While Indigenous media have gained increasing prominence around the world, the vibrant Aboriginal media world on the Canadian West Coast has received little scholarly attention. As the first ...ethnography of the Aboriginal media community in Vancouver,Sovereign Screensreveals the various social forces shaping Aboriginal media production including community media organizations and avant-garde art centers, as well as the national spaces of cultural policy and media institutions.
Kristin L. Dowell uses the concept of visual sovereignty to examine the practices, forms, and meanings through which Aboriginal filmmakers tell their individual stories and those of their Aboriginal nations and the intertribal urban communities in which they work. She explores the ongoing debates within the community about what constitutes Aboriginal media, how this work intervenes in the national Canadian mediascape, and how filmmakers use technology in a wide range of genres-including experimental media-to recuperate cultural traditions and reimagine Aboriginal kinship and sociality. Analyzing the interactive relations between this social community and the media forms it produces,Sovereign Screensoffers new insights into the on-screen and off-screen impacts of Aboriginal media.
Exploring connections to urban life and ancestral territories, Claiming Space offered viewers unfiltered and uncensored access to the voices and experiences of urban Aboriginal youth artists. In my ...interviews with Pam Brown and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, it was clear that their foremost priority was to allow the voices of the artists to come through and not to impose their own ideas or to change the artist's voices. Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers emphasized that "for Pam and me, it was really important to privilege the voices of Aboriginal youth and to make sure it was their voices guiding the project" (interview, 9 October 2014). This emphasis on constructing the exhibit through the artists' own voices was evident in the curatorial themes of the show, all of which were taken from the titles of specific artworks or from phrases in artists' statements. The five overarching themes-"The Indigenous Sprawl," "We Are Culture," "Adapting Our Traditions," "The Gaze" and "We Are the Keepers"-were printed on banners hanging in the gallery space to demarcate the specific sections of the exhibit. The Claiming Space exhibit impacted not only visitors but also the artists and curators. The exhibit offered an opportunity for the artists to meet one another and to network among their peers. For example, in an interview Jeneen Frei Njootli discussed the importance of Claiming Space in helping her to feel connected to the Aboriginal art world in Vancouver, noting, "I think Claiming Space has had a really positive impact, it has for me. It has helped me to feel more connected here and like there is a space for me at this huge institution, a place to feel welcomed and less alienated" (interview, October 18, 2014). Both Pam Brown and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers talked about the importance of the exhibit as a celebration of the voices of Aboriginal youth. Tailfeathers described the impact of her role in the curatorial process, proclaiming, "I am so incredibly honoured to have worked on this project and there were so many times where I was just so deeply moved by how powerful these pieces of art are" (interview, October 9, 2014). Brown hopes that the exhibit has provided "a better understanding of urban Aboriginal youth and the issues they face every day. I think visitors are made more aware of what is going on and why things are happening because the artists are very honest and straightforward about that they think" (interview, September 23, 2014). Sámi artist Márjá Bal Nango contends Claiming Space shows that "Indigenous youth are engaged and dare to criticize and be political and that the Indigenous youth experience is quite similar across nations" (interview, November 8, 2014). Ellena Neel feels that the exhibit is empowering for Aboriginal youth to see "other youth participating and reconnecting to their culture and actively living it," (interview, October 10, 2014) while Kelli Clifton appreciated this exhibition "because it is speaking to issues that are current in today's world and they really do give Aboriginal youth a voice and a chance to share their own stories" (interview, September 29, 2014). Providing a platform for Aboriginal youth voices to articulate their perspectives on cultural traditions and indigeneity in the 21st century, particularly from urban perspectives, is a landmark achievement of Claiming Space at the MOA. Danielle Morsette proclaimed, "It's not every day where there is an exhibition dedicated to young artists who most likely are not very known to the public or the art world. I was overjoyed completely to be part of it, I still am. It is a unique exhibition that only comes around every once in a while" (Watson, Anne 2014). In reviewing Claiming Space, Tania Willard emphatically proclaimed, "I see rebels here-claiming space. I see our future. THE FUTURE IS INDIGENOUS" (Willard 2014). That this exhibit highlighted Aboriginal youth voices and emphasized the future of Aboriginal artistic expression is a radical exhibition practice, particularly when museums often position Aboriginal people as part of the past. One visitor remarked on this, noting, "People think of Aboriginal as something historical, in the past ... this exhibition brings it a voice in the present looking to the future." The horizon of Aboriginal futures shines brightly within Claiming Space, an exhibit that left me with a deep appreciation for the cutting-edge, fresh and innovative voices and visions of this younger generation of Aboriginal artists. When I asked Jeneen Frei Njootli about the impact of Claiming Space she declared, "This exhibit is the future and the future looks rad from where I stand, when I stand in that exhibit" (interview, 18 October 2014). I could not agree more.
This exchange with Odessa Shuquaya articulates a key paradoxical characteristic of Aboriginal visual sovereignty; namely, that much of the Aboriginal media produced in Canada is funded by Canadian ...cultural institutions. These cultural institutions—the National Film Board of Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada—provide funding for Aboriginal media under their mandate to supportCanadiancultural sovereignty, particularly vis-à-vis American media. What implications does this
embrace of Aboriginal media by Canadian cultural institutions have for Aboriginal visual sovereignty? Can Aboriginal filmmakers express cultural autonomy when they are funded by the very same Canadian government that they often critique?
I began this book with a question: “What does Aboriginal sovereignty look like on- and off-screen?” Throughout this book I have explored the concept of Aboriginal visual sovereignty to analyze the ...ways in which Aboriginal filmmakers stake a claim for Aboriginal stories in the dominant Canadian mediascape while simultaneously reimagining the screen by incorporating Aboriginal cultural protocols, languages, and aesthetics into the production process. In this chapter I highlight the work of two rising filmmakers in the Aboriginal media world—Kevin Lee Burton and Helen Haig-Brown—both of whom were mentored by Dana Claxton and Loretta Todd and whose films
The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network adds another complex layer to the discussion about Aboriginal visual sovereignty. As a national broadcaster in Canada, APTN is connected to the mainstream ...Canadian mediascape; at the same time it is a vital institution for representing Aboriginal stories and experiences to all Canadians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. In fact, the majority of the APTN audience is non-Aboriginal. What are the implications for Aboriginal visual sovereignty when non-Aboriginal audiences watch APTN? Does the witnessing of Aboriginal media by non-Aboriginal audiences strengthen visual sovereignty and recognition of Aboriginal rights? What role does APTN play in Aboriginal media in
The opening night ofThe People Go Onwas one of the first times in which I understood the extent to which Aboriginal media production makes an impact in the off-screen social relationships within ...Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal media nurture and constitute Aboriginal social relationships off-screen in numerous ways. That Loretta Todd, and other Aboriginal filmmakers, carefully enact cultural protocol through their production process is an act of Aboriginal visual sovereignty. Todd’s documentaryThe People Go On, discussed in greater detail at the end of this chapter, is experimental in its innovation in the documentary genre and also in Todd’s commitment
While Aboriginal media have made an impact on-screen within the Canadian mediascape, they have also made a tremendous off-screen impact in the social life of Aboriginal communities. For ...anthropologists of media, the social life behind media production is a testament to the power of media to alter and strengthen social ties. Drawing upon my access to the “behind the scenes” life of media production as an IMAG volunteer, I highlight how a sense of community is shaped, contested, and negotiated among urban Aboriginal filmmakers within the social spaces of media production. I locate Aboriginal visual sovereignty in the acts of
