Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures
Abstract
In 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its 94 Calls to Action to redress the legacy of residential schools and to create pathways forward. This research has been inspired by the 79th call, one which the city of Winnipeg, Treaty One, has responded to with a rapid installment of Indigenous public art on the urban landscape. The most powerful of these new works of public art are those which connect to the Land and history of place/site. Each new piece, contributing to a (re)mapping and unsettling of Winnipeg’s settler colonial urban commons by creative means. One might also consider these sites of public art, micro decolonization’s through polyvocal stories that aim to reframe our knowledge and inspire continual acts of reconciliation. In application, this research is transdisciplinary and intersectional. I gather knowledge from both Indigenous and Western worldviews to not only analyze works of public art, but to also aid in the decolonization of academic practice. I emphasize third wave feminist work within a case study framework to see with two eyes, while focusing on public art, the land, and storytelling. As Kimmer states: “After all, there aren’t two worlds [one Indigenous and one settler], there is just one good green Earth”. (Kimmer, 2013, 47) It is this reminder that art and research can create relationalism and bring all of us together in accessible ways.
Honoure Black (she/her) is a White settler daughter, sister, mother, and partner from so called Winnipeg, on Treaty-One. She is of British, Scottish, and Norwegian descent. Her scholarly work is transdisciplinary, rooted in art history, Indigenous studies and environmental design. Her research engages public art, the land, and Indigenous resurgence. She focuses on decoloniality through research methodologies, writing, and collaboration in academia.
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Thursday 1st December, 2022