27

disposable yeah we are disposable you know even when the news talks about

39:32

us oh she lived a risky lifestyle shaming the dead woman right risky

39:39

lifestyle you know and i think that things like idle no more and me too and

39:46

the the whole um murdered and missing women and girls movement you know to bring light on it you know

39:53

puts on it proper don’t shame women you don’t know what our circumstances are

39:59

you don’t know if we’ve been trafficked you don’t you don’t know anything i mean the whole idea of residential

40:04

schools too i mean when children were taken when they were torn sometimes from our very

40:10

arms you know to go to residential school and this was part of the indian act not part of a treaty

40:16

there was no parent or grandparents who would agree yeah take our women and take our children and grandchildren too

40:23

but the whole idea was that when that was happening they um

40:31

there was the idea of tearing them away it wasn’t just like

40:37

the the truth and reconciliation commission having to do with what happened to

40:42

survivors of residential school but if you go a little bit further what happened to the parents whose

40:48

children were torn away from them right and what happened to indigenous women at that time is that we

40:53

imploded we imploded you know in the in the 50s and you know when residential

41:00

schools really came out west i know from that experience and that was the very first time you saw

41:06

women leave their their reserves that was the very first time you saw women on the streets without a people and

41:12

where she engaged in in alcohol or anything to drown that that hurt and that pain and heartbreak

41:18

you know that she was feeling that’s what happened to indigenous women we imploded we imploded you know and never

41:25

having to to deal with that the chance to deal with all of that trauma and all of that grief and all of that heartbreak

41:32

you know when women are still imploding you know the the alberta government uh apprehends more children than

41:40

anywhere else in canada they apprehend more native children and and children

41:46

all together than anywhere else in the world yeah i have become a product so our old people they

41:53

say foster homes are the new residential school and our women are still imploding sometimes just on a neighbor

42:02

making a complaint you know and because you’re not living the lifestyle they think you should be you know

42:08

without any understanding you know they’re still taking your children away still shaming

42:13

our women so i used to work in prisons i’ll just end with this on on this subject

42:18

yeah you know i used to work in prisons and the guys in prison and gangs they they rule the prison you know

42:24

native syndicate red alert you know all of them and they they said yeah you you

42:30

blame our mothers she may have been an alcoholic she may have been a drug addict she may have been a prostitute

42:36

but where were you as in the government when she needed help where were you when she needed training

42:41

and education and proper support so don’t blame our mothers they said don’t blame our mothers

42:47

we’re here for one reason they said poverty and with that racism indeed a

Land Back

42:55

state sanctioned sponsored instituted racism

43:01

and really going right back to as well the uh disenfranchising

43:08

of women with the indian act and uh they quote any other than an indian

43:15

or non-treaty indian being a disenfranchising kind of uh

43:20

tool of the settler state um i now we’re we’re running a little uh

43:27

short on time there’s a piece of this i really wanted to get to

43:33

that has to do with uh being an ally uh uh but also like

43:41

maybe maybe what i’ll do is i’m going to go through some slides there’s two pieces if we have time that i’d

43:48

really like to get to one is this notion of land back which i just wanted to say very briefly

43:56

you know as one who is concerned about um uh the environment so i’m gonna skip

44:03

through some slides here because we’ve kind of uh run short of uh some time but

44:09

as one who is concerned about the environment as many uh people uh nowadays should be

44:15

concerned about the environment it seems to me that this notion of land back

44:20

through all that we’ve talked about with this with the philosophies and world views of uh

44:26

indigenous people and the cree nation uh that it’s actually imperative for our continued

44:34

survival that it feels like it’s that urgent and um

44:43

sorry i’m just going to go up to the next slide i keep pressing the wrong buttons here

44:49

but i wanted to um to ask you about your own feelings about this kind of movement for

44:57

land back and maybe as a way to introduce this actually i’m gonna go forward a couple of more slides

45:03

here in my conversation with ruth cuthand one of the points that ruth made

45:09

was that we settlers sometimes conflate the notion of treaty six

45:16

with a reserve lance we we make them like they’re the same thing

45:22

when in fact reserve lines are like uh kind of like uh bread i think the term that she used was

45:28

it’s like bread crumbs sprinkled across treat e6 here we see

45:34

actual an actual map of the reserve plans on 3d6 and pretty much bears out

45:40

what ruth was saying and it kind of also transmits the degree of dispossession

45:46

that has actually transpired uh which is uh quite uh startling in a

45:53

in a glance so uh returning to this question of land back

45:58

and the urgency of the kinds of colonialism has led us down this road of

46:05

poisoning the land for uh many generations now

46:10

and even to recoup uh what has been poisoned is such a a huge challenge and we’re now needing to

46:17

confront uh all kinds of uh environmental uh issues on even a global scale um i

46:25

wonder uh what are your thoughts about this land back movement

Thoughts on Land Back

46:30

very very quickly i can give you and this is from my point of view i mean what are all people always ask is

46:36

acknowledgement and respect and to acknowledge that she is our mother to acknowledge that we have a

46:42

duty that we have a that kind of relationship with her you know that we have to look after her

46:47

that she’s had so much love and kindness compassion for us she’s given everything that we have

46:53

everything and looked after everybody saying that she would the the children who were first here

47:00

it’s a mistake to think that we’re immigrants you know the way that our creation story goes is that we were created here on

47:06

this land in fact in a place that that a sacred spot that exists in in alberta that the the rest of the

47:13

society doesn’t even know about they don’t even they they have no uh they have no knowledge they have no acknowledgement

47:20

and they have no um uh allyship to allow us to look after these these

47:28

places and spaces so land back it means taking care of that environment

47:33

it means acknowledging that inalienable right that the first nations people have to

47:39

take care of it to again to exercise all of that sophisticated technology

47:44

that we had that that allowed the land to thrive and whenever it needed our help you know

47:50

the same thing like with the fires we had very controlled fires we knew exactly what we’re what we were doing you know in having to

47:57

clear some some brush sometimes you know from the land and helping to look after it and and the animal populations and

48:05

i mean we in and in the seasons and in that cycle of life i mean we had a

48:10

we understood we know this land she knows us and um to begin to acknowledge that

48:18

again would be and to allow and that means allowing that

48:23

indigenous perspective to help be guided by that indigenous perspective when it

48:29

comes to taking care of the land i think is something that will save us all it will

48:34

save us all yeah you know what the what the what the creator to say manitou has said

48:40

you know and he’s got he said he’s got one more earthly cataclysm that he’s gonna we don’t call

48:46

it judgment day we call it renovation day you know that he’s going to renovate the world one more time

48:53

and that’s it you know and when he does renovate it

48:58

most of us will be we’ll be gone we’ve been gone but he’s promised us he has promised us

49:05

he said you know like our old people say you believe in heaven you’ll go to heaven you believe in valhalla you’ll go to

49:10

valhalla nirvana you’ll go to nirvana but for us he promised us and we have

49:16

two places of waiting in the universe you know when he does that final

49:23

renovation of the earth he promised that he would make this earth even more beautiful

49:28

and that we would come back here he promised he promised indigenous people

49:33

this land will be yours you will come back here so we have every recognition we have every

49:40

knowledgement and and uh that when we walk out the door

49:46

we are walking on earth that we’re going to come back to that this is our heaven if you want we

49:51

are walking on our heaven and we have to look after it we have to look after her she’s our mother you have

49:57

to look after her um i couldn’t agree more um

Trust and Moving Forward

50:04

joanna i wanted just to finally end with a question about trust and moving forward

50:12

and actually to reflect even on this work on this piece in the biennale which has to

50:18

confront a few paradoxes so first of all i i mean so much of our

50:24

conversation we’ve already touched on the various atrocities that have been

50:31

perpetuated by uh the settler state of canada such as the creation of residential

50:39

schools and the the past system which uh of course uh was actually used i

50:47

think as a model of apartheid in south africa um and um

50:54

the 60 scoop uh which uh we see here uh

51:00

survivors of the 60s scoop gathered on the occasion of alberta’s apology

51:08

by premier rachel notley and uh the missing and murdered women uh

51:14

which uh this profound piece by jamie black the red dress project that we’re looking

51:21

at with uh with this kind of long history of um

The Red Dress Project

51:29

treachery deceit perpetuated by the settler state of canada

51:37

and i would say in terms of the art world its participation as well in this

51:45

long history of the same kinds of paternalistic um attitudes on an

51:52

institutional basis towards uh indigenous people but also and exclusion exclusionary

52:02

uh but also like this kind of way that the art world participates by uh setting up a system

52:09

of names by basically capitulating to capitalism

52:14

um so bringing us to this this project that’s kind of in

52:20

front of us here um there’s a few things that i felt were you know kind of problematics

52:27

obviously one being that um as a uh a white settler born on tree six in

52:35

edmonton born and raised in edmonton alberta very privileged um how do i uh avoid this

52:42

white savior complex uh that’s the one part is like the last thing that we need

52:49

is another uh white european to be shining the light forward we need that like a hole

52:54

in the head um the second piece though is at the same time

53:01

there’s an unfair tendency for public pressure to be placed on indigenous people when

53:06

questions of decolonization arise but why should all of the heavy lifting

53:13

be thrust onto indigenous people surely the colonizer

53:18

needs to undertake decolonization as much as anyone else so there’s an imperative that we need to

53:26

participate but there’s also an imperative that we need to be sensitive to get out of the way in the and make

53:34

space in the in in equal measure or the in all of the good ways and um

53:41

uh i guess i’m i’m i’m kind of asking you to reflect

53:47

even on my own approach and don’t be shy about being critical i i know you

53:53

won’t but but uh but you know uh um

53:59

how how is trust uh you know you decided to participate in

54:06

this and we’re speaking to a broader public and i really hope that this becomes food for thought for further

54:12

conversation of other uh around kitchen tables elsewhere

54:18

and that it is also not about propagating my career and my this being just about uh some

54:24

sort of like oh this is a big up for uh putting me up on into the system

54:29

of names that is the art world that that it should really be um that

54:34

has a life um i hope outside of these egotistical kinds

54:41

of determinations um and uh we’re just looking at these qr

54:47

codes that actually led to stories of uh with other interviews that were conducted in the

54:53

course of this uh project um with the people that i’ve mentioned before and this one is uh adam north pagan’s uh

55:01

pgan’s uh qr code so uh with that um would you like to to comment about trust

55:09

about being i imagine you’ve been approached by settlers uh of various good intentions

55:16

perhaps um would you like to to comment about that

55:22

two things come to mind and i’d also like my husband to to talk on this as well yeah two things

55:28

for me is so many people i mean we talk about truth and reconciliation everybody wants to go to reconciliation

55:34

but we’re not yet finished with the truth and that’s still a hard part of the process yeah and the second thing is

55:41

what do i trust i trust the protocol that you gave i tried that’s medicine and that opens a

55:48

big door for us to be able to talk about these things you gave protocol you gave tobacco you

55:54

made offerings i trust that and from that basis from that

56:00

huge medicine that opens a big door for us to be able to talk and to be able

56:06

to begin some kind of conversation about these very difficult things my husband jerry saddleback he was one

56:13

of two spiritual advisors to the truth and reconciliation commission and he heard everything he’s uh

56:21

willy little child’s elder he’s also the elder for the musketeers cultural college the elder in

56:27

residence there and i just wanted to give him a chance just to say a couple of words on what you’ve been talking about and

56:33

i’m going to turn the camera to him

56:38

thank you thank you so much uh nice to be with you and dave i guess uh in in that terms uh

56:46

when you say you know the building of a trust relationship part of the whole thing i guess is the

56:51

the complete and thorough understanding of uh what are the very

56:56

guiding principles from nation to nation what are the seed principles that people

57:02

go by when they come together as nations like back way back when and i think it’s

57:10

might not be that far off to con to to say that it’s still that type of uh foundational

57:18

kind of uh like i say it’s it’s in embedded uh you know i guess in our

57:25

subconscious level even you know because sometimes uh we have a tendency okay maybe i should

57:30

break away from that kind of a foundational mentality and and then so after you you embrace yourself in

57:39

certain type of educational processes and that kind of thing you decide to well let’s let me go out

57:45

in the field now and test this out stephen but sometimes when when you’re actually

57:50

doing that and when you begin the movement of doing that the very things that are in this your

57:57

subconscious mind is your con you actually continue doing what uh

58:02

you know i guess uh you were training yourself not to do right so one of the things there uh i i

58:09

seen there with uh with that that treaty uh relationship was uh with um with the

58:17

we we had two basic uh different uh belief systems coming from belief

58:22

two belief systems with us it was uh a peaceful coexistence and living coming

58:30

together in total reciprocity uh but at the same time

58:35

uh you know being uh we would call them visitors coming over

58:40

from the the other and i guess reciprocity is also taken in a sense where what if i

58:47

was at that time all my nation of people went to england and i don’t know where

58:54

they did it but when if we went over there and to actually go with

59:00

the type of mentality that

59:06

so in the biblical the found when i say foundational in the biblical uh statements within the

59:13

bible in itself what what it suggests suggestive there that and uh you know it quotes out something

59:22

like this and uh maybe not in word for word but in the bible it says to the to the

59:28

people that talk and swear and legally swear on the bible with the government

59:34

what they do the european people they’ll say that the creator in in their bible it’s just a something

59:42

like go y’all and conquer the whole world right so of course they’re gonna that

59:47

embedded mentality of the conquering philosophy of the whole world is uh

59:53

intergenerational if you want then it’s embedded within there like i said your subconscious mind and that drive is

1:00:01

always like it’s it i guess it it takes a while it’s not going to be

1:00:06

overnight for the people to be able to uh you know i guess you could say uh

1:00:12

understand a different perspective whereas with us you know we were more inclined to state that you

1:00:19

know we were an absolute one with the earth people yeah and as a nomadic people

1:00:26

we witnessed for ourselves when our circular encampment

1:00:31

center of that circular autonomous encampment that she called the chief who was um the

1:00:38

statesman was able to have the talent to be able to take that’s why we

1:00:44

had a hereditary system to be able to go from all of you all throughout even within the neighbors

1:00:50

within our planes tribes and further outward into that like as my

1:00:56

wife was alluding to you know we had title-headed names for those uh each journey that we made

1:01:02

but those people that made those journeys you know what we witnessed for ourselves as a nomadic

1:01:08

people how these people these different uh territorial zone holders

1:01:14

were they they were eco specialists within their own sanctuaries

1:01:20

that we witnessed all of that for ourselves and being uh

1:01:26

going there in the form of uh in a respectful coexistence manner we were uh you know we’re

1:01:33

visitors and so we we reciprocated in that fashion and then

1:01:38

that way we brought what the very best of what we had in trade or whatever practices that we

1:01:45

had and we lived harmoniously under that so as my wife was saying

1:01:51

it’s um this um you know the prince the single principle of uh

1:01:56

you know the creator made everything perfect let’s leave it as is there it’s many faceted

1:02:03

but when you use when you but it always comes back to that core you know the very core of how we

1:02:09

believed in it so it’s these two systems you know with us that they were

1:02:14

very different you know kind of like they clashed and then whereas with us we

1:02:21

we wanted that the continuance our assumption from our understanding from the our old

1:02:27

people at the time was that there would be that type of uh you know

1:02:32

an adherence to uh uh you know harmonious coexistence you

1:02:38

know that type of principles into the future that was our assumption from our elders

1:02:43

at the time so i guess it’s just uh that type of an educational process that needs to take

1:02:50

place in order to develop that such a trust but sometimes uh that type of an

1:02:56

educational system it requires a certain type of how you actually

1:03:01

look at the entire picture as well as all these different things within it to come to a

1:03:07

a stable understanding of the entire picture rather than just a specific little area

1:03:14

and then you know trying to base all of your judgments within that but looking at the entire picture of how you

1:03:20

develop this type of uh you know a true bonding uh trusted

1:03:25

relationship for for us to get there i i think we have to

1:03:31

um overcome uh so much arrogance uh of on the part of uh western

1:03:38

entitlement and western enlighten this idea of the western enlightenment we’ve got to get past that to be able to

1:03:45

see how we can survive uh by learning uh and and finally get past all of that

1:03:52

colonial arrogance that we’ve that has been so detrimental and and blocking

1:03:58

um i see lindsay you’re back i imagine we’re going to probably turn to take a couple of few

1:04:04

questions yeah um thank you so much um both uh jerry and joanne and david

1:04:12

thank you both we’re all so so very lucky to um have been able to hear your

1:04:19

discussion so thank you so much um [Music] so far there are no specific

1:04:27

questions in the chat but lots of lots of nice comments from folks and and i did want to um just bring one out

1:04:35

it’s quite long so i won’t read the whole thing but it’s a it’s from somebody who is joining us from india

1:04:41

and they’re they’re talking about the kind of parallel um and juxtaposing the the colonial

1:04:48

histories and then um goes on to say

1:04:53

here in 1835 the british introduced in in india

1:05:01

the english language act to slowly eradicate the use of local south asian languages

1:05:08

in offices colleges etc and then they go on to to thank thank you for the presentation but i was

1:05:14

just wondering if um taking from this this comment um if uh joanna or jerry you wanted to

1:05:22

say anything about um language and the loss of language and a

1:05:27

revival or you know continuation of your language i guess with us we

1:05:35

we have what they would we would term when we say reconciliation in our terms

1:05:40

well first and foremost like what we just got done talking about is that that that

1:05:46

belief system of insurance of uh uh you know that we

1:05:51

actually know each other’s uh histories and we we were able to then uh realize uh

1:05:59

like like our consensus system that my wife was talking about that that both sides were you know they

1:06:06

understood each other can one one good understanding of that and um so with that you know that

1:06:14

the old people they they tell us with the language uh they were saying some of them say

1:06:20

that uh when it’s true reconciliation with us is uh

1:06:26

it’s uh they call it the ceremony of remorse you have to have a ceremony of remorse

1:06:32

they say uh you know like like that inter the un the uh what do you call up

1:06:40

you don’t actually see a an intergenerational kind of uh you know you’re being

1:06:48

traumatized you don’t really see it as a nation of people of how you your characteristical traits

1:06:55

are as a you know a nation of people that you you you think you are and so what

1:07:00

happens is uh that that that type of mentality it’s really really hard to uh you know understand

1:07:09

and one but once you get to that level of understanding that hey you know uh

1:07:14

you know nobody’s perfect but uh you know but i also think that you know there’s room to for

1:07:21

me to for my nation for me to to go to a level of uh you know i guess you could

1:07:28

say uh in in world over you know to be globally to be able to

1:07:33

survive as a human race for one thing and that’s a very underlying basis but at the same time be that part of

1:07:40

you know a true uh go for a true remorseful type of a ritual whatever that process

1:07:48

is from the other side of the the nation that i

1:07:53

i did my uh damage upon that uh you know that

1:08:01

that nation that uh with me i need to show my the proper remorse

1:08:09

that i’m supposed to you know uh perform like for that in order for that other nation to then

1:08:16

it’s like uh i guess today that it’d be different levels like

1:08:21

a speech speaking or a language of just merely uh you know

1:08:29

saying i’m a formal uh saying i’m sorry to uh the people of uh you know this land that

1:08:35

kind of thing sometimes that might sound a little too surfacy

1:08:40

as to you know going into the nitty-gritty and being able to say okay this is why i’m certain this is

1:08:46

what i want to do because i am truly sorry and i want to make things right between this nation

1:08:53

and in your nation i just wanted to

1:08:58

speak about the language part that she was asking about and so i mean in the residential schools they made a policy

1:09:04

of making it an offense to speak our own languages and they wanted to break the language at

1:09:10

first the very first thing and for us the language is everything the language is our history the language is our

1:09:16

connection to the land our language is our connection in relationship to everyone else you know our mothers and

1:09:22

fathers and everybody you know like i go to saddle lake and for the very first time the first generation

1:09:28

i couldn’t speak to my to my grandfather who knew only krie and didn’t know any english

1:09:33

i didn’t know any crete you know i couldn’t speak to my own grandfather so it broke all of those processes as

1:09:39

well and so now the thrust is we have to save the language we have to

1:09:46

reclaim the language we have to rejuvenate the language there’s all kinds of efforts

1:09:51

to put these indigenous languages and we’re lucky with cree we have a lot of cree there’s a lot of

1:09:58

korean a lot of free speakers but there’s a lot of indigenous languages that aren’t so lucky and they’re dying

1:10:04

yeah yeah thank you thank you so much joanne um i think

1:10:11

we’re we’re kind of running out of time um joanne did you speak seeing as we’re

1:10:16

kind of finishing up speaking about language um did you want to kind of wish us all

1:10:22

farewell and increa for us i uh something in our language when you say

1:10:28

ai hai hai it it means thank you but when you say

1:10:34

it that way just i’m really thanking the creator

1:10:39

that he made you so to all of you i hate

1:10:44

you thank you japan goodbye thank you paul goodbye thank you

1:11:01

you

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