Ideas - How Indigenous art makes truth visible

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

“Truth telling is profoundly visual. Art created by Indigenous peoples is not mere expression — it is cognitive, ceremonial, and political," writes Gerald McMaster in Art,Truth and Reconciliation. His book is the first of its kind, featuring Indigenous visual responses to Canada’s residential and day school system: from the drawings of children in the schools themselves, to the art of survivors, and to their descendants, who are carrying the story forward. McMaster says art does the work that words cannot — "bearing witness, restoring dignity, and refusing silence.”Guest in this podcast:Gerald McMaster is a curator, artist, scholar, and author, Art, Truth and Reconciliation.Emma Hassencahl-Perley is an artist, and Curator of Indigenous Art at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, in Fredericton, NB.Adrian Stimson is an artist and residential school survivor and thriver.Mark Atleo is an elder, a fisherman, an artist, and a residential school survivor.

One summer evening when she was 20 years old, something terrible happened to Vienna-Luc. I can't figure it out, but I do know that it was a violation. Then people started asking questions. What a creep. Who else knows about this? From CBC's personally, this is Agent Leila, the story of how a victim went undercover. So bring it on, let's go. Let's get a confession. Available now on CBC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast.

The mission, I guess, if I were to put it in one sentence, has stayed remarkably consistent for over 40 years. Welcome to ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. And that is to get indigenous art out from under the frameworks that were built to interpret it from the outside and to let it be understood on its own terms. Gerald McMaster is a Plains Cree and Blackfoot member of the Siksika Nation and a curator, artist, and author. His book, Art, Truth, and Reconciliation explores indigenous visual responses to the experience of residential schools. It's something that hasn't been done before, gathering the work of indigenous visual artists from across the generations. The last fish I caught was Asakai, and that's a figure I tried to paint when I was eight years old. Sokai, to me they were blue.

Including survivors who made art as children in residential schools. In the fishing that, you know, it reminded me of my grandpa's teachings, you know. That's the beginning of my story that salmon taken care of people. And that's what my name means. caring for people and looking after people. And that's what I do today. The book features residential school survivors who became artists. In relation to residential schools,

materiality of those schools is what's really come forward for me. So using the actual materials from those schools in a way to hopefully help people understand a much deeper truth about that history, that perhaps they can see themselves within that, to build empathy. And that history is carried forward by the next generations of artists also featured in art, truth, and reconciliation.

I always describe the act of going to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada to secure a copy of the Indian Act as part of the performance of the work because you can read them online and print them out, but I really wanted their copy and they gave me a really nice, thick paper copy, which shredded really beautifully in the paper shredder that I use

in the office of the Fine Art Building. The book is published online by Art Canada Institute. It is available to anyone with an internet connection. It aims to bring new dimensions into the national process of truth and reconciliation. I was raised as a Nehio-Iisino, or a... Plainscriep person. So a relationship to seeing, to responsibility, to truth-making was already part of how I'd been taught to move through the world. What the research demanded was a way of

naming what I already knew how to do, which was to look at the material with accountability instead of detachment. Gerald McMaster is our guide in this episode of ideas, and for him, The book is a very personal project. I keep coming back to my own day school memories. The shame of hearing my own voice in a tape recording that I heard in the sixth grade. I heard this odd rhythm, right? This kind of res rhythm. I thought, my God, I have an accent.

I spent years afterwards learning how to sound like someone else. So there's something almost corrective for me personally. in building this book's entire method around plains cre words instead of English ones. This is art, truth, and reconciliation, the reality of residential schools, illuminated by indigenous languages, ways of seeing, and resilience. In retrospect, when I looked back and I looked back at an exhibition I curated in 1992 called Indigena, the whole point of that project, was to allow indigenous artists and communities to speak for themselves

rather than to be spoken about, which had long happened before that. And this book is that same fight. It's aimed at very specifically at one thing, what indigenous art has to tell us about the residential and day school system and about what came after it. I'm Gerald McMaster, and I'm Nehio. Plains Cree on Blackfoot, Plains Cree on my mother's side. I grew up on the Red Fescent Cree Nation in Treaty 6th Territory, which is located in the north central part of Saskatchewan.

I spent most of my working life moving between being an artist and later becoming a curator at institutions such as the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa-Gatno area, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. and then the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. And just before I retired, I was at Oked University where I directed a research center called the Wapata Center for Indigenous Visual Knowledge. When I started, indigenous art was still mostly filed

under the rubric of anthropology and not art history. It was supposed to be, evidence of culture and not the work of an artist. But that shifted a great deal, and even now, most of that shift has happened inside Western Art Historical Language. So, in other words, when we're thinking of form, medium, and iconography, those are Western frameworks. What hasn't happened for me nearly enough is the shift in whose framework gets to lead the

conversation. And that's what this book tries to do differently. The Glenbow Museum is my schooling as well. That's where the book begins from me. Because a number of years ago I was doing some archival research at the museum. Glenbowl Museum is in Calgary, of course. When the late historian Hugh Dempsey approached me, he knew me for some reason. He approached me and says, your name's McMaster, right? And I said, Yeah. And that's when he asked me, have you ever thought about where that name comes from? I said, well, I did, but I hadn't done any research.

McMaster is a well-known name on the Sikseka Nation. Siksa is about an hour's drive east of Calgary. So he led me into the band records all the way back to a man who had two children. I think he had some daughters, but in particular these two boys were sent to the old son residential school. And it was there that we found a file of the two boys who had been stripped of, likely of their traditional names, which they don't give, by the way,

but they were each given new names, and one of them was given McMaster. So I have carried that name my entire life. There was also a letter in a file describing how these two boys tried to escape the school only to be caught by an authority. And in this case, it was by the RCMP, where they were forcibly returned. So finding that wasn't just a historical research at that point. For me, it became personal.

When I was there, I came across an old photograph of a football team, 1897, from the Battleford Industrial School. I recognized some names in it. They were relatives, including two great-uncles. And my grandmother, Isabella Schmidt, attended the same school for 10 years from 1904 to 1914. My grandfather, George Watanee, didn't attend the school. But my family indicates that he probably went to the day school. So when I was looking at the photograph of my own family through two completely different, different lenses at once, as kin, as people I'm connected with by blood and story, and as an

institutional record, this school photo filed away by the church and the state where it wanted to be filed. One eye sees relatives, people who I belong to, whereas the other eye can't help but see the institution that produced the photograph, the discipline, the control built into how those children were lined up and recorded. I don't get to choose one eye over the other because both are true at once and the book asks the reader to hold both of these ideas together.

This notion of two-eyed seeing comes from a migma elder by the name of Albert Marshall. And I hope they can excuse me for trying to say this word a daup monk, and he developed it along with a researcher whose name is Cheryl Bartlett. What it does is holds the meaning of indigenous and Western ways of knowing together, sitting side by side in their own strengths without letting one absorb the other.

In my Plains Cree language, I think of it as Miuganawa Bhattawan, which translates quite basically, seen together in a good way. Miukana wa-bhatawan. So professionally, it's that same structure my training in Western art history, which gave me real tools such as how to analyze in context and how to do comparison. But in the book, that training doesn't lead.

The analytical lead belongs to the Plains Creek frameworks. Western art history is only one eye. It's not the only eye in this book. It's not the eye that's out in front. The model of two-eyed seeing rings true for me at times, but in Albert's instance, he is a fluent language speaker, and so I think the line between his worldview through a migma lens and through a language lens

and also existing in a modern English world, I think the comparisons are probably pretty stark, whereas for me, I grew up speaking English and I'm trying to learn my language. And so I think that line does become a little bit blurry for younger generations. My name is Emma Hassan Selperli. I am a Willis de Guay visual artist and curator. I currently work as the curator of indigenous art at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. And I'm from Nogukuk, or Topic First Nation, in New Brunswick. there is a tension between my analysis of art through Wolisticway or indigenous ways of seeing and the Western art world. I often separate them in my mind.

My knowledge of stories within Christianity specifically is very limited, and that's foundational to analyzing and understanding the Western art history canon. So I really struggle here in my field and in the research sometimes. But as a curator, I get to talk about the generations of artists who came before me, and I work to ensure that they have a place in written or recorded archives of art histories in this territory. As a researcher, I try to navigate these tensions by intentionally bringing communal knowledge and language into my curatorial practice. I came across another term, visual sovereignty, in which was used by a Tuscalese. or a scholar by the name of Jolene Ricard. And it names the way that indigenous people assert self-representation, authority, and presence

through visual and material practice, through image and object, not just through a political or legal argument. I'm also really interested in dismantling definitions of low art as they are applied to our art whether it's beating basket making or porcupine quillwork. Those classifications are definitely racially biased. Indigenous folks were not hired regularly by non-indigenous folks, and so our art forms were relegated to market systems and making baskets, for example, fed families,

and they were often collaborative ventures among families, And so when I look at a basket, I think about survival and I think about family, but I also think about tending to the land and having a very intimate relationship to the land because you would know which trees were healthy enough to make a basket. Thinking about language and words such as Kanawapathamawan, which is one of the central terms in the entire book, what it means is seeing with responsibility. In Cree thought seeing isn't passive.

There's an old story at the beginning of time when the first humans were rising, were rising up. And opening, the first man opened his eyes and, of course, he encountered the beauty of the world. And the very first words spoken were of gratitude, of thanks. The vision, humility, and relationships for me are bound up together in that first moment. And it's for what elders would say, it's renewed every morning because every time we wake up and open our eyes in a sense we're reentering that same ceremony.

Therefore, to see in that sense is to enter into a relationship, relationship with people, the land, with memory, and what can't be seen directly. But to accept responsibility for what you've witnessed, it turns perception itself into an ethical act. Life is a circle. Everything inside that circle is related. We depend on each other. We look after each other. whether it be the fish, the plants, the animals, everything. All the people, where we're from, we all take care of each other, and we support each other. Kikita Keshua, Uxlaat, Sikyaj, Hiztukshed, Ahuzit, New Channel Nation.

My English name's Mark Atlio. I am from Ahazet. It's up past Tafina, 12 miles, Pashtafina. I'm still in miles. It's grown considerably. Like, I haven't been home since 68. That's after residential school. So I have never really been home after residential school. Victoria has been my home away from home. And I have two children. I married into the Songheese nation people. And my children are a song east. So that's my little family here.

I go home once in a while, but not like I should, but it's just the way it is. And I had to go through my healing process before I even could, you know, do that. You know, it was so hard to go through poor Elberny just because of all the harm that was done to us in a school. And I try to harm myself.

That's why I asked my dad to get me out. I was trying to end my life in residential school. And I'm grateful to my friend that took me down and I'm still here today. I'm very grateful to him. I'm in a different world today. And I'm very happy now. After all my healing work I've gone through,

And I appreciate to song these people, the Skoemal nation people, were taking care of me. They really took care of me in our culture, and I'm very grateful to them people. There's another interesting term. It's pronounced Dapa Snagye Wyn. And when I was a young lad, I understood it as simply to draw. But more recently, I began investigating talking with elders and knowledge bearers back home,

and they told me what it really means is to draw truthfully, a mark that is made in a truthful way. So it comes out of an older practice of the indigenous artists from the plains, and it really is about warriors returning from a hunt or a battle in which they were generally required to. to recount really what happened. But they had to do it truthfully to be believed. In other words, yeah, that witnesses, of course.

Their drawings function in the same way. So if you drew something inaccurately, you lost all credibility. So with children's drawings done from the 1930s to the 1960s, that's where I use the word Dapa Snago in, because to me, the child's drawing function as testimony the same way that a warrior's account had to. The example I'd like to point out is Mark Atlio's drawings of a sock-eye salmon, which he painted when he was seven years old at the

Albany Indian residential school. It's of a fish caught in a net painted in bright colors, and it recalls the fishing techniques from his grandfather from before he was taken to residential school. Salmon is medicine to our people. There's nothing wasted in salmon. We eat at all. And growing up when I start fishing, my grandpa said share with people, the elder people. And I did that when I first started.

To see that come back to me was special. I said, who are you? And these kids drop and fish off at my place. I don't have a boat. I don't have a fishing rod, nothing. They'd drop me fish off every year since, to this day, all the grandchildren. So their message gets passed on to the grandchildren, what I used to do for them. If I was still fishing, I still do the same thing.

Decades later, that painting returned to him at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission event, where 47 children's paintings were repatriated that day, and a new child with woman carried each one into the hall by hand. Because as a person by the name of Cheryl Johnson put it, the paintings can't be stacked. Every child must be carried. TRC was happening in downtown Victoria, and my friends kept calling me and said,

do you have a painting down here? it's yours. I said, I've never painted in my life. I don't know. I don't think so. And Dick kept phoned in and my soccer buddy, we're real close. He said, Mark, you go come see your paint and it's yours. Jack, I've never done that in my life. I don't know how to paint. It's got your name on it, Mark. Oh, the cow. So I made an appointment to go see it at the University of Victoria. It was a real awakening moment for me. And I didn't touch it until after they returned it to me

in the final TRC in Vancouver. It was very emotional because of the place we were in and why I did that painting and that was a safe place for me to be and to see others' supper wasn't very nice. It's something I talk about with different people.

I'd never want anything like that to happen to anyone, any child. And I've worked with different agencies. I said, do not harm the children. That's like a residential school again. The year I got my painting back with something special. 2013. They returned my painting our traditional ways. And that was a real big load off my shoulders, you know,

lifted me right up. And I started painting again. I mean, I've done 12 since 2013, so I'm enjoying it. It's sort of like visions I get, little visions, you know. It's something I grew up with. and my grandpa taught me a lot. He told me where the killer whales go at a place near my home. It's a big bluff.

It goes way down, straight down. There's a cave in there. And that's where the killer whales go in. So I did a picture of that. Killer Wild is sitting there waiting to go. That's my vision. That's Dapa Snipes. Aghaewin in both directions.

The truthful mark made us a child and the truth that it still carries when it came home. As a member of the Survivor Group, we have, we've had different shows with all our paintings all over B.C., Vancouver, Victoria, Suk, poor Albany. You know, the truth is here. That's what we talk about in our paintings.

The truth is here. And we always say, the truth is here. Iq'et, Hichuqis, we're all one. After the truth is here, we're all the one people. We work together. Elder, artist, fisherman, teacher, and residential school survivor, Mark O'Lio. This is Ideas. I'm Nala Ayad.

It's easy to know you want to make a change in your life, it is hard to actually do it. How to Be a Better Human from TED is a podcast for when self-help feels too daunting or just not for you. I'm Chris Duffy, the host of How to Be a Better Human, and trust me, I do not have it all figured out. But join me as I talk to experts about actually attainable ways we can try to improve our lives, whether it's facing fears, setting boundaries, cleaning your house, or all sorts of other topics. Find How to Be a Better Human wherever you get your podcasts. Gerald McMaster's book, Art, Truth, and Reconciliation,

gathers indigenous visual responses to Canada's residential and day schools. It's full of artworks from across the generations. And at its center is indigenous language. In the book, Gerald draws on Plains Cree terms rather than Western modes of thought as the primary means of engaging with indigenous artworks. So why these terms lead the book rather than sit as a commentary alongside Western art history, I feel they are offered not as stand-ins for Western words

like form and iconography. They establish the actual terms of engagement, how to look, how to make truth visible, how to understand creation as a relational life-giving act. So if you start with Western categories, you might end up asking, what does the piece mean? If you start with these indigenous concepts, you end up asking,

what is the artist doing in their own terms? That's a different question, and it gets to a very different and truer answer. So I guess what I wanted to say is that language really sits at the center of how this whole book tries to make sense of the world. Kanawapah Tammu isn't just a term I'm translating for the listener. Seeing with responsibility takes me a whole phrase in English to gesture at what one Kri word carries in its own.

In other words, seeing relationship and obligation all at once are inseparable. English tends to split those words into separate ideas, whereas Cree doesn't. It's not a small linguistic curiosity. It's the whole entire argument of the book in miniature.

And if language you're given to describe something can't hold what you're trying to describe, you haven't just lost a word. You've lost a way of understanding the world. Getting the language back is an essential part of reconciliation and what this book is asking for. I think for us as indigenous folks in this country

with the 53 different languages that exist, I think we have to start looking at this in a different way, not as a political act, but rather as a contribution to the field itself, because this field is ever expanding. The other term that I've interested, introduced in the book is Migosawin. Migosan is like a gift, a gift of vision you're given. You may have heard of that, of course, in general language, gift of creativity and a gift of life. We're all given

gifts of some kind. And to me, it's a generative force that runs through indigenous making. It's understood as something given by the creator and carried through generations, and it's not just limited to art. The same word covers creative intelligence in other areas of medicine, architecture, storytelling, land stewardship, and of course ceremony. To receive it is to be handed a responsibility. It has to be exercised in a good way and guided by our elders and knowledge bearers. And we all, of course, in the end, have to be accountable to our communities. Yeah, actually, these are, it's a little a little bit grown right now because we were busy this summer. But we have a little swamp pond,

which is in there. My name is Adrian Stimson. I am a Sixica Nation artist situated here on the Sixthaca Nation in southern Alberta. I am a interdisciplinary artist. I started off as a painter, but moved into all aspects of making art over the years, including public art. I was in the Saskatoon for many years and spent many years in Saskatchewan, but move back home and happy to be home and making art on my home territory. I attended two residential schools, but am familiar with five, which includes my familial history and as an infant before I actually attended. So I have this really sort of longstanding and interesting history with residential schools, but having attended them and having, you know, as many have, suffered the abuses in them, I do identify as a survivor of

residential schools, but I also want to throw in their thriver because I'm also thriving in spite of it, of that history. So I think that's important because as survivors were resilient and we moved through the world in many different ways. In particular, the work that I did that's featured in the book, Sick and Tired, which is the residential school bed and the actual windows from the school. You know, it's interesting because that works for me started when I was probably in high school or before that. My mom worked at now the Old Sun College, which used to be the residential school, and I used to get dropped off from school there and then walk home because I currently live in the garden that was once the Old Sun residential school garden. So it's about a

mile or so walk down into the valley. But you pass the Anglican graveyard for which a lot of my family are buried. But actually, you know, in those days, right beside it was the dump. And they would just dump everything in there. And this one particular year, they were renovating the school and they were throwing everything in there. And your little old me sort of walking by, looking at these things, thinking, oh, they can still be used. And not really as from our artistic perspective, but it was something else. And this is what, you know, you wonder about as an artist and your connection to the universe, is that I really felt compelled to take these objects home. So I would like to pick them up and, you know, little me at the time, these big pieces, like even a bed, a steel bed,

I took them home and put in my parents' garage, not really knowing what I was ever going to do with them. It wasn't until I was an adult that I, you know, and went through a formal educated process and thought about installation and really thought about these objects and how I purposefully, you know, collected them. And now they're speaking to me in the sense that I've got to do something with them, given their history. And I often, part of my practice is looking at objects that, you know, I guess are sort of a metaphysical way that have, you know, are in these places and collect this energy and hold that energy. And so a way was for me to exercise that history and exercise that history through recontextualizing these objects, but also referencing their brutal histories. you know, and it really goes back to my father who went to those schools. And at about, you know, six, five or six years old, he'd look out the windows and they'd faced west to where his parents lived just down in the valley.

And he would really be lonely for them. So one day when he was in the shower, fully naked, he took off and ran home. So I think about those windows and, you know, how many children looked out those windows longing to be home. And so for me, you know, it really came from. from my father in a way that his story impacted me and that that's why I thought of the windows. And then the bed, you know, you know, we don't know what happened on that bed. It's, it is this signifier.

And then for me, as a black for person, the buffalo is something that is a big part of our history and lives and and with the disappearance of them, you know, which is really analogous, so the same as, you know, what they tried to do to us, you know, and using the buffalo hide as a metaphor for the people. and in a sarcophagus kind of way and putting it on the bed. You know, sort of obviously triggers those sort of dark histories. And then the light above just, you know,

shining through and I didn't put a mattress on it to make it sort of look like it was being stretched. So again, looking at, you know, that history, you know, in those places, which is, you know, being a real place of being sick and really being tired of the colonial project. You know, when I was thinking of sick and tired, you know, part of the thing I was thinking,

again about my father and about a lot of the kids who were in that, in those schools, that, that notion of being smothered, that notion being smothered by the colonial project, the assimilation process. So, you know, so I start to think about pillows and feather pillows. And so for me, you know, that idea that, you know, when the kid is looking outside the window, you know, and by obscuring their view with the feathers is that notion of being smothered. by these places. So I think about that, but also in another poetic way,

I think about snow, you know, the coldness of snow. And of course, there's many sad stories of the children running away, and in particular old sun, from that school in the middle of winter, and only to freeze, you know, not only, you know, 200 yards from the schools.

So, you know, I think that that materiality in itself is something that really speaks to me or spoke to me about the idea of smothering, of obscuring, of, well, losing oneself in nothingness. With the generation of survivor artists who came after, artists such as Alan Sapp, Norval Moriso, Carl Beam, Adrian Stimpson, the emphasis moves to Migoswin, because what's remarkable about that generation

is that the creative gift simply couldn't be extinguished by the schools, even when it went quiet for a while. My home in Red Tess Museum is not there anymore, but I paint from memory. So people you can see. For Migoswin and for the Survivor Generation, I'd point to Alan Sapp, who is from Red Fesson First Nations, my own home community.

He briefly attended the Onion Lake Residential School, but his paintings almost never depict schools directly. Instead, he paints images of men hauling wood and children skating and families traveling around by a horse-drawn sleigh. Lifestyles on most native reserves have changed dramatically since Alan was a boy. So when he meets in the gallery with young children, he believes he can teach them something about their Kree heritage. Yeah, I think that's important to see these pictures hanging in the war

because they didn't see that. Some of these youngsters, they didn't see the way used to be on reserve. You want them to know what it was like to live back then? Yeah. I love this perspective. from the top. This seems to be a favorite angle of yours from the top like that. Well, I guess that's the way I feel to do that. You do that a lot. This one looks like you're on top of the haystack?

Yeah. What do you call that painting? This is called hauling hay from my grandfather. This is my grandfather. Is every picture that you paint a real memory? Yeah. So if I'd been pictures, it got to be nice and quiet because I'm thinking from memory. But there's one striking example of a work called Recess at Onion Lake School, and he did it in 1988.

In the work, you see children scattered across a bear, wintery school yard where there's no adults around, the colors drained out of it, and there's no overt violence in it at all. But it's set against everything else he painted, all the warmth and family life. It's silence says everything. Sometimes I draw a picture and then I start to talk about problems and then my wife he said to me, I don't do that. Just your mind and pictures, nimbled about problems. Just he told me.

I said, okay, I do that. That to me is Migosowen. The gift that kept working, it kept producing warmth and memory and the one time it touches the school directly, the absence is the entire statement. entire statement that he expresses. In the generation following that, the direct descendants of survivors, Ganawapathamun comes forward most strongly because their work is very consciously about

seeing with responsibility across time and reckoning with what they've inherited rather than live directly. And then the newest generation, the youngest artist in the book, carry all three at once. So the framework of Dapa Snageiwin, Kanawapat, Damwin, and Migoswin, run across all three generations. I'd actually describe it as one continuous framework rather than three terms handed out one per generation, chapter by chapter, though there's a real emphasis that shifts as you move through the book. I was really interested in overt political art. When I was really interested in overt political art, I was studying in the fine arts program at Mount Allison.

And I'd been interested in community politics since I was a child, like eight or nine years old. My grandmother was a political activist for most of her life, and she taught me about systematic oppression from as early as, you know, nine or ten. I think that older generations might see the younger generations and encourage them to think back of who they are, where they came from. who's their family, who's their community, and even try to consider learning a bit about the language. Obviously, it's much more difficult to do so, but to think that way. And so elders are always, for us, for us,

saying to us, Agaméimo, means work hard, keep working hard. And I think that those are the kind of profound messages that I have had over these years and what is, to me, as an elderly person today, will pass on to my grandchildren. The Wabanaki double curve motif is a mirrored

double-c-curvilinear symbol that takes on different styles and icons between nations and they appear in 18th and 19th century beadwork, birch bark etching, and textiles. And although we cannot decipher exactly what they mean through the archives or even in oral history in some instances, many of them reference medicinal plants, which to me relates to life cycles and living in relationality to the land. Some of them can also represent human and non-human relationships, whether that's a relationship

to yourself or your partner or your family, especially when they're clustered together, those start to speak of family and community systems. A friend of mine, actually, Percy Socobey, taught me the importance of inventing and re-contextualizing double-curve motifs to fit our current context, art forms, and messages. So I am constantly trying to form new designs within the rules of the double curve. I'm trying to create a double curve that references the wave of water or that, that, symbolizes water in, I guess, a representational way, but for myself, I'm speaking about our connection to the Willistic River and trying to create new icons that represent that or represent our people, the Willistic Al Yague or the people of the beautiful, bountiful

river. I talk about them as our visual language, and because I'm a language learner and not a fluent speaker, I'm using them to understand our worldview in fuller ways that I don't have necessarily through language. We describe the world in very different ways than is accessible to us through English, and a lot of our language is verb-based, which I really enjoy unpacking definitions, full definitions within holistic way. We are gifted with so much, and we really have to take that responsibility forward and think seriously. But at the same time, realize that we're making a contribution to this country and always have. Despite the fact that we've been written out or an attempted erasure,

I think now there's a profound understanding what in the fact that we've been written out or an attempted erasure, I think now there's a profound understanding. what indigenous peoples across this country bring in so many areas of life and so many ways of knowing and thinking and seeing, I think to me that that's the profound effect that we will have and what our contribution will be. One of the pieces of mine that are featured in Gerald's book is titled White Flag.

And the work is a standard-sized Canadian flag. with Indian Act paper shreds bonded to the maple leaf and the red borders. I secured a copy of the Indian Act from the Indian Affairs Office in Nova Scotia, and I brought it back to school and I ran it through a paper shredder. But I chose to cover the red sections because red is a significant ceremonial color in many indigenous nations. And specifically for us on the East Coast, it might symbolize red oak. which was used to preserve the body upon burials, but red also wraps and protects the four sacred medicines. And overall, it's a power color steeped in symbolism. And with that work, I was thinking

through this term legislative identity, specifically how the Indian Act has impacted indigenous forms of traditional governance, because we have had to adopt a ban council system that has changed the ways in which we self-governed as nations. I always describe the act of going to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada to secure a copy of the Indian Act as part of the performance of the work in making White Flag because you can read them online and print them out, but I really wanted their copy, and they gave me a really nice, thick paper copy. which shredded really beautifully in the paper shredder that I used in the office of the fine art building.

And so I took all of these shreds. I often say I still have half a bag of Indian Act in my studio or my closet. I did make a sister piece to White Flag and it's called Atlemya or she keeps praying. And it's a jingle dress, a red jingle dress with the same idea. The shreds are bonded to the skirt. part of the jingle dress, and that also becomes a performance because I made the dress to fit my body, and it was modeled after my great-grandmother's ribbon work on her ribbon dress. And my thought process was the paper would rub up against the metal jingle cones and would

start to wither the act away, the more that I dance. Again, that referenced my great-grandmother's work. Her name is Marjorie Purley. She was the president of the Catholic Women's League in Tobik in the 60s, I believe, and then she left her post to work for the Union of New Brunswick Indians, which was a new organization in late 60s, early 70s, and she wanted to conduct research on our traditions, our dances, and our ceremonies, to bring those aspects of culture back into the community when And this was a time that the church had heavy overall control over health, education, and community life. And so she conducted all this research.

She built what was then called Fort Malasite, and it was a gathering space where she hosted talks, powwows, and ceremonies, and invited in people from all over to speak and gather there. but she was ostracized by her community for doing that, and she worked alongside her sister, Winita Purley. And so I often think about that, those decisions that they made to preserve culture in Tobik because we recognize them now as, how do I say this? I think we recognize them now under the importance of preserving, our art histories, our dance histories, our ceremonies,

because without those decisions, we may not have access to them now. I'd actually like to push back gently on the idea that any of this is finished. The youngest artist in this book is still finishing high school. So the book doesn't end so much as open outward into a conversation that's directly continuing without us and in new hands. Indigenous art doesn't illustrate reconciliation. It creates the conditions for it. It asks us to see, to remember, and to respond differently.

That's not a responsibility that belongs to one generation. It moves. Art, Truth, and Reconciliation. This episode of Ideas is based on the book of the same name, published online by Art Canada Institute. It was produced by Sean Foley, and featured the book's author, Gerald McMaster, as well as the voices of Mark Utlio,

Adrian Stimson, and Emma Hassensal-Purley. Special thanks to Victoria Nolte at Art Canada Institute, and to Ted Whitecalf of Sweet Grass Records. And to our colleagues, Alison Dempster in Calgary, McVony Davis and Danielle McCready in Fredericton, Madeline Green in Victoria, and John Scaife in Toronto. Technical production by Danielle Duval and Will Yard.

Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our senior producer is Nicola Luxchich. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas. And I'm Nala Ayyed. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.com.