3. Sanga elders. The Sanga are an Indigenous ethnic group from the Katanga
Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Excerpt from
Pungulume (2015) by Sammy Baloji (Sanga)
4.
5. S. James Anaya (Apache and Purépecha
ancestry) identifies indigenous peoples,
nations, or communities as:
“culturally distinctive groups that find
themselves engulfed by settler societies
born of the forces of empire and
conquest.... They are indigenous because
their ancestral roots are embedded in
the lands in which they live, or would like
to live, much more deeply than the roots
of more powerful sectors of society
living on the same lands or in close
proximity…. They are peoples to the
extent they comprise distinct
communities with a continuity of
existence and identity that links them to
the communities, tribes, or nations of
their ancestral past” (Indigenous peoples
and international law, 2004 , p. 3).
Special Rapporteur, to the Permanent
Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2008-
2014
6. INDIGENOUS
POPULATION
GLOBALLY
“It is estimated that there are more than 370
million indigenous people spread across 70
countries worldwide..”
https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/
5session_factsheet1.pdf
9. UNITED NATIONS WORKING GROUP ON
INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS
“'self-identification’ as indigenous or tribal is usually regarded as a fundamental
criterion for determining whether groups are indigenous or tribal, sometimes in
combination with other variables such as language or historical continuity in, and
ancient connection to, a geographic location. In terms of individuals, the issue of
subjective self-identification as indigenous must also respect the community’s right
to define its own membership.”
Working Paper by the Chairperson-Rapportuer, Mrs. Erica-Irene A. Daes, on the
concept of “Indigenous people. pp. 12-13, 1996
10. INDIGENOUS
IDENTITY –
U.N.
• Self-identification as indigenous peoples at the
individual level and accepted by the community as
their member
• Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-
settler societies
• Strong link to territories and surrounding natural
resources
• Distinct social, economic or political systems
• Distinct language, culture and beliefs form non-
dominant groups of society
• Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral
environments and systems as distinctive peoples
and communities
11. INDIGENOUS
POPULATIONS
“Indigenous populations are communities that live
within, or are attached to, geographically distinct
traditional habitats or ancestral territories, and
who identify themselves as being part of a distinct
cultural group, descended from groups present in
the area before modern states were created and
current borders defined. They generally maintain
cultural and social identities, and social, economic,
cultural and political institutions, separate from the
mainstream or dominant society or culture.”
World Health Organization
12. ACROSS BORDERS
• Haida – US and Canada
• Mohawk – US and Canada
• The Sámi - Northern Sweden,
Norway, Finland, and the
Kola Peninsula of Russia
• The Tamil – India and Sri
Lanka
• Kurds – Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria
• Mapuche – Argentia, Chile
15. • Decolonization centers and privileges Indigenous life, community, and epistemology (ways of
knowing)
• The aim of decolonialization is to re-inscribe histories and perspectives, which have been
devalued through ‘radical exercises of un-thinking, de-disciplining, and re-educating’
• Decolonization cannot take place without contestation. It must necessarily push back against
the institutions and relations of power that threaten Indigenous ways of being
16. Tuck and Yang have expressed a concern with the “ease with which
the language of decolonization has been superficially adopted into
education and other social sciences, supplanting prior ways of talking
about social justice, critical methodologies or approaches which
decenter settler perspectives” (2)
“The easy adoption of decolonizing discourse by educational
advocacy and scholarship, evidenced by the increasing number of
calls to ‘decolonize our schools,’ or use ‘decolonizing methods,’ or,
‘decolonize student thinking’, turns decolonization into a metaphor”
(1)
17. DECOLONIZATION
“….the process of ‘decolonization’ should not place colonization as the central point
of our culture, nor should it romanticize our indigenous past. These trains of thought
perpetuate the point of view of the dominant culture of today. Rather,
‘decolonization’ should be a process of changing the way we view the world.”
Isaac Giron “Decolonize Your Mind”
19. DECOLONIZATION IN THE ARTS STARTS
WITH
SOUTH AFRICAN ART SCHOOL PROTESTS
• #RhodesMustFall was a protest movement that began on 9 March
2015, originally directed against a statue at the University of Cape
Town (UCT) that commemorated Cecil Rhodes as well as other art and
heritage items in the university art collection.
• Rhodes was a racist mining magnate who died in 1962
• Students had been calling for the removal of the statue since the
1950s.
• On 9 April 2015, following a UCT Council vote the previous night, the
statue was removed.
• "the fall of 'Rhodes' is symbolic for the inevitable fall of white
supremacy and privilege at our campus”
• Students actions included throwing human feces at the Rhodes
statue, occupying UCT offices, and burning art, vehicles, and
buildings, a Facebook page entitled 'Rhodes Must Fall' and use of the
hashtag '#RhodesMustFall' on Twitter.
• The campaign for the statue's removal received global attention and
led to a wider movement to decolonize education at colleges and
universities across South Africa.
20. DECOLONIZATION IN THE ARTS
• Decolonize_________!
• Museums, Art History, Curation, Graphic Design, the Canon etc.
• At issue: How do we deal with the long history of Western colonial appropriation in
the Arts? How do we “undo” or make visible vestiges of colonialism in the museum
and other sites within the larger “institution of art”? How do we privilege
Indigenous life, community, and epistemology (ways of knowing) in institutions
that have been dedicated to Western art, culture and epistemologies?
25. AESTHETIC THEORY:
NAMING MOVEMENTS
AND CATEGORIES OF
ART
Aesthetic theory = a
critical interpretation of a
body or group of artworks
Aesthetic theory = a tool
used to understand a
specific art movement
26. “SURVIVANCE”
A method for critically reading Native American literature
a neologism which combines “survival, resistance and
presence.”
A term Vizenor borrowed from the legal concept of
survivance which names the right to inheritance and more
specifically the condition of being qualified to inherit a legacy
i.e., in real estate, survivance is when a property owner makes
a transfer of property to another but retains some future right
to the property
This term describes practices that rewrite ongoing colonial
histories from the perspective of Indigenous experience,
visual culture, oral history and knowledge.
27. Survivance is not the same as survival or subsistence.
“Indigenous communities have not just survived; they have maintained ways of life,
shared and passed on stories from generations past, resisted systems of oppression,
preserved languages, and persisted through the challenges imposed by colonialism
while protecting and sharing their cultural heritage.”
28. SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
“Vizenor argues that many people in the world are enamored with and obsessed by
the concocted images of the Indian—the simulations of indigenous character and
cultures as essential victims. Native survivance, on the other hand, is an active sense
of presence over historical absence, deracination, and oblivion. The nature of
survivance is unmistakable in Native stories, natural reason, active traditions,
customs, and narrative resistance and is clearly observable in personal attributes such
as humor, spirit, cast of mind, and moral courage in literature.”
Survivance Narratives of Native Presence (2008) book
abstract
29. “Theories of survivance are elusive, obscure, and imprecise by definition, translation,
comparison, and by catchword histories, but survivance is invariably true and just in
native practice and cultural company.” Vizenor
30. SURVIVANCE: DEFINITIONS
• “Native survivance is an active sense of presence over absence, deracination, and oblivion; survivance is the
continuance of stories, not a mere reaction, however pertinent.”
• “Survivance is an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere rection, or a survivable
name.”
• “Survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, detractions, obtrusions, the unbearable sentiments of tragedy,
and the legacy of victimry.”
• “Survivance is an active resistance and repudiation of dominance, obtrusive themes of tragedy, nihilism, and
victimry.”
31. SURVIVANCE
DEFINE
(CON’T)
• “Survivance is a practice, not an ideology,
dissimulation, or a theory. The theory is earned
by interpretations, the critical construal of
survivance in creative literature…”
• “Survivance, then, is the action, condition,
quality, and sentiments of the verb survive, “to
remain alive or in existence,” to outlive,
persevere with a suffix of survivancy.”
• “Thus, survivance is not a static object or
method but a dynamic, active condition of
historical and cultural survival and also of
political resistance,”
32. EXAMPLES OF SURVIVANCE IN THE
MEDIA ARTS
A film made in the
Haida language
(Edge of the Knife)
A digital artwork which
translates traditional
beadwork to the digital
realm (Four
Generations)
A videogame which
tells a traditional story
(Never Alone)
A database or Wesbite
collection of oral
histories from Inuit
midwives (Women
Health Bodies)
33. MEDIA ARTS
+
SURVIVANCE
“In a media arts context, survivance also incorporates
experimentation with medium in order to represent
Indigenous worldviews”
Wanda Nanibush (Anishinaabe, Canada)
“Indigenous media is in search of new tools with which to
reclaim perception and locate histories, relationships, and
understandings.”
Fred Myers
34. JOLENE RICKARD (TUSCARORA):
VISUAL SOVEREIGNTY
Tuscarora photographer and curator Jolene Rickard’s (1995) conceptualization of
visual sovereignty:
“identifying in art practice the possibilities of claiming virtual territory over and
against the claims of the dominant, hegemonic structures of settler states and
dominant art forms. “
35. “Indigenous cultural formations can be discussed from multiple locations
(perspectives can be colonial, reservation based, sovereign, national, postcolonial,
cultural, or diasporic), and they are created from multiple locations as well. What can
we learn from these artists who plumb inherited traditions while appropriating global
culture?”
Rickard, “Visualizing Sovereignty in the Time of Biometric Sensors,” p. 471
36. T S U H É I D E I S H U G A X T U T A A N P A R T 1 ( 2 0 0 6 )
N I C H O L A S G A L A N I N ( T L I N G I T / U N A N G A Z , U S )
• David “Elsewhere” Bernal, a Peruvian-American
dancer, performs his trademark blend of “twisting”
and “popping” – contemporary dance
• The traditional Tlingit song Tsu Heidei
Shugaxtutaan (“We will again open this container
of wisdom that has been left in our care”) plays on
the soundtrack
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue30aKV1L
F8
37. ARTIST INTENTION
TSU HÉIDEI SHUGAXTUTAAN STATEMENT
“Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan translates to “We will again open this container of wisdom
that has been left in our care. “ The work is named for the song being danced in by
the non-Tlingit dancer. Galanin suggests opening containers of wisdom to create
connection between generations as contribution to living culture. This work
embodies celebration of culture and the necessity of contribution over consumption.
In this early work Galanin explores song, dance, language, as intersecting
streams to carry cultural continuum. The work asserts Tlingit song and dance as
contemporary and relevant, blending them seamlessly with contemporary song
and dance as a beacon for what is possible when culture is allowed to grow and
expand to navigate new circumstances. Rather than a juxtaposition of time or
place, the video expands both by weaving together image, sound and motion.”
38. THE INK OF THE EARTH (2019)
RA JESH WANGAD
WARLI MASTER PAINTER
VR PROJECT
Warli land and way of life is being
threatened by development which also
has an environmental impact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbFz
mxLQcxk
39. WARLI OR VARLI
PEOPLE
• The Warli or Varli are an
Indigenous tribe of western India,
living in mountainous as well as
coastal areas along the Maharashtra-
Gujart border and surrounding areas.
They practice their own animistic
beliefs, life, customs and traditions,
and as a result of acculturation have
adopted many Hindu beliefs. The
Warli speak the unwritten Varli.
• The Warli are known for their
unique painting style
40. MOBILIZE
CAROLYN MONNET
(ALGONQUIN-FRENCH
CANADIAN )
“Guided expertly by those who live on the
land and driven by the pulse of the natural
world, Mobilize takes us on an exhilarating
journey from the far north to the urban south.
Over every landscape, in all conditions,
everyday life flows with strength, skill and
extreme competence. Hands swiftly thread
sinew through snowshoes. Axes expertly peel
birch bark to make a canoe. A master paddler
navigates icy white waters. In the city,
Mohawk ironworkers stroll across steel
girders, almost touching the sky, and a young
woman asserts her place among the towers.
The fearless polar punk rhythms of Tanya
Tagaq underscore the perpetual
negotiation between the modern and
traditional by a people always moving
forward.”
• https://vimeo.com/256666978
Edited in a way that seems to speed-up
the film and at times the film is sped up
Lots of camera movement or movement
within an image
Throat singing soundtrack matches speed
of film
Matches her notion of people always
moving forward/an active presence
Traditional and modern
Emotional response?
41. ALTARES/CHRINE (2019)
COLECTIVO LOS
INGRÁVIDOS
(TEHUACÁN, MEXICO)
“ALTARES is an audiovisual shrine
composed of small temples that contain
images of ancient deities.”
https://vimeo.com/user15819885
“Colectivo Los Ingrávidos (Tehuacán,
Mexico) arises from the need to dismantle
the audiovisual grammar that the
aesthetic-television-cinematic
corporatism has used and uses to
effectively guarantee the diffusion of an
audiovisual ideology by means of which a
continuous social and perceptive control
is maintained over the majority of the
population. Politically charged yet
involved with the sublime Los Ingrávidos
inhabit poetic realms that few dare to
tread.”
42. TAMBO (2014)
+ BIRDS IN EARTH (2018)
MAR JA HEL ANDER (SÁMI,
FINL AND)
• Inserting the Sámi body into the polar landscape, claimed
by settler colonialism
• Trambo (excerpt) is a portrait of an indigenous Sámi
woman wandering on a snowy mountain. She is dragging
a big trampoline, a burden she hopes will bring a bit of joy
to the monotonous journey of life. The trampoline is a
reference to the modern age, but it can also be seen as a
prison.
• Birds on Earth (excerpt) Sámi dance students, Birit and
Katja Haarla, dance through the villages and lost woods of
Sámi land all the way to the south, to Helsinki. It examines
the deeper questions of the ownership of Sámi land.
• https://vimeo.com/285996592
• https://www.av-arkki.fi/works/eatnanvulos-lottit-maan-sisalla-linnut/
• https://vimeo.com/646497364
43. TIERRA (2013)
REGINA JOSÉ GALINDO
(MAYA, GUATEMALA)
In Tierra the artist explores the
connection between the
exploitation of human lives and
natural resources. The video shows
the artist standing naked and
motionless in a field while an
excavator digs an enormous ditch
around her, leaving only the small
piece of land on which the artist is
standing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
eSRqMMieSIA
44. “The origin of the performance Tierra was testimony I heard at the genocide trial of
(military dictator) Ríos Montt (1982-83). A military officer, a protected witness,
recounted how the army rolled into the Indigenous communities (the lxil/Maya) with
backhoes to make huge ditches where they would throw the bodies of Indigenous
people, many of them still alive. Later, the lands where the massacres occurred were
divvied up. War, violence, resources—it was all connected. A performance is not
enough to express empathy, or rage, before a tragedy of that magnitude. But we do
what we can.”
45. S P A N I A R D S N A M E D H E R
M A G D A L E N A , B U T N A T I V E S
C A L L H E R Y U M A ( 2 0 1 3 )
C A R O L I N A C A Y C E D O ( M U I S C A ,
C O L O M B I A )
Reclamation of
language/land
Aesthetic technique: ?
https://vimeo.com/1518061
27
46. W O L F N AT I O N , 2 0 1 8
A L A N M I C H E L S O N
( M O H AW K < M E M B E R O F T H E S I X N AT I O N S O F T H E G R A N D R I V E R )
.
Webcam footage of red wolves, a critically endangered indigenous species, transformed into a
meditation linking their eradication with that of the Lenape Munsees, known as the Wolf Tribe.
Drawn from the Native tradition of wampum belts—woven sashes of purple and white shell
beads carrying solemn messages, Wolf Nation affirms an indigenous worldview and solidarity
across species
https://vimeo.com/577193771
47. SNOW WHITE (2001)
BERNI SEARLE (AFRICAN AND
GERMAN-ENGLISH ANCESTRY
SOUTH AFRICA)
Projected onto two screens and filmed from
different angles, we see Searle kneeling in a
pool of light, almost indistinguishable from
the black floor and background. White flour
falls from above - quietly, like the first snow -
and gradually brings her body into focus,
defining it and then enlarging and
elaborating on that form. Eventually Searle
reclaims her bodily form back by wiping the
flour off, onto the floor and then starts noisily,
ritualistically, to make dough from the flour,
now wet with water that we hear dripping
from above. It is a work about claiming the
self on one's own terms
48. SNOW WHITE
(2001)
(BERNI SEARLE,
AFRICAN AND
GERMAN-
ENGLISH
ANCESTRY
SOUTH AFRICA)
• As a mixed-race person growing up during apartheid in
South Africa, Searle was categorized as "Coloured," a label
that she later rejected and challenged through her art
post-apartheid
• For Searle, this process of (re)construction involves a
conscious tactic of continuous insertion and erasure of
her body.
• Oguibe, a Nigerian-born curator and points out that while
Searle’s work is esthetically beautiful, it is also an entry
into the complex history of Africa. For example, he
explains, “being ‘whited-out.’ as enacted in Snow
White, refers to the official policy of “erasing”
indigenous populations in settler colonies.”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np-Gcc0Tvqo
49. MY FATHER’S COLOR PERIODS
(2012)
HIWA-K (KURD, IRAQ)
“’Tonight the film will be broadcast in color’ - a
rumor spread in 1979 among people who believed
that the state-owned TV station would show the
film in color despite of the fact that the TV´s were
still black & white. Unlike in cities with Arab
inhabitants, the majority of the people in the
Kurdish area of Iraq still had no reach of color TV
sets. So my father would cut and stick a sheet of
cellophane on the screen of our TV at home. Some-
times it stayed one week until he switched to
another color. We used to watch films, music videos
and all other programs, once in blue, pink, green
and yellow and so on. Later he started also dividing
the screen into two, three or four squares with
different color in each. Eventually he began with
stripes and other possible forms. We were watching
the figures walking from blue to green, though
yellow, purple to pink. In a while the entire city
employed it with their black and white TVs going
through the blue, then to pink, yellow phases and
so on.”
Countering the notion that Indigenous people are
outside of technology.
Creating a new visual/viewing language and
experience in resistance to dominant media
Claiming virtual territory over and against the
claims of the dominant, hegemonic structures of
settler states.
Focusing attention on the power games that
characterize the system which Kurds live under,
whether it be economic, political or social.
50. KURDISTAN
Indigenous peoples of the
Mesopotamian plains
Homeland stretches across the
borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and
Syria; autonomous region only
in Iraq
51. MY FATHER’S COLOR PERIODS (2012)
VISUAL TECHNIQUES
• Exhibited as a grid projection or on multiple TV sets– multiple
images
• Sound playing all at once
• Videos play on a loop (no beginning, no end)
• Intense use of color
• ingenuity, resistance, protest, a new visual language/viewing
language
52. VISIONS OF AN ISLAND
(2016)
SKY HOPINKA
(HO-CHUNK
NATION/PECHANGA BAND OF
LUISEÑO PEOPLE)
An Unangam Tunuu (Aleut) elder
describes cliffs and summits, drifting
birds, and deserted shores. A group
of students and teachers play and
invent games revitalizing their
language. A visitor wanders in a
quixotic chronicling of earthly and
supernal terrain. These visions offer
glimpses of an island in the center of
the Bering Sea.
http://www.skyhopinka.com/visions-
of-an-island
53. Sky Hopinka's work deals with personal interpretations of homeland and landscape;
the correlation between language and culture in relation to home and land.
Hopinka has said: “Deconstructing language [through cinema] is a way for me to be
free from the dogma of traditional storytelling and then, from there, to explore or
propose more of what Indigenous cinema has the possibility to look like.”
56. NE’GUNDO MUKII
(KENYA)
Ng'endo Mukii is an award-winning film director most well known for
‘Yellow Fever,’ her documentary-animation exploring Western
influences on African women's ideals of beauty.
At the prestigious Design Indaba conference, she presented her talk,
‘Film Taxidermy and Re-Animation,’ proposing the use of animation as
a means of rehumanizing the ‘indigenous’ image; a people whose
‘real’ image is burdened with stereotypes of being the ‘Other.’
She is a writer on Netflix’s Mama K’s Team 4 series and is one of 10
directors selected for the upcoming Disney+ and Triggerfish
animated anthology, Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire.
Professor at Museum School/Tufts
57. THE RE-ANIMATION
OF INDIGENOUS
PEOPLE
In this talk, Mukii discusses why she chose to use animation and
dance to challenge the representation of indigenous people and the
consequences of the portrayal of African people as a dead or dying
population.
Her exploration of these issues began when she found Gert Chesi’s
The Last Africans around 10 years after its release. The book had a
profound effect on Mukii because it, like other ethnographic books,
portrayed indigenous African cultures as either dead or dying
She juxtaposed this form of storytelling with the purpose of a
taxidermist. She says that the ethnographer creates the impression of
death where life exists while the taxidermist creates the illusion of life
where death exists. Animation is different
Mukii found that this singular narrative had influenced Nairobi’s
modern media, which was skewed to western ideals of beauty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TznYZkdwI3o
58. QUOTES
“I propose the use of animation in relation to indigenous people as a means of telling
you that these people are human. The animation is not related to the indexical
image, and it is able to emulate human emotions and experiences.”
“Animation is not pretending to be alive as is the case with taxidermy, and unlike
ethnography it’s not tied to a singular story,”
59. PHOTOGRAPHS (ADS,
COMMERCIALS, FILMS)
AND THE INDEXICAL
IMAGE
1. Photographs point to
(or index) meaning
Photographs are taken to
represent/point to reality
2. An indexical image is
an image that represents a
meaning without having
to specifically say it.
60. INDEXICAL IMAGE, EXAMPLE
• Picture a commercial of a young child receiving an ice cream cone. He jumps up and down
excitedly, and the ice cream falls out of the cone and onto the floor. At this point, the sound stops,
and you no longer see the child. You only see the ice cream on the floor beginning to melt. How do
you feel? This is an example of an indexical image, or an image that represents a meaning
without having to specifically say it. These types of images are a great way to evoke certain
emotions in your visual storytelling. If you can evoke emotions without having to literally say it,
then the emotions will be more powerful.
• For example, instead of seeing that ice cream fall onto the ground and start melting, would you
feel the same level of sadness and empathy for the child if you saw the child crying? You still might
feel sad, but now that sadness is also tinged with stress. Hearing children crying is always stressful.
Nobody likes it. It is true that whatever the child is crying about is sad, but seeing and hearing
them cry takes away from the sadness of the moment. Using the indexical image, however, allows
you to evoke the feeling of sadness without other distractors.
62. ROMUALD HAZOUMÉ
YORUBA
Ibedji (Nos.1 and 2) Twins (1992)
Plastic can, raffia, cowries and
acrylic
16 1/2 x 11 3/4 x 3 7/8 in
Materials gathered from recycle
dumps in Benin
“I send back to the West that
which belongs to them, that is
to say, the refuse of consumer
society that invades us every
day.
69. ATO RIBEIRO
(ASANTE AND EWE HERITAGE)
• Kente Quilt Series (2016-2017)
• Wooden wall sculptures based on Ghanian
Kente cloth designs
• “…my work draws from exploring modes of
communication embedded within traditional
textiles such as Ghanaian Kente cloth and African
American quilts.”
