Work-In-Progress (i.e. #WIP) is an Art Gallery of Greater Victoria podcast that offers some insight from behind the scenes to curatorial projects that could be seen as open-ended or process-based — highlighting some of the experimental and exploratory work that is taking shape both inside and outside of the AGGV’s physical gallery spaces.
In this episode we will hear from Gerry Ambers, Marianne Nicolson and Siku Allooloo, the co-curators of the exhibition, Woven In: Indigenous Women’s Activism & Media. Joining the co-curators is Tania Willard, one of the contributing artists, Carmen Guerrero, a key activist connected to the show, and Toby Lawrence, one of the curators from Open Space Artist Run Centre, who supported the sister exhibition called Tide Lines: Coastal Resistance of the 60s and 70s. This conversation, recorded during the opening ceremony and celebration for the exhibition, offers a window into the grassroots activism and Indigenous resurgence at the heart of the project
Learn more about Woven In: https://aggv.ca/exhibits/woven-in/
Learn more about the #WIP Podcast at: https://anchor.fm/art-gallery-of-grea…
The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is located on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples, today known as the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. We extend our gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to live and work on this territory.
Video editing by Marina DiMaio.Work-In-Progress (i.e. #WIP) is an Art Gallery of Greater Victoria podcast that offers some insight from behind the scenes to curatorial projects that could be seen as open-ended or process-based — highlighting some of the experimental and exploratory work that is taking shape both inside and outside of the AGGV’s physical gallery spaces. …
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welcome to work in progress an exploratory Gallery podcast hosted by the art gallery of Greater Victoria
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where you will hear from artists curators Gallery staff collaborators and even different hosts as you listen to
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each episode this podcast was produced on the traditional lands of the LA quangan speaking people also known as
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the song he’s an Esquimalt nations in this episode we will hear from Jerry ambers Marianne Nicholson and siku alulu
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the co-curators of the exhibition woven in indigenous women’s activism and media
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joining the co-curators is Tanya Willard one of the contributing artists Carmen
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Guerrero a key activist connected to the show and Toby Lawrence one of the
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curators from open space artists run Center who supported the sister exhibition called tidelines Coastal
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resistance of the 60s and 70s this conversation recorded during the opening
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ceremony and celebration for the exhibition offers a window into the Grassroots activism and Resurgence at
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the heart of this project we hope you will take some time to settle into the dialogue and learn from the generational
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Continuum of activism that is so generously shared by some of the key contributors to this show
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hello everybody and uh it’s really good to see such a good turnout today I’d
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like to introduce myself my home territory from the numb face in alert
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Bay on an offender Vancouver Island and my home my name is
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and uh I just uh
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thanks Jerry um my English name I guess is Marianne
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Nicholson um my name is
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from
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uh anyways I’ll leave it at that for now
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hi my name is siku alalu I’m a Enoch and Haitian tainino from delende Northwest
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Territories I am the daughter of Mary Lynn The Rock and and Titus allalu and
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I’m very grateful to be here this evening I’m actually here
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uh Karma Paulette and she’s the first grandmother a first granddaughter of my
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mom so hearing her memory and I gathered together in her spirit
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we have a couple of her dear friends from different times in her life
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um I’m with her beloved chosen sister Carmen Guerrero who’s traveled all the
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way from Arizona to be with us tonight and we’ll get into the work that they did
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together in a few moments but I just wanted to welcome you and thank you for
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being here with us thank you ziko and thank you everybody for the invitation
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I’m sorry I’m proud because it’s so beautiful I never thought I’d live this dream of being
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with other women who are pioneers you know activists and we are not
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forgotten we are here and we have to pass on to the next Generation so thank you wow yeah it’s incredible to be here
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and see so many folks out um
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territories and settler background and one of the artists in the exhibition and just really powerful to be here with all
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of you hello I’m Toby Lawrence I
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am sure how to follow all of you I um I’m a settler Canadian curator born
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in Scotland’s territory and I have lived
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most of my adult life in the guangin land I’m really looking forward to hearing
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all the conversation that happens
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maybe it would be good to just give a little bit of background of
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what brought us here together um in the context of the work those two
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exhibitions that have led um the through line that ended culminating
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and bringing us together there’s an exhibition co-curated by Jerry and Toby at open
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space it’s a sister exhibition to woven
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in and there was a precursor that was curated by Marianne
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um and they each focus on a different uh demographic of young or the leaders of
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Grassroots leaders in our communities and I’ll let them speak a bit about those so
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that you have an understanding of this intergenerational continuity and
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coming together ah I really want to thank Jerry uh in in particular in this
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process um you know for many many years we’ve been really providing and advocating for
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our rights as indigenous people and you know
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there was it was a number of years ago that I started talking with Jerry and
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realized she had this incredible depth of experience in this she had lived through it in her entire
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life and and I was in awe of it because I thought how come we don’t know how come
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we don’t know about these women who have spent their lives fighting for the rights of indigenous people
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and I was honored to learn from her you know what had gone on before and one of
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the things I realized in talking to Jerry that there has been a systemic shutdown of that knowledge in the communities and
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in general Society the power of indigenous women and I think that that’s happened because
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it is such a threat to the Colonial systems the power of indigenous women
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and so I’m so grateful because when I talked to jerion if you hear her
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story of her life and the things that she would participate in them and did it
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inspired me I felt so inspired I thought we’re not alone we’re not working alone
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we are on a trajectory and there are women ahead of us who have done this
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before us who can teach us how to continue this and then it becomes our responsibility to hand that on to the
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younger ones and I really wanted to put together with these incredible women who are
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sitting with me an exhibition that acknowledged that that acknowledge the
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strength of our indigenous women and and I’m so grateful for this
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exhibition and I have been in many many many exhibitions throughout my life but for myself this is one of the
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best and proudest exhibits that I have participated in
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so I wanted to say that and I really also want to acknowledge
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Carmen because Carmen worked with siku’s mother and for many many years she too
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carried this torch for us as an indigenous woman across North America so
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it’s not just here and locally that we’ve been fighting this fight this is across North America and and I just
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wanted to express my gratitude and I I really think that the exhibit itself is an expression of appreciation and
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gratitude for the work that has been done and then as the younger ones
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contextually I wanted to thank siku and Tanya because
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Danny and I met when we were in uh going to UVic and I was doing I think I was
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finishing my Master’s and you were doing a bachelor’s and Tanya has done incredible work amongst her own nation
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and she’s gone home which is really inspiring to me to go home too because
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we also need to go home and be a part of our communities and live in our lands
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so I just wanted to and you’ve done wonderful wonderful advocacy work for your people
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and I really appreciate the strength of that and see through your journey too has
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been really really inspiring and our friendship goes way back and your story is very powerful and you’ve done powerful things
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so and and I wanted to thank Toby and I wanted to thank Nicole Nicole was the
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curator that we worked with to put together holding ground which was the original exhibit here of young younger
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activists indigenous activists um and now we followed that up with this
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exhibition you really helped us walk that road uh from the standpoint of the
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institution and you were really willing to take on a lot of uncomfortable places because when we’re asking for change
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it’s not comfortable so I really appreciate your friendship and I appreciate everything you’ve done
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for us and I also wanted to acknowledge you Toby because what we’re doing is groundbreaking in
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terms of the two institutions the art gallery of Victoria and open space collaborating to put exhibits together
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that are complementary and so you know the the concepts of community and unity
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um are except are expressing themselves institutionally when these two
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institutions can can collaborate to provide voice for indigenous peoples so that’s all I wanted to say for now I’m
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really excited about this time these times are really
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exciting times they’re really tough times but they’re also very exciting and
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I never thought I would see the day when uh galleries
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would take that step to work with indigenous people
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in a way that is respectful in our way that allows us to do what we do in the
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way that we do it and I truly wanted to amend [Music] um the Victoria art gallery for that
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um if you’ve really listened and you never made any decisions without
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coming through us and it was like a partnership and I truly felt that it was
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a partnership and I just really want to commend this gallery for that and I’d also like to
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acknowledge um Doug Jarvis who is our director at the open space
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gallery and Toby for their willingness also
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to support our stories
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as indigenous stories and what I want to say about the media exhibit here in
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Wolverine and also at the open space gallery that all of that
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is Grassroots history written by Grassroots for Grassroots
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they’re not in any academic books they’re not um mostly curriculum that you would
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find out in schools this is written by the people for the people
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and all of those articles are the documentation of the struggles
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and the fight that day-to-day people did in their communities day in and day
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out using but very little resource that they had to make
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change and believe me we’ve had to fight every step of the way
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for better Medical Services which we’re losing at this point education
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um we’ve gone from apartheid and my mother not being able to go to school
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Beyond a certain point not us not being able to go into business
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um there are so many restrictions that we never stopped
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fighting for Change and this is a timeline of history that hopefully our
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younger Generations will be able to take a look at and realize that our people
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never stopped we never stopped fighting we never stop you know working for the
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better of our children and we’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices in that process
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but it’s a long haul
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and that’s what gives me inspiration are these
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artists that are coming and are here and are standing beside of the people it’s
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really makes me feel very inspired
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um and it’s been just a pleasure to work with Miriam
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and you know I’ve got to know you Carmen and um Tanya
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we have some amazing people in our communities and all of you who showed up
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I just I really really appreciate that you hear as part of us and to listen
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and hopefully that we can change the face of the reality that we’re all in at this
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point in the ways we can so that’s it for me
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um tidelines is a collective effort
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and so all the information on the walls all of the newsletters all the
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photographs were all put together by some of the
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Elder activists in the community we had a gathering in the summer and people brought their
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pictures and brought the dates of when they uh you know did a blockade and in
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Gold River and you know corrected some of the you know so it’s all there it’s
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it’s the exhibit of the Elder artists of the 60s and 70s and it’s a coastal history
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because a lot of the coastal history resistance hasn’t been documented in this hopefully the starting of
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something that people will be learning about in for long years to come
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it’s a lifelong dream it’s such a honor to have been invited
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to be part of this by Marianne and Jerry um some of the people that are my biggest
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Inspirations in my life are here and um
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I mentioned that we’re here in my niece and I and Carmen are here in the spirit
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of my late mother who passed before she had a chance to
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share this immense history and
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um all through our friendship I’ve Marianne and I have shared about
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the people that raised us and the people that grounded us and connected us to what’s
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important and what we need to remember and what we need to be connected to in
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order to really hold our place as women and as members of our
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communities and for me my mom was my biggest inspiration and uh
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so is Carmen answers
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so is my knees um
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in all of our conversations we have to [Music]
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we always come back to the touchstones of uh Sisterhood and
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solidarity I need your connection [Music] um
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When I Look To The Archives or your typical archives I see a lot of
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strength and a lot of good messages there but what I don’t see is the voices of my
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mother and her contemporaries I don’t see so much the voices of our women
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and I’m so fortunate to have women in my life and
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to have that grounding of foundation of intergenerational stories of strength
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and love and connection and resilience and those stories when
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we hear those stories I hear about the struggles but more than that I hear about the resistance I hear about the
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strength and the substance that kept each other going the love the care
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and um the beauty it’s it’s so incredibly beautiful to hear the stories that Jerry
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had to share to learn about the organizing that you did in the in the
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60s and that you’re still doing today that work that you’re still doing to bring people together and to honor your
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legacy and to really make us stand to ensure that that’s not forgotten that
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that does not get erased and we’re here for for all of that we’re
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here we wanted to bring the generations that came before us we really wanted to honor that work that
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never got to be held up in the decades before us and we’re in this new time and
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it’s so important and we’re so honored to be able to be here to to hold this
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together with you and to hold it for the young people that are always in our
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hearts and always in our minds that’s always you know it gives great importance and
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weight to the reason why we’re standing here today you know we are inspired by
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the ones that came before us but we also need to be here for you and we need to
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be a bridge to share this with you and that’s the whole point um these three exhibitions
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um they they are looking at youth activists in the 60s and they’re looking
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at youth activists in 2019 that occupied the BC legislature
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and had the whole country looking at the voices of young people not able to turn
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away from the power of that voice and we have young people here that were those
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brave people and um we just wanted to
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we wanted to Showcase that because so much of so much of what we have to battle
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against is the way that we are represented in the media and misrepresented in the media and not only
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that when I look to the um the collection of works that’s in
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the show where it moves me the most is that it’s us talking to each other and how we talk
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to each other how we talk about ourselves how we witness each other’s
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stories and represent those stories with such love and um such wholeness and it’s
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nourishing because of that never underestimate the power of educated indigenous women
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here we are
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thank you so much for having me but thank you so much for showing us that our activism has to be documented
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nobody’s going to do it for us so thank you for your courage to do it thank you for your support for all these
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Galleries and artists we are the Forefront of change and have been for
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many many centuries so I love that we are using the power of the art to change
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the world right now you know by giving voices to all these women and all the
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wisdom that collectively we possess and also the sharing that we have to do
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because you know it Continuum means
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fight keeps going you know it’s not going to get better or easier for our girls or for our women if we don’t take
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leadership now we’re really not a Time and I can’t believe that 40 years has
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gone by since I moved to the mall you know and then you were doing documentation
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over here can you believe it and you were clapping the walls of taking the world
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but I just want to tell you that’s been wonderful I feel very powerful here with all of you
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having these goals and aspirations and love for the Arts and also seeing how we
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can change the document in our work is going to continue so thank you goodness such amazing hearts and power shared
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it’s really a pleasure to be here with all of you and with everyone here and and uh to also be in this context of
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this building and the kind of architecture of it that might not have expected us to be here today
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so I like being here and having these conversations and talking
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about within this kind of space and and frankly in Victoria in terms of what it
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stands for as well so I have some work in the exhibition and uh it’s it’s quite
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a bit older work so I think one of the things I’m interested in doing is drawing out some of the connections so I
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went earlier to open space and saw the tidelines exhibition and I’m born in 76
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and the kind of um Native American Red Power movement um Native youth movement and that kind
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of Rise of indigenous power was really influential for me as a kid as well on
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this columnist Reserve at the time Robert Manuel was Chief that’s Arthur Manuel’s older son and they’re both the
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sons of George Manuel and uh they you know um George Manuel’s work is is somewhat
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known he was so important in drawing out International indigenous issues but I also know from stories in my community
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that there was so many women behind them including I’ll mention my Aunt Joyce
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Willard who’s part of occupations at Department of Indian Affairs and the um child you know the childhood Caravan uh
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and so and those histories are absolutely uh marginalized histories and so a project like this that starts to
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Archive those and share those I mean just look in this room it has real power and effect when when those are shared
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and the other indigenous women come in can come in and do and do scholarship and understand those histories and how
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they connect uh and so that was formative for me um my aunts had us she
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has a little audio tape of me and my brother and sister were singing um BC is all Indian Land you know that
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was the anthem for a while um style uh and so that context is so
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important and then when I was at tidelines the elders Gathering you had in the picture is Michelle Pierre and um
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Billy and Nina Pierre started red wire magazine which I was a part of for many years and was also really fundamental
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it’s a native youth publication that operated in Vancouver and cos Salish um and musque and slavicious territories
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and I was part of it for years and also I’ll have to acknowledge Marika is here who um who also did great work with red
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wire and we did a lot of work around you know trying to be that voice trying to give
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presents to indigenous use activism and it in fact is absolutely connected to
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this line of of women and that publication history and bringing together those voices because Michelle’s
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um daughters founded that and and then I was part of it and Maria’s part of it and uh and it has brought so much I mean
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uh we were looking through some old issues that I have at home a while ago
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and we were realizing that one of the last issues we all talked about that we were going to move home
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and then and in fact that’s where many of us are because we saw the importance of of going of understanding uh the
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histories of what displaced us even if it’s going to a city for work and the power that’s in our lands despite the um
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you know the confines of the Indian reserve that the power of our languages and cultures
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um were so critical to us being there so and I see so many other matriarchs and
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people involved in the Arts in this room and so and had some earlier conversations and so I just want to
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recognize that and acknowledge uh all that experience and all that struggle
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about all the love right I mean that’s what I just really feel here today too
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is um you know I’ve been to the long political meetings as well the kids are running around and you’re
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trying to get people settled and you’re listening to the important political talk um and that work is important uh but I
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also feel here that there’s um such a power that’s grounded in love and uh the
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connection with family uh and relationality and family in all kinds of ways and you know to acknowledge all the
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different ways that our families operate all the different gender and sexuality that we can Encompass to make beautiful
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loving communities and families and I really feel that power in that here so
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yeah so and and the work I shared is a comic series that I used to do many years ago because we were we were making
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media we saw that urgency to have political voice um you know this is when uh BC trick or
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treat um you know as is happening and people are really talking about like what does treaty mean when we’re here in
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unseated territory uh and so um that that work was also we were
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funded to do a magazine for getting jobs as well so the government wanted to find
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us to do and uh so I decided to do some indigenous labor history because I was always interested in more revolutionary
28:04
politics than than writing a resume so I started to publish that um in that
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magazine and did it for many years and published it oddly in my early 20s in like East Coast labor magazines as well
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but red wire was a team and it was based in the work that women before us did and
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based in the work that our ancestors did before that that bring us all and connect us all here today and so
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acknowledge all of you who have contributed to that and uh who are bringing that power here and and also um
28:35
bringing it to our next Generation so Cookstown uh firstly I want to say
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the family changed our Institution and as a settler cleaning curator who is
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endlessly searching for models and ways to change the organization for folks
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um for whom these structures do not fit um these are the books that I look to and
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um um I want to Express gratitude I think idea safely say on
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behalf of open space and our whole team
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our gratitude for Jerry’s work with us Jerry is um in an unprecedented role in
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Canada in arts institutions as an elder in Residence particularly for an artist run Center which open space is and Gary
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has supported us as a team or a tiny team there’s been a long history of
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Engagement with indigenous artists and art um and communities for open space but
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particularly in the last few years we have faced some unimaginable traumas and
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as an organization and Jerry has supported us through all of
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that and tidelines really is a project that as a team we wanted to support
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Jerry and we wanted to make sure that she had access to funds and our resources and
30:20
our time to do exactly what she needed to do without us
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and I hope that we’ve actually done that for you so
30:33
tidelines has been a really important demonstration of what can happen when
30:39
communities come together and when um someone takes the time and effort to
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really um to work with the community to reflect what
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a community would want and I want to say that Jerry reminds us as we talk through our conversations about how to install
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this living ongoing ever developing ever um inspiring exhibition that we are
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always doing and for the elders and we’re always doing it for the folks um
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that were associated with the native Alliance from Red Power and that are still living and and some of those who
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are no longer with us in this world so um yeah all that to say these women are
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changing aren’t the space and time
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or respect what was it you felt was most important to flip on its head in working with
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these institutions well I’ve had Decades of practice so I really can’t help
31:48
myself and so it was just part of the work I
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needed to do whether it was open space or any other space that I
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so I just would have to say that that’s really how it was
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I think that for myself there was a frustration with this trajectory of the
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individual male genius
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and then from life experience real strength comes from community
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collectivity being together working together all of
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the incredible stuff that we do in our home communities it’s it’s really the
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strength of women who carry our culture and I was frustrated with the institutional you know it’s kind of the
32:41
colonial imposition of the raising up of this individual male which
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if you have a son as an indigenous person you don’t want your son to go
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that way you want your son to recognize the strength of the woman around him and to carry that throughout his life
33:01
because that will keep him strong and safe this myth of the individual is
33:07
destroying our indigenous communities yes and I really wanted to advocate for
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a space that would uphold women’s voices women’s Collective voices and that’s why
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for me this is one of the most important shows I have ever participated in so and I just feels so happy in my heart
33:27
because of this and I think of the young woman and the young men coming behind us who if they can learn these lessons and
33:35
hold that strength in their hearts we’ll be able to do so much more than if they believe that lie
33:42
that it’s only individuals and men who have power to speak
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so I’m yeah I’m so excited to hear these voices and and to have this happen
33:53
for me the very first uh thing that compelled
33:58
me is just the opportunity to get to work with Marianne and Jerry and to join uh
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to join in the Legacy um of my mother and the work of the
34:13
generation before me and to join those voices that those stories that I
34:19
was raised with of my mom and her beautiful friendship with Carmen and the
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love that and the humor and the just the beauty of their relationship that kept
34:32
them buoyant amidst um very Stark University
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within the world but also within the indigenous political world at the time
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having to deal with gender violence and and sexism and patriarchy and that we
34:54
still have to deal with so much but to hear about the ways that they stayed
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true to themselves and encourage each other to see true to each to themselves
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um that gave me so much strength and so much courage because
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[Music] you know those are the those are the things that nourish young people growing
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up those messages that it is important to be true to yourself
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and to stay true to those values and keep your feet close to the ground keep
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your connection close to your spirit and to always be reminded of those life
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forces in in our homelands that nourish us that ground us that keep us strong and
35:52
healthy and able to take our place in the world and um
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one of the things that always stuck out to me in our conversations we were planning this is
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Marianne said at one point you know we’re not here to elevate our Grassroots
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activism to the status of the gallery we’re here to bring the gallery to the
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Grassroots
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wow those women get more powerful every time
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because the time the feminine energy is here obviously you know we’re ready to go with the Arts
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and start a movement of activism that has to go beyond us another 100 years
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you know our kids and grandkids are going to keep this Legacy I wanted to tell you that my family in
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Arizona my husband also comes from a he’s an artist that comes from a family Legacy of artists and I also feel that
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we have to model positivity like how do you make it work how do you make it your
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Arts be your your life your life you know all of us is always had to do that we had to recreate ourselves
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and we have to use our imagination and creativity and we had to do all those soul-searchy moments so I feel like we
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are at a really special time right now amongst all of you and with all this wonderful audience over here I just
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think that we’re starting something really special and it’s like the recognition of women power like we you know have been
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documented documentation of our activism that cannot stop
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so this is just a Continuum maybe I’ll just uh I’ll speak in the context maybe of um the work in the exhibition because
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I mentioned like it was in response to funding that was allowing us to you know
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that we needed to be able to have our views heard as indigenous use the urban indigenous youth primarily
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um in Eastbound and uh and you know I knew that model was um limited by what
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they were wanting us to do in terms of like how to write resumes and how to you know get jobs and that’s important
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obviously but uh but that work was coming from a space of thinking about well when people are when people widely
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are struggling for justice um in in the case of the labor movement I was looking at and then we’re often at
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the time indigenous people were often not seen as contributing to that like labor movement and workers rights and so
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when I was learning about some of the early industrial workers of the world unions on the um on the water in
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Vancouver that became really important to think about oh yeah of course when
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we’re struggling for our own indigenous rights and the land we are contributing to other social justice struggles all
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around us and so I mean I was just I’m just always interested in yeah yeah we have to flip those models because
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um one they’re not serving us um and they’re actually like uh
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destroying us right so so you can’t do anything like agree you know can’t do anything but if you’re doing the work
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you’re you’re in there and you um you you you just keep on doing what you do until you wear everything down I
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guess which I’m sure you know of Leon Leland in terms of your work right so and
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luckily I think the point here though is like that um you can start to recognize how uh the
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the ways in which uh people communities women and stood up before us has has
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contributed to the work that we are able to do today so that work becomes a little bit
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um easier or there’s a bit more support or you know so I’m confident that we are
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passing on a lot to all of our you know children all of our grandchildren all of
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our great-grandchildren um that was you know love the bits and pieces that we’re carrying with us are
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starting to take shape and will affect many after us and
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um you know including in in lots in lots of different ways in families and communities and through institutions
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through friendships through scholarship through all of the ways that everyone in this room is contributing to I just
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wanted to say that this is about peace Justice it hasn’t changed and the only
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thing is love and the power of our wisdom as women and together Community you know I
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feel very together with all of you today here your histories are amazing and there’s so much to be done and we have
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to document ourselves because nobody else will and you know I think also this idea of having a gallery shows here
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should be taken to other cities and other places you know let’s make this an international issue because I come from
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South America so my people in Brazil when I was um in Berkeley with Maria Lane doing the
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newspaper dihena the first bilingual one ever um they were dropping nine pounds on the
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people of the Amazon you know they were destroying the forests that was 48 some
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years ago and we were talking about how they’re going to destroy the planet in the Amazon are the lands of the world
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they produce more oxygen than any other place we need that to live and we look
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now I look now about 45 years later and we are destroying it we couldn’t stop it
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it didn’t matter how much I studied how much we documented how much we activated just like that though they didn’t care
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about you know people protesting they still put the pipeline on it They Don’t
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Care About Us so we have to rise up and we have to unite and talk about you know
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sustainability it is about our love for Mother Earth it’s not just your mom it’s all about mom he’s all the matriarchs we
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stand in the shoulders of giant matriarchs you know most native communities have matriarchal our
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matriarchal you know and then also when they you know they had progress when we
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both had they could talk to be you know have the same power of the world word as
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a man you know and some communities have that and they prosper and they have more
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Harmony and balance so that’s what I think I hope for all of us that we pass on this wisdom
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I should mention this um on behalf of my mom the reason that she started the newspaper is because uh
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mainstream media wasn’t documenting the the colonialism and the genocide that
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was being inflicted upon indigenous people in South America but more than that they
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wanted to unite indigenous voices um Across the Western Hemisphere they
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wanted to um not just keep in silos they didn’t
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want to stay within just the American Indian movement or you know these Regional things they said we’re all
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indigenous people Carmen wanted to publish in English and Spanish because she wanted to light up
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the Colonial Highway and be able to have people have dialogue and they did have
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dialogue through these Publications um you’ll see in uh the exhibit you’ll
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see some of Jerry’s collection that has covers in there showing native people
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from all different parts of the world and in the issue that was featured in
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the exhibit from Indiana it’s I hope that you spend some time with with all
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the pieces I truly hope that you spend some time and observe the work but we
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have a feature in there and it’s a editorial written by my mom and Carmen and it’s dedicated to indigenous women
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of the Americas and um it was the messages that are still
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relevant today still need to be heard and their whole impetus was resistance and
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reaffirmation of space I was actively being denied and actively being erased
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and it’s a continual representing reaffirmation of the of the women’s
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leadership and the voice and the voice that United people across vastiographies
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and vast struggles yeah I think my mom might have been upset if I didn’t
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speak a little on behalf of of what drove her to start this paper
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and so with the help of Carmen Indiana became the
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uh they had the most up-to-date and most extensive reporting on indigenous
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political movements in the world and they circulated across North Central and
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South America and Beyond and Europe and um yeah so it’s it’s really incredible
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really rich history that completely interconnects Jerry was doing
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even before that in the decade before that which is so extraordinary and yeah
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just thank you for being here I hope you enjoy
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thank you all for taking the time to listen in on this important conversation and many thanks to Jerry Marianne siku
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Tanya Carmen and Toby for expanding the conversations around this exhibition and
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the importance of indigenous women’s roles in enacting change through generations for those who want to learn
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more about woven in indigenous women’s activism and media visit agv.ca
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