Reclamation and Belonging in Mixed Indigeneity

To affirm oneself is to remedy others’ misconceptions. For this reason, the declaration of belonging to an Indigenous identity is an essential expression of inner being for Indigenous artists of mixed racial ancestry. Affirmation of their cultural background guides them in the creation of artworks narrating a story of discovery. For many artists, this endeavour has its challenges, as the story of the Indigenous population has been linked with the colonial enterprise of cultural erasure. Artistic endeavours made by mixed Indigenous artists thus tackle notions of reconnection and reclamation as forms of self-healing and self-expression. The incorporation of gendered lived experiences of Indigeneity emerging from cases of sex discrimination supports this affirmation, along with the practice of digital media interaction as a tool of belonging with Indigenous knowledge. Alternatively, the modern reconceptualization of Indigenous kinship aids in cultural connectivity with an ancestral past.

The reclamation of Indigeneity in contemporary art can be perceived through the incorporation of dialogues pertaining to sex discrimination and gendered experiences of Indigenous culture. The use of a feminist perspective uncovers the generational impact of communal erasure for Indigenous women and highlights the artistic endeavour of First Nations artists, such as Caroline Monnet, who bring forth ideas of belonging and reconnection. Sex discrimination refers to the unequal treatment made unto an individual or a group solely based on their sex. Indigenous women experienced firsthand the discriminatory treatment enacted in Canada’s legislation as they were unfavourably recognized in community membership.

In Canada, the Indian Act drastically limited First Nations women in gaining “Indian” status. At first, the assimilation project of the Act stipulated that Indigenous women were to lose their membership amongst their community if they married white men. However, this did not apply to Indigenous men, who, while keeping their community status, could grant the latter to white women and their children.1 According to Pam Palmater, this form of sex discrimination was advantageous for Canadian settlers, as it permitted legislative extinction through the expatriation of Indigenous women.2 As colonial enterprises critically demanded the extermination of Indigenous presence, the gendered imposition of the Indian act supported the erasure of First Nations groups through women’s disconnection from their communities.3 Moreover, Palmater affirms that by granting non-Indigenous wives and children Indian status, cultural assimilation was reinforced as white individuals gained access to their lands.4 Sex discrimination thus became a political tool that strengthened the racialized perception of Indigenous presence and caused the cultural erasure of many Indigenous individuals who, through this law, lost touch with their land, culture, and language. On the report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, conclusions about Canada’s treatment of First Nations note the ongoing violence and prejudice caused by the country’s actions: Canada has displayed a continuous policy, with shifting expressed motives but an ultimately steady intention, to destroy Indigenous peoples physically, biologically, and as social units, thereby fulfilling the required specific element.5

The MMIWG stipulates that through measures of erasure, such as sex discrimination in the Indian Act, Indigenous women are at increased risk of physical and emotional abuse along with sexual assault.6 By having policies that separate individuals assiged female at birth from their communities, later reconnection with Indigenous lands becomes far more difficult for Indigenous women and their descendants, as they suffer forced relocation and are left with a feeling of being unwanted in their community.7

As a counteraction, we can link gendered experiences of Indigeneity through examining Caroline Monnet’s History Shall Speak for Itself, which challenges preconceived notions of Indigenous female representation and includes a visual experience of multi-cultural integration.

As the daughter of an Algonquian mother in the Kitigan Zibi reserve and a Breton father, Monnet often integrates frameworks of both cultural backgrounds into her practice.8 In her art, bicultural understanding of the self is bound with visual homogeneity, as she presents both realities under a singular and personal lens. In History Shall Speak for Itself, photographs are shown of Indigenous women such as filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, Quebecois actress Dominique Pétin, costume designer Swaneige Bertrand, film student Catherine Boivin, the artist herself, and her sister.9 The artist presents the women’s portrait beneath black and white archival images of Indigenous life. As the black and white pictures superpose the women’s photoshoot, their faces remain unobscured by the collage, emphasizing their presence in the monumental artwork.

The use of archives in this work intentionally references Western methods of documenting Indigenous women and their domestic tasks.10 As ethnographic studies on Indigenous people often rendered the subjects with little to no interiority or engagement, Monnet explores the blending of both European aesthetics and Indigenous representation to form prominence in the female subjects’ rendition. Her work reflects female collaboration and unification, which demonstrates a will to reinforce the integration of women into discourses about Indigeneity. By depicting a strong female presence through the multiplicity of female subjects and their solemn postures, ideas of resistance and resilience emanate from the picture. The artist invites its viewers to think about their stories as a way of discussing the treatment of Indigenous women. The idea of being seen and heard is materialized in this work to bring forward demands for agency and recognition. In this sense, reclamation by Indigenous artists of mixed ancestry can be perceived through cultural retrieval. Monnet recovers Western and Indigenous visuals to proclaim her bicultural identity. This endeavour aids in the inclusion of newer gendered experiences for Indigenous reconnection.

The need for reclamation also emerges in the application of digital art and new media by mixed Indigenous artists who seek connection with past knowledge and beliefs. In her work about Indigenous art in the hyperpresent, Suzanne Newman Fricke defines the concept of Indigenous futurism as an element that offers “a new vision” of the world from a Native American perspective—“ [...] a forum to address difficult topics, such as: the long impact of conquest, colonialism, and imperialism; ideas about the frontier and Manifest Destiny; about the role of women within a community; and about the perception of time.”11 She says, “[…] the term suggests a time outside of the timeline we are in. It could even refer to the past, to a re-envisioning of what has already happened.”12

Fricke explains that Indigenous futurism is enacted through the influence of Indigenous writers of science fiction who conceptualize worlds outside of colonial influences, homeland and resource loss, and unethical treatment of Indigenous people.13 Conceptions of cosmology and traditional understanding of the universe are elements retold through the utilization of technology as a modern way of accessing knowledge.

For instance, Sonny Assu’s work They’re Coming! Quick! I have a better hiding place for you. Dorvan V, you’ll love it (fig.1) reimagines past colonial depictions of Indigenous living by adding to the work elements of the sciencefiction imaginary. The artist utilizes a scan from an A. Y. Jackson painting, which depicts a small village made of multiple cabins, and modifies it through digital intervention, adding a UFO-type structure in the sky. In Assu’s work, we see a group of people in the middle of the foreground, targeted by the alien structure cloistering them inside circular beams of green and purple rays. Rather than reading Assu’s work as depicting aggression (through the abduction of villagers), Fricke suggests it is an act of salvation, moving the First Nations to safety.14 The Indigenous subjects are not rendered as victims, but rather as protected individuals. “There is this narrative in sci-fi movies, TV, and comics where an alien invasion is happening, and how we, mostly white North America, will step up and say, ‘we’re going to kick out these aliens.’ It becomes an ironic dynamic, especially when you take a look at how what we know now of North America was colonized by an alien invasion.”, says the artist.15

The alien invasion is the story of North America’s colonial enterprise by Westerners. Indigenous individuals represent, in this piece, those who seek shelter from the occupation in their territory.

This narrative invites viewers to perceive the depicted people as fleeing colonial attacks and violence. Moreover, the incorporation of sci-fi elements into a Canadian landscape painting offers a contemporary and Indigenous response to colonial rendition of First Nations’ land.

Fricke writes, […] Assu’s paintings give way for the forms to be a stand-alone entity unto themselves that interact with the landscapes and environments that are equally so ever changing by many hands through generations.16

By adding an abstract form mimicking alien occupation, the artist transforms the land to incorporate notions of deliverance from past trauma, where the future, shown here through digital manipulation, holds betterment and liberation for Indigenous people. This ties in with the concept of reclamation as Indigenous artists from different cultural backgrounds use technology to retrieve past knowledge and modify its contemporary reception. The practice encourages immersion into an Indigenous narrative and contributes to a new form of self-fashioning and artistic production for mixed artists. Indigenous futurism thus permits the digital reconceptualization of ancestry and offers a gateway into the latter’s knowledge and accessibility.

Artist Megan Feheley’s digital beadwork also conceptualizes traditional making and the modern practice of digital rendering. Their numeric work, named Wâniska (fig. 2), showcases an intricate pattern of beadwork, where traditional shapes are put into a computerized canvas. The dark background of the image contrasts the bright colours of the beads, making them the primary object of visualization. Moreover, viewers are confronted with an image that holds visual energy—the artist’s three-dimensional creation invites us to follow the bead’s dynamic motions. Feheley incorporates the idea of entanglement into their artistic practice,creating shapes inspired by their Cree culture, whilst mixing these Indigenous motifs with other forms of artistic mediums (such as digital media). In their work, being tangled up in one’s own body allows for an analysis of the self in regards to identity and gender as a two-spirited person. Alternatively, because of the limits to learning traditional languages, new forms of knowledge are revised into a modern framework. By incorporating digital art, contemporary Indigenous artists can combine modern visual culture with Indigenous knowledge, demonstrating the possibility for new understandings of reclamation.

Self-representation and reclamation in contemporary Indigenous art can be explored through the modern reconceptualization of kinship and blood belonging. Indigenous people have long suffered the damages of the blood quantum and social affiliation through biological markers of blood. In Bonita Lawrence’ study of mixed

Indigenous identity, she brings forward the stereotypical notion of the “vanishing Indian”;

[…] The apparent consensus from all quarters within the dominant society that “real” Indians have vanished (or that the few that exist must manifest absolute authenticity—on white terms—to be believable as Indians) functions as a constant discipline on urban mixed-bloods, continuously proclaiming to them that urban mixed-blood Indigeneity is meaningless and that the Indianness of their families has been irrevocably lost.17

The idea that Indigenous people are undergoing extinction reveals intergenerational prejudices preserved in modern times. By abiding by the “vanishing Indian” narrative, white society perpetuates colonial understandings of Indigenous people as extended communities that possess a singular lineage—in this perspective, mixed Indigenous individuals do not acquire “Indian” recognition, as the idea of a multi-biological affiliation goes against their essentialist judgments on “real” Indigeneity;

The problem for [Indigenous people] is less a matter of not belonging anywhere, than living in a polarized society where whiteness and Nativeness are not admitted as existing in the same person. 18

She explains here that for bicultural people, the undermining of their Indigenous identity taints and diminishes the latter because of the perception that they are not Indigenous enough.19

In discussion with Eve Tuck in the Henceforward podcast, Kim Tallbear advances the idea that in our society today, cultural knowledge and genetics are elements closely bound together, hence the reason we need to have a more fluid perception of Indigeneity.20 Tallbear explains that Indigenous people have overcome many changes to their life experiences with the colonial project of genocide and assimilation, which is why we need to think about Indigenous kin groups as being a dynamic population that reactualizes its cultural affirmation.21

By looking at Amanda Amour-Lynx’s work Salmon Run II (Figure 3), we can perceive the intention of bringing forth reconnection with Indigenous lived experience. The artist presents a canvas that possesses no geometrical boundaries to it; the wooden panel is submerged in a thick layer of acrylic that expands beyond the supporting medium. Moreover, the combination of acrylic, beads, sunstone and fish vertebra showcases an elaborate formal work on textures. The artist uses a mix of pastel colours; we can perceive tones of greys and blues that are mostly in the background, while more vibrant colours such as pinks, oranges, and purples overshadow the preliminary colours. Amour-Lynx encapsulates in her work notions of recuperation.Salmon Run II not only imitates the natural habitat of wildlife salmon, but it also presents itself as a map. The idea of finding one’s pathway through a map resonates with the claim for reconnection amongst Indigenous communities as it asserts the promise of a cultural retrieval. It symbolizes an ancestral conception of the natural world uncovered by the artist to form a spiritual reunification.

Mixed Indigeneity manifested itself in Indigenous contemporary art as a way of demonstrating reclamation and self-determination. Indigenous artists approach notions of reconnection as forms of self-healing to reintegrate their past. It is by engaging with Indigenous lived experiences that we can suppress intergenerational prejudices and support multicultural individuals in their paths to redefining Indigenous identity. By incorporating gendered lived experiences of Indigeneity and the practice of interaction with digital media as a tool of belonging for Indigenous knowledge, communities can achieve a modern re-conceptualization of Indigenous kinship in art.

In Nutrients Series, Dan Yang investigates liminal spaces that are beyond language. These painted representations combine seemingly recognizable visual elements, like various parts of bodies, with surreal projections that come from the artist’s imagination. Yang’s paintings depict fragmented parts of the body paired with unlikely objects and phenomena. The uncanny images are bathed in striking shades of blue – creating a spacious sense of ambiguity and melancholy.

Nutrients Series presents works that evoke a sense of mystery and alienation from the body. Things are left up to interpretation, but Yang’s series is chiefl y concerned with bodily experiences of the world. Yang’s paintings further evoke feelings of alienation that are a product of living within a seemingly unfamiliar country and culture. Yang shares, “[t]he paintings speak to my own experience because I’m here in Canada, where things are new to me and I’ve experienced loneliness here as a result. They speak to my subjectivity. Painting isn’t necessarily a healing process, but it’s a way for me to deal with what I’m feeling”.

Yang has a background in fi lm studies, and this has infl uenced her painted works. She paints straight onto canvas by omitting the use of gesso, and this gives the paintings a distinctly fi lmic quality that is reminiscent of pictures shot on fi lm.

Yang’s paintings simultaneously refl ect a process of observation and self-contemplation that echo certain experiences of the artist. At the same time, they maintain enough space so that anyone engaging with the work may be able to recognize and relate to feelings of remoteness and disconnection from the body.