Visual

Winter Count draws inspiration from the Plains First Nations practices of recording significant events each winter, a visual reminder that helps structure histories and traditions passed down to future generations. This handsome volume explores how winter has long shaped Indigenous, Canadian settler, and northern European art, uniting different cultural perspectives through such diverse topics as storytelling, effects of light, physical adaptation, and community and isolation.

Presenting a selection of works spanning from the early 19th century to the present day — including artists such as Kenojuak Ashevak, J.E.H. MacDonald, Claude Monet, Kent Monkman, Megan Musseau, and Jin-me Yoon — Winter Count features approximately 170 plates, along with illustrated essays by curators from the National Gallery of Canada. The result is a book that invites readers to see winter anew — not as a season to be endured, but as a source of invention, connection, and mutual respect across time and place.

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Dual-language: English and French

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304 pages | 9.00" x 12.00" | Paperback

Ask Haida artist and hereditary chief 7IDANsuu James Hart how long it took him to master the art of carving, and he'll tell you: "Around ten thousand years."

Hart has achieved national prominence and international acclaim for his towering poles, stately cedar sculptures, and massive bronzes - monumental works that extend the long continuum of Haida visual traditions into powerful new forms. Since his early days assisting Robert Davidson and Bill Reid, through his reproductions of historical Haida poles and his carving of original house front, story, and memorial poles for private commissions and clan-based contexts in Haida Gwaii and beyond, he has developed an innovative practice rooted in tradition, and widely celebrated: thousands of people gathered to witness the raising and activation of his Reconciliation Pole; his Three Watchmen bronzes overlook the Audain Art Museum, National Gallery of Canada and the Plains of Abraham; and The Dance Screen (The Scream Too) in Whistler is considered a once-in-a-generation sculptural masterpiece.

This, the first publication devoted to Hart, is both a survey of his major career achievements and a document of an impossible-to-assemble exhibition. Alongside hundreds of photos of nineteen monumental works and associated smaller carvings and bronzes scattered across North America and Europe, and drawing on over two years of interviews with the artist, Curtis Collins illustrates how key animal and supernatural figures reappear across scales and mediums, from jewellery to sixty-foot poles (the "backbone" of his practice), and speaks to the associated activation ceremonies as integral to Haida monumental art. Wade Davis considers Hart's expressions of Haida resilience within the people's long history, from time immemorial to the nation's present-day efforts towards national sovereignty; Gwaliga Hart offers a personal perspective on his father's work; and in an autobiographical essay the artist himself reflects on his life, and his life's work.

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Contributors:

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256 pages | 10.25" x 11.25" | 200 colour photographs | Hardcover 

A landmark photography collection featuring work exclusively by Indigenous Americans, shedding new light on the understanding of Indigenous America.

The history of photography–and the Americas–is incomplete without the critical work and perspectives of Indigenous American photographers. Since the 1800s, cameras have been in the hands of Indigenous people and they have incorporated photography into their lives as creators, patrons, and collectors.

Five years ago, photographers Brian Adams and Sarah Stacke set off on a mission to assemble a groundbreaking, digital library of Indigenous photographers from the 19th century to the present. With In Light and Shadow: A Photographic History from Indigenous America, Adams and Stacke expand on that work, creating a one-of-a-kind collection of photographs that offers a first-hand look at the people, cultures, and evolving traditions of Indigenous America while providing a counterhistory to settler-colonial narratives.

From Jennie Fields Ross Cobb, the earliest known Indigenous American woman photographer, to Arhuaco documentarian Amado Villafaña Chaparro, through Kapuleiikealoonalani Flores, a Native Hawaiian who was born in 2000, the photographers span many generations as well as multiple Indigenous societies and nations. Each entry includes a biographical sketch of the artist, along with their inspirations and contributions to the photographic medium.

With profiles of 80 photographers and more than 250 photographs, this unique book brings to light the canon of Indigenous American photography that has been developing on its own terms for decades.

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304 pages | 8.50" x 10.30" | 250 black-and-white and color photographs | Hardcover 

An ambitious, world-envisioning work of Indigenous futurism.

Since 2015—through a proliferation of forms including sculpture, regalia, film, photography, poetry, painting, and installation—acclaimed multimedia artist Cannupa Hanska Luger has been weaving together strands of a new myth. Collectively referred to as Future Ancestral Technologies, this sprawling series of interrelated works seeks to reimagine Indigenous life and culture in a postcolonial world where space exploration has reduced and reconfigured the earth’s population.

Part graphic novel, part art book, SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide offers readers a view beneath, beyond, and between the lines of Luger's ever-expanding artistic universe. In this ecstatically hybrid work, Luger transforms a 1970s military survival guide through poetic redaction, speculative fiction, and iterative line drawing—deftly surfacing and disrupting the colonial subconscious that haunts this vexed source text. An epic and timely meditation on planetary life in the midst of transformation, SURVIVA boldly presents an earth-based, demilitarized futuredream that foregrounds Indigenous knowledge as critical to humanity’s survival

SURVIVA is the first title from Aora Books, a publishing imprint dedicated to exploring transformational thought and culture that transcends borders, disciplines, and traditions. Rooted in an ethos of polyvocality and planetary consciousness, Aora publishes works that forge bold connections across time, place, ideas, and beings often seen as separate.

Reviews
"SURVIVA offers Indigenous wisdom for a shared future built on ancestral knowledge in radical relation. This is a survival guide like none other." —Candice Hopkins, curator of the Forge Project 

"SURVIVA boldly reimagines our conceptions of time and history, challenging our collective narratives and pushing us to rethink the art of survival through a lens of transformation."—Hank Willis Thomas, artist and cofounder of For Freedoms

"Cannupa Hanska Luger has created a wondrous book of survivance, a story to carry in pocket and study at every opportunity. At once a dystopia (earth is near destroyed) and a postcolonial fantasy (the colonizers abandon the planet for good), SURVIVA is a work of artistic brilliance that draws our attention to the simultaneity of ruins and futures. Rich with dreampower and evocation, these pages illustrate the mysteries of space-time, the dissolution of boundaries, and the relational universe described by Indigenous quantum mechanics. Read carefully, SURVIVA has the power to bend time itself, lifting us from past and present into futures innumerable."—Philip J. Deloria, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History at Harvard University and author of Playing Indian

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162 pages | 5.44" x 8.31" | original line drawings & ecopoetic fragments - reminiscent of 1970s diy photocopy culture | Paperback 

"John Macfie's vivid and stirring photographs show a way of life on full display - the world my ancestors inhabited and that my mom fondly described to me. It is a world that, shortly after these pictures were taken, ended. So distant and yet achingly familiar, these pictures feel like a visit home."- Jesse Wente, Anishinaabe broadcaster, arts leader, and author of Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance

While working as a trapline manager in Northern Ontario during the 1950s and 1960s, John Macfie, a Canadian of Scottish heritage, formed deep and lasting relationships with the people of the Indigenous communities in the region. As he travelled the vast expanse of the Hudson Bay watershed, from Sandy Lake to Fort Severn to Moose Lake and as far south as Mattagami, he photographed the daily lives of Anishinaabe, Cree, and Anisininew communities, bearing witness to their adaptability and resilience during a time of tremendous change.

Macfie's photos, curated both in this volume and for an accompanying exhibition by the nipisihkopawiyiniw (Willow Cree) writer and journalist Paul Seesequasis, document ways of life firmly rooted in the pleasures of the land and the changing seasons. People of the Watershed builds on Seesequasis's visual reclamation work with his online Indigenous Archival Photo Project and his previous book, Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun, serving to centre the stories and lives of the people featured in these compelling archival images.

Reviews
"The images reflect a sensitive eye and respectful approach to a solid documentary project." - The Globe and Mail

"Shines a light on the overlooked histories of Indigenous communities in northern Ontario." - APTN

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192 pages | 8.01" x 9.99" | 100 colour and black and white photos | Paperback

The renowned Cree artist unmasks a whitewashed, Eurocentric history through provocative paintings full of sexuality and drama

One of Canada’s most renowned artists, interdisciplinary Cree artist Kent Monkman challenges the art historical narrative of settler cultures that colonized First Peoples from North America. He incorporates influences from the canon of European and Euro-American painting, reframing historical, contemporary and speculative future Indigenous experiences. Taking inspiration from Western artists such as George Catlin, as well as from the Old Masters, Monkman’s monumental history paintings feature white colonizers in violent conflict with Indigenous people. The depictions range from early colonial encounters to modern and contemporary clashes between Indigenous communities and uniformed police or clergy. In borrowing the visual language of his oppressors, Monkman reclaims the narrative written by Western art history about the brutalization and cultural genocide carried out against Indigenous North American communities.
History is Painted by the Victors accompanies the artist’s first major exhibition in the United States. The catalog gathers rich analysis of Monkman’s art from prominent scholars, expanding our understanding of his oeuvre and offering new insight via queer theory, historical and contemporary contexts, visual analysis and lived experience.

Kent Monkman was born in 1965 in Ontario, Canada and is a member of Fisher River Cree First Nation in Treaty 5 Territory. Monkman’s works have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Hayward Gallery, Philbrook Museum of Art, Palais de Tokyo and many more. He is the author of two bestselling novels, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Volumes 1 and 2, which are based on his gender-fluid alter ego who often appears in Monkman’s work as a time-traveling, shape-shifting, supernatural being who reverses the colonial gaze to challenge received notions of history and Indigenous peoples. He lives and works in New York City and Toronto.

This book was published in conjunction with Denver Art Museum; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

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176 pages | 9.50" x 12.00" | 86 Illustrations | Hardcover 

A major publication, Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait features over 150 never-before-seen original drawings by internationally renowned Inuit artists from Kinngait (Cape Dorset).

In 1990, the celebrated printmaking studio in Kinngait (Cape Dorset) transferred their complete drawings archive to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Ontario for safekeeping. The McMichael recently completed the digitization of this invaluable treasury of works, making it accessible to communities across the Arctic as well as to the wider public.

Worlds on Paper, an exhibition led by Inuit curator Emily Laurent Henderson, explores the profound impact and importance of drawing in Kinngait, not just as a precursor to printmaking, but as a vital and enduring discipline in its own right. This groundbreaking Inuit-led publication includes essays by Susan Aglukark, Kyle Aleekuk, Mark Bennett, Napatsi Folger, Jamesie Fournier, Janice Grey, Jonas Laurent Henderson, Jessica Kotierk, Nicole Luke, Malayah Maloney, Aghalingiak Ohokannoak, Jocelyn Piirainen, Krista Ulukuk Zawadski, and others, and explores the transition from traditional life on the land to 21st century community living.

Kinngait is renowned internationally for printmaking but an exploration of the drawings archive reveals careers previously overlooked while also allowing established artists to be seen in a new light. Dreaming Forward provides a richer understanding of the creativity that blossomed in Kinngait over four decades, as the print making studio rose to international renown. This publication animates the legacy of Kinngait Studio and its role in generating, nurturing, and promoting artists who continue to challenge expectations and provoke fresh understandings.

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320 pages | 10.00" x 11.00" | 200 colour artwork and archival photographs | Hardcover 

Part look-book, part memoir, and part history, this beautifully illustrated monument to a singular designer who helped inspire the growing Indigenous fashion movement is also a powerful demonstration of the enduring resonance and possibilities of Haida art.

Inspired by a discussion with celebrated Haida artist Bill Reid, Haida designer Dorothy Grant made it her life's mission to bring her culture's traditional art into contemporary fashion while adhering to the principle of Yaguudang, or respect for oneself and others. The 1989 launch of her Feastwear collection, featuring modern silhouettes hand-appliquéd with Northwest Coast formline, immediately established her at the forefront of Indigenous fashion in North America, and she has since hosted runway shows and trunk sales from Paris to Vancouver to Tokyo. Her clients include Indigenous leaders, national politicians, and global celebrities, and her garments can be found in museums and galleries around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dorothy Grant: An Endless Thread is the first monograph to celebrate her trailblazing career. It features new photography of dozens of garments spanning the past four decades, modeled in studio and natural settings in Vancouver and Haida Gwaii, alongside sketches, traditional button robes and spruce-root weaving, and personal stories and reflections from Grant. Essays by Haida repatriation specialist and museologist Sdahl Ḵ'awaas Lucy Bell and curator India Rael Young place Grant in the long continuum of Haida fashion and trace the many innovations and accomplishments of her journey, and Haida curator and artist Kwiaahwah Jones, a longtime assistant to Grant, shares behind-the-scenes insights and memories. An associated exhibition, Dorothy Grant: Raven Comes Full Circle, opened at Haida Gwaii Museum in July 2024.

Educator Information
The publisher notes this work is from Dorothy Grant in collaboration with the Haida Gwaii Museum. Contributors to this work include:

• Sdahl Ḵ’awaas Lucy Bell
• Taa.uu ’Yuuwans Nika Collison
• Kwiaahwah Jones
• India Rael Young

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168 pages | 9.44" x 10.35" | Hardcover 

Tom Wilson Tehoháhake is a modern Mohawk artist, Juno Award winner, best-selling author, and newly appointed member of the Order of Canada. In his 2017 memoir, Beautiful Scars, Wilson revealed the astonishing story of how he discovered he is Mohawk. In Mohawk Warriors, Hunters & Chiefs, Wilson further explores his identity through a stunning collection of paintings that explore what it means to be removed and reconnected with your cultural heritage.

Featuring over 35 full-colour images of Wilson’s work, from guitars decorated with iconography drawn from beadwork to multimedia reflections on his upbringing in Hamilton, Mohawk Warriors, Hunters & Chiefs explores how Wilson began painting when all he knew of his identity were hints and dreams, and how his art has developed and grown over the past few years. An interview on his artistic process with Ryan McMahon and essays by Wilson and curator David Liss round out Wilson’s stunning visual exploration of his Mohawk identity.

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88 pages | 9.00" x 10.00" | Colour Images | Hardcover 

A landmark publication bringing together more than seventy voices illuminating the rich array of Indigenous art held by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Under the editorial direction of Anishinaabe artist and scholar Bonnie Devine, Early Days gathers the insights of myriad Indigenous cultural stakeholders, informing us on everything from goose hunting techniques, to the history of Northwest Coast mask-making, to the emergence of the Woodland style of painting and printmaking, to the challenges of art making in the Arctic, to the latest developments in contemporary art by Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island.

Splendidly illustrated, Early Days not only tells the story of a leading collection but also traces the emergence and increasing participation of many Indigenous artists in the contemporary art world. This publication will be the largest in the history of the McMichael, and represents a vital acknowledgment of the place of Indigenous art and ways of knowing in global art history.

Featured contributors: Barry Ace, Leland Bell, Dempsey Bob, Christian Chapman, Violet Chum, Hannah Claus, Dana Claxton, Jisgang Nika Collison, Alan Corbiere, Marcia Crosby, Ruth Cuthand, Mique'l Dangeli, Joe David, Sarah Davidson, Robert Davidson, Bonnie Devine, Tarralik Duffy, Norma Dunning, David Garneau, John Geoghegan, Janice Grey, Haay'uups (Ron Hamilton), Jim Hart, Emma Hassencahl-Perley, Emily Henderson, Lynn A. Hill, Richard Hill, Maria Hupfield, Jaimie Isaac, Heather Igoliorte, Luis Jacob, Gayle Kabloona, William Kingfisher, Jessica Kotierk, Robin Laurence, Duane Linklater, Ange Loft, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Jean Marshal, Michael Massie, Gerald McMaster, Ossie Michelin, Sarah Milroy, Antoine Mountain, Nadia Myre, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Ruth Phillips, Jocelyn Piirainen, Ryan Rice, Carmen Robertson, Paul Seesequasis, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Wedlidi Speck, Clyde Tallio, Drew Hayden Taylor, Nakkita Trimble-Wilson, Jesse Tungilik, Camille Georgeson Usher, William Wasden Jr., Jordan Wilson, Jessica Winters.

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400 pages | 11.00" x 10.00" | 200 Colour Photographs | Hardcover

Raised by his grandparents in the tiny village of Metlakatla, Alaska, David A. Boxley left a secure teaching job in his hometown to pursue an uncharted path as a full-time Tsimshian artist, ultimately leading a revival of traditional culture, art, dance, and song. Tsimshian Eagle: A Culture Bearer's Journey chronicles Boxley's life and art through images and interviews. What emerges is a boundlessly creative, restless man who has dedicated his life to keeping Tsimshian culture alive.

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240 pages | 8.25" x 10.25" | Hardcover 

A monumental gathering of more than 60 contemporary artists, photographers, musicians, writers and more, showcasing diverse approaches to Indigenous concepts, forms and mediums

This landmark volume is a gathering of Native North American contemporary artists, musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, architects, writers, photographers, designers and more. Conceived by Jeffrey Gibson, a renowned artist of Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee descent, An Indigenous Present presents an increasingly visible and expanding field of Indigenous creative practice. It centers individual practices, while acknowledging shared histories, to create a visual experience that foregrounds diverse approaches to concept, form and medium as well as connection, influence, conversation and collaboration. An Indigenous Present foregrounds transculturalism over affiliation and contemporaneity over outmoded categories.

Artists include: Neal Ambrose-Smith, Teresa Baker, Natalie Ball, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Rebecca Belmore, Andrea Carlson, Nani Chacon, Raven Chacon, Dana Claxton, Melissa Cody, Chris T. Cornelius, Lewis deSoto, Beau Dick, Demian DineYazhi’, Wally Dion, Divide and Dissolve, Korina Emmerich, Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Yatika Starr Fields, Nicholas Galanin, Raven Halfmoon, Elisa Harkins, Luzene Hill, Anna Hoover, Sky Hopinka, Chaz John, Emily Johnson, Brian Jungen, Brad Kahlhamer, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Adam Khalil, Zack Kahlil, Kite, Layli Long Soldier, Erica Lord, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Tanya Lukin Linklater, James Luna, Dylan McLaughlin, Meryl McMaster, Caroline Monnet, Audie Murray, New Red Order, Jamie Okuma, Laura Ortman, Katherine "KP" Paul/Black Belt Eagle Scout, Postcommodity, Wendy Red Star, Eric-Paul Riege, Cara Romero, Sara Siestreem, Rose B. Simpson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, Anna Tsouhlarakis, Arielle Twist, Marie Watt, Dyani White Hawk and Zoon a.k.a. Daniel Glen Monkman.

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448 pages | 9.75" x 12.25" | 387 Illustrations | Hardcover

Shelley Niro is widely known for her ability to explore Traditional Stories, transgress boundaries, and embody the ethos of her matriarchal culture. A member of the Kanyen’kehaka (Mohawk) Nation, she uses a wide variety of media, including photography, installation, film, and painting to bring greater visibility to Indigenous women and girls.

Pushing the limits of photography, Niro incorporates imagery from Traditional Stories to focus on contemporary subjects with wit, irony, and parody. Throughout her work — in her portraiture, sculptures, landscape paintings, photography, and film and video work — Niro challenges common preconceptions about gender, culture, and Indigenous Peoples.

Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch brings together 215 reproductions from Niro’s expansive oeuvre, including work published here for the first time. Also included in this career retrospective are three major essays about Niro’s work by Melissa Bennett, Greg Hill, and David W. Penney, as well as texts from seven guest artists, scholars, and curators. Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch accompanies an international touring exhibition organized by the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian with the collaboration of the National Gallery of Canada.

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304 pages | 8.25" x 9.62"

Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity offers a conversation between Indigenous Peoples of two regions in this time of political and environmental upheaval. Both regions are environmentally sensitive areas that have become hot spots in the debates circling around climate change and have long been contact zones between Indigenous Peoples and outsiders — zones of meeting and clashing, of contradictions and entanglement.

Opening with an Epistolary Exchange between the editors, Arctic/Amazon then widens to include essays by 12 Indigenous artists, curators, and knowledge-keepers about the integration of spirituality, ancestral respect, traditional knowledges, and political critique in artistic practice and more than 100 image reproductions and installation shots. The result is an extraordinary conversation about life, artistic practise, and geopolitical realities faced by Indigenous peoples in regions at risk.

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256 pages | 8.87" x 12.12" | Hardcover

Indigenous and settler scholars and media artists discuss and analyze crucial questions of narrative sovereignty, cultural identity, cultural resistance, and decolonizing creative practices.

Humans are narrative creatures, and since the dawn of our existence we have shared stories. Storytelling is what connects us, what helps us give shape and understanding to the world and to each other. Who tells whose stories in which particular ways leads to questions of belonging, power, relationality, community and identity. This collection explores those issues with a focus on settler-Indigenous cultural politics in the country known as Canada, looking in particular at Indigenous representation in media arts. Chapters feature roundtable discussions, interviews, film analyses, resurgent media explorations, visual culture advocacy and place-based practices of creative expression.

Eclectic in scope and diverse in perspective, Indigenous Media Arts in Canada is unified by an ethic of conciliation, collaboration, and cultural resistance. Engaging deftly and thoughtfully with instances of cultural appropriation as well as the oppressive structures that seek to erode narrative sovereignty, this collection shines as a crucial gathering of thoughtful critique, cultural kinship, and creative counterpower.

Reviews
“Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton’s collection of conversations between, for, and about Indigenous media makers poses vital, critical, and generative questions about Indigenous film, film festivals and institutions, residential school histories, and decolonization without providing easy answers. These conversations are at times joyful expressions of the radical possibilities of media arts and at times painful provocations about settler colonial violence and its representational apparatuses. The chapters, written by the most brilliant and creative minds in contemporary Indigenous film, are paradigm-shifting love letters to the land, lived experience, collaboration, and futurity.” —Michelle Raheja, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of California, Riverside, author of Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Indigenous Media Arts in Canada: Making, Caring, Sharing – Edited by Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Seeing, Knowing, Lifting – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton
Part I – Decolonizing Media Arts Institutions
Part I Introduction – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton
1. Our Own Up There: A Discussion at imagineNATIVE – Danis Goulet and Tasha Hubbard with Jesse Wente, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Shane Belcourt
2. Curating the North: Documentary Screening Ethics and Inuit Representation in Canada – Ezra Winton and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril
3. Sights of Homecoming: Locating Restorative Sites of Passage in Zacharias Kunuk’s Festival Performance of Angirattut – Claudia Sicondolfo
Part II – Protecting Culture
Part II Introduction – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton
4. Addressing Colonial Trauma Through Mi’kmaw Film – Margaret Robinson and Bretten Hannam
5. Not Reconciled: The Complex Legacy of Films on Canadian "Indian" Residential Schools – Brenda Longfellow
6. The Resurgence of Indigenous Women in Contemporary Québec Cinema – Karine Bertrand
7. “Our Circle Is Always Open”: Indigenous Voices, Children’s Rights, and Spaces of Inclusion in the Films of Alanis Obomsawin – Joanna Hearne
Part III – Methods/Knowledges/Interventions
Part III Introduction Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton
8. Indigenous Documentary Methodologies: ChiPaChiMoWin: Telling Stories – Jules Arita Koostachin
9. Marking and Mapping Out Embodied Practices through Media Art – Julie Nagam and Carla Taunton
10. Curatorial Insiders/Outsiders: Speaking Outside and Collaboration as Strategic Intervention – Toby Katrine Lawrence
11. The Generative Hope of Indigenous Interactive Media: Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Futurism – Michelle Stewart
Part IV - Resurgent Media/Allies/Advocacy
Part IV Introduction – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton + Sasha Crawford-Holland and Lindsay LeBlanc
12. “Making Things Our [Digital] Own”: Lessons on Time and Sovereignty from Indigenous Computational Art – Sasha Crawford-Holland and Lindsay LeBlanc
13. Careful Images: Unsettling Testimony in the Gladue Video Project – Eugenia Kisin and Lisa Jackson
Concluding Thoughts
Part 1: Beyond Words and Images – Ezra Winton and Dana Claxton Part 2: Setting the Record Straight – Lisa Jackson
About the Contributors
References
Index

Contributors

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril
Shane Belcourt
Karine Bertrand
Dana Claxton
Sasha Crawford-Holland
Danis Goulet
Bretten Hannam
Joanna Hearne
Tasha Hubbard
Lisa Jackson
Eugenia Kisin
Jules Arita Koostachin
Toby Katrine Lawrence
Lindsay LeBlanc
Brenda Longfellow
Julie Nagam
Margaret Robinson
Claudia Sicondolfo
Michelle Stewart
Carla Taunton
Jesse Wente
Ezra Winton

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450 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback 

The story of an overlooked group of cultural visionaries

The “Micmac Indian Craftsmen” of Elsipogtog (then known as Big Cove) rose to national prominence in the early 1960s. At their peak, they were featured in print media from coast to coast, their work was included in books and exhibitions — including at Expo 67 — and their designs were featured on prints, silkscreened notecards, jewelry, tapestries, and even English porcelain.

Primarily self-taught and deeply rooted in their community, they were among the first modern Indigenous artists in Atlantic Canada. Inspired by traditional Wabanaki stories, they produced an eclectic range of handmade objects that were sophisticated, profound, and eloquent.

By 1966, the withdrawal of government support compromised the Craftsmen's resources, production soon ceased, and their work faded from memory. Now, for the first time, the story of this groundbreaking co-operative and their art is told in full. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery opening in 2022, Wabanaki Modern features essays on the history of this vibrant art workshop, archival photographs of the artisans, and stunning full-colour images of their art.

Wla atukuaqn na ujit ta'nik mu ewi'tamuki'k tetuji kelulkɨpp ta'n teli amaliteka'tijik

Wla “Mi'kmewaqq L'nue'k amaliteka'tijik” tlo'ltijik Elsipogtog (amskweseweyekk i'tlui'tasikɨpp Big Cove) poqji wuli nenupnikk wla amaliteka'tijik 1960ekk. Je wekaw wutlukowaqnmuwow ika'tasikɨpp wikatikniktuk aqq ne'yo'tasikɨpp ta'n pukwelk ta'n wen nmitew — je wekaw Expo 67 — aqq ta'n koqoey kisi napui'kmi'tipp tampasɨk koqoey eweketu'tij stike' l'taqnewi'kasik, napui'kn misekn, wi'katikne'ji'jk, meko'tikl kuntal, kaqapitkl l'taqa'teke'l, aqq wekaw akalasie'we'k eptaqnk. Nekmow na kekina'masultijik aqq melki knukwi'tij ta'n tett telayawultijik, nekmow na amskewsewa'jewaqq l'nu'k tel nenujik ujit ta'n teli amaliteka'tijik ujit Atlantic Canada. Pema'lkwi'titl a'tukuaqnn ta'n sa'qewe'l, ta'n wejiaqel a'tukuaqnn Wabanaki, l'tu'tipp kaqasi milamu'k koqowey toqo eweketu'titl wutpitnual tetuji moqɨtekl, ma'muntekl, aqq weltekl.

Wekaw 1966ekk, kpno'l pun apoqnmuapni wla amaliteka'tikete'jɨk jel kaqnma'tijik ta'n koqoey nuta'tipp, amuj pana pun lukutipnikk, aqq tel awantasuwalutki'k. Nike', amskwesewey, wla a'tukuaqn tetuji msɨki'kɨpp wla wut lukewaqnmuwow etel kaqi a'tukwasikk. Wije'tew meski'k neya'tmk Beaverbrook Art Gallery pana'siktetew 2022al, Wabanaki Modern na pema'toql wikikaqnn ujit ta'n pemiaqɨpp wla tetuji wulamu'kɨpp kisitaqnne'l telukutijik, maskutekl sa'qewe'l napuikasikl toqo nemu'jik etl-lukutijik wla lukewinu'k, aqq sikte wultek aqq welamu'k ta'n koqoey kisitu'tij.

L'histoire d'un groupe de visionnaires culturels ignorés

Un groupe d'artisans mi'kmaw d'Elsipogtog (autrefois Big Cove) au Nouveau-Brunswick se fit connaître à travers le Canada au début des années 1960. À l'apogée de leur renommée, les Micmac Indian Craftsmen firent l'objet d'articles dans des publications d'un océan à l'autre. Leur travail figura dans des livres et des expositions — dont Expo 67 à Montréal — et leurs œuvres graphiques furent reproduites sous forme de gravures et de sérigraphies, et elles ornèrent de la papeterie, des bijoux, des tapisseries et même de la porcelaine anglaise.

En grande partie autodidactes et solidement enracinés dans leur communauté, les Micmac Indian Craftsmen furent parmi les premiers artistes autochtones modernes au Canada atlantique. En s'inspirant de récits traditionnels wabanakis, ils fabriquaient à la main une gamme variée d'objets raffinés, évocateurs et porteurs d'un sens profond.

En 1966, toutefois, le gouvernement retira son soutien. Les Craftsmen perdirent leur financement, la production cessa peu après et leur œuvre finit par être oubliée. Une nouvelle publication relate maintenant, pour la première fois, l'histoire complète de cette coopérative innovatrice et de ses réalisations. Publié dans le cadre d'une grande exposition qui a lieu à la Galerie d'art Beaverbrook en 2022, Wabanaki Moderne comprend des textes sur l'histoire de cet atelier dynamique, des photographies d'archives des artisans et de superbes illustrations couleur de leurs œuvres.

Educator Information
Delivered in three languages: English, Mi'kmaw, and French

Additional Information
228 pages | 10.00" x 10.00" | Paperback | 96 Colour Reproductions and Photos, 26 Black and White Illustrations and Archival Photos 

Over six decades of brilliant prints and paintings from the most prominent Northwest Coast artist of his generation.

Since leaving Haida Gwaii to study art in Vancouver - where he carved argillite with Bill Reid in a department store and hand-sold prints on the UBC campus - Guud sans glans, Robert Davidson has moved between two worlds. As a host of Potlaches, carver of masks and totem poles, and performer and teacher of traditional Haida songs and dances, he has been one of the driving forces in the resurgence of Haida culture in the aftermath of colonization. As an artist working in serigraphs, acrylic, wood, silver, and aluminum to preserve and breathe new life into Haida formline, he has become among the most respected, celebrated, and thrilling artists in the country, if not the world.

Echoes of the Supernatural is the first publication in over forty years to offer a comprehensive visual retrospective of his astonishing career. It includes new photography of over 150 prints, as well as images of over fifty paintings; numerous painted woven hats, painted and carved sculptures, jewellery, aluminum sculpture; and dozens of archival photos. His long-time gallerist Gary Wyatt, who worked closely with Davidson in shaping the book and received full access to his archives, details the artist's life and career, and offers insights on the work based on extensive new interviews. A foreword by Karen Duffek situates the contours of Davidson's practice within the broader Northwest Coast art world.

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288 pages | 9.01" x 11.43" | Hardcover

Through a series of fifty-one large “story robes,” Jut-ke-Nay Hazel Wilson shares a grand narrative of Haida origins, resistance, and perseverance in the face of colonialism, and of life as it has been lived on Haida Gwaii since time immemorial.

Glory and Exile: Haida History Robes of Jut-ke-Nay Hazel Wilson marks the first time this monumental cycle of ceremonial robes by the Haida artist Jut-Ke-Nay (The One People Speak Of) - also known as Hazel Anna Wilson - is viewable in its entirety. On 51 large blankets, Wilson uses painted and appliqued imagery to combine traditional stories, autobiography, and commentary on events such as smallpox epidemics and environmental destruction into a grand narrative that celebrates the resistance and survival of the Haida people, while challenging the colonial histories of the Northwest Coast.

Of the countless robes Wilson created over fifty-plus years, she is perhaps best known for The Story of K'iid K'iyaas, a series about the revered tree made famous by John Vaillant's 2005 book The Golden Spruce. But her largest and most important work is the untitled series of blankets featured here. Wilson always saw these works as public art, to be widely seen and, importantly, understood.

In addition to essays by Robert Kardosh and Robin Laurence, the volume features texts about each robe by Wilson herself; her words amplify the power of her striking imagery by offering historical and personal context for the people, characters, and places that live within her colossal work. Glory and Exile, which also features personal recollections by Wilson's daughter Kun Jaad Dana Simeon, her brother Allan Wilson, and Haida curator and artist Nika Collison, is a fitting tribute to the breathtaking achievements of an artist whose vision will help Haida knowledge persist for many generations to come.

Reviews
“Hazel was a matriarch, artist, and Storyteller. Thomas King once wrote, “The truth about stories is, that’s all we are.” To experience Hazel’s work is to learn a story within a story: the past as taught by her Elders; the life she herself experienced within these narratives; and a glimpse of our storied future, which we will build by upholding our own responsibilities to Haida Gwaii, the Supernatural, and each other.” —Jisgang Nika Collison, in Glory and Exile

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232 pages | 8.02" x 10.23" | Hardcover 

Arctic ice is a daily consideration for people living above the Arctic circle. Ice is key to successful hunts, ease of travel, and the health of wildlife. This book features sweeping landscape photography of Arctic sea ice in all its forms, accompanied by anecdotes from community members across the North. From traditional stories of what lurks under the ice to harrowing tales of hunters on the ice and traditional knowledge about ice safety and conditions, this book presents the beauty, complexity, and unique challenges of living daily in an ever-evolving icy landscape.

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Foreword by Sheila Watt-Cloutier

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72 pages | 11.00" x 8.00" | Colour photographs | Hardcover 

Kent Monkman's art has been described as "stupendous" (New York Times), "sure to alarm and educate" (The Observer), and beating "Western history painting at its own game" (The Globe and Mail). Subversive, bold, and groundbreaking, the work of this Cree artist has transformed contemporary Canadian visual culture. Monkman's art is included in major Canadian and international public institutions and he is the only artist in this country to be commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Kent Monkman: Life & Work is the first comprehensive book about the celebrated Monkman (b.1965). It is the only publication to trace the arc of his career, from his early abstract paintings to his rise to fame creating works that re-visit and reinterpret historic paintings to offer a powerful commentary on Indigenous resistance, remembrance, and the re-thinking of history.

Author Shirley Madill chronicles the origins of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle—Monkman's time-travelling, shape-shifting, gender-fluid alter ego, who features prominently in his work—and details his youth in Manitoba growing up as a member of the Fisher River First Nation, where he first became aware of profound social injustice. Madill explores Monkman's provocative interventions into Western European and American art history, and shows how he created a body of work that raises awareness of the critical issues facing Indigenous peoples by fiercely addressing North America's legacy of colonialism, while also critiquing Western art history. Kent Monkman: Life & Work is the definitive publication for anyone passionate about Indigenous issues, art in North America, and contemporary culture.

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144 pages | 8.00" x 11.00" | Hardcover 

A multigenerational discussion of culture, history, and naming centring on archival photographs of Inuit whose names were previously unrecorded.

"Our names - Atiqput - are very meaningful. They are our identification. They are our Spirits. We are named after what's in the sky for strength, what’s in the water ... the land, body parts. Every name is attached to every part of our body and mind. Yes, every name is alive. Every name has a meaning. Much of our names have been misspelled and many of them have lost their meanings forever. Our Project Naming has been about identifying Inuit, who became nameless over the years, just "unidentified eskimos ..." With Project Naming, we have put Inuit meanings back in the pictures, back to life." Piita Irniq

For over two decades, Inuit collaborators living across Inuit Nunangat and in the South have returned names to hundreds of previously anonymous Inuit seen in historical photographs held by Library and Archives Canada as part of Project Naming. This innovative photo-based history research initiative was established by the Inuit school Nunavut Sivuniksavut and the national archive.

Atiqput celebrates Inuit naming practices and through them honours Inuit culture, history, and storytelling. Narratives by Inuit elders, including Sally Kate Webster, Piita Irniq, Manitok Thompson, Ann Meekitjuk Hanson, and David Serkoak, form the heart of the book, as they reflect on naming traditions and the intergenerational conversations spurred by the photographic archive. Other contributions present scholarly insights and research projects that extend Project Naming’s methodology, interspersed with pictorial essays by the artist Barry Pottle and the filmmaker Asinnajaq.

Through oral testimony and photography, Atiqput rewrites the historical record created by settler societies and challenges a legacy of colonial visualization.

Reviews
“Atiqput brings together statements by Inuit artists, elders, and activists with work by project facilitators and scholars to produce a vibrant tapestry that at once mourns the losses of the past, treasures the traces that can be regained, and celebrates the continued power of Inuit cultural forms.” -  Peter Kulchyski, University of Manitoba and author of Report of an Inquiry into an Injustice: Begade Shutagot’ine and the Sahtu Treaty

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264 pages | 9.00" x 10.00" | Hardcover

A guide for creatives to making impactful, socially engaged art projects.

Flash mobs come and go, but purposeful creativity can change communities. Are you a creative (aspiring or otherwise) who is curious about how you can apply your skills to activist, socially engaged art projects? Whether you paint, sew, sing, build, weld, or rhyme, The Creative Instigator's Handbook explores how to take that big project you've been dreaming about and actually make it happen.

In response to the challenging times that we live in, The Creative Instigator's Handbook will inspire readers to use their creativity to spur change in the world around them. Guiding readers through the various aspects of a project from ideation to final documentation, the book examines the relationship between creative leadership, community art projects, and social justice, and includes the perspectives of 23 creative instigators who have stretched the boundaries of what "art" should or shouldn't do.

The Creative Instigator's Handbook will appeal to creatives willing to expand their comfort zones by jumping into the fray and doing some outrageous, inspired rabble-rousing of their very own. Full-colour throughout.

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272 pages | 8.50" x 8.00" | Paperback

Qummut Qukiria! celebrates art and culture within and beyond traditional Inuit and Sámi homelands in the Circumpolar Arctic — from the continuance of longstanding practices such as storytelling and skin sewing to the development of innovative new art forms such as throatboxing (a hybrid of traditional Inuit throat singing and beatboxing). In this illuminating book, curators, scholars, artists, and activists from Inuit Nunangat, Kalaallit Nunaat, Sápmi, Canada, and Scandinavia address topics as diverse as Sámi rematriation and the revival of the ládjogahpir (a Sámi woman’s headgear), the experience of bringing Inuit stone carving to a workshop for inner-city youth, and the decolonizing potential of Traditional Knowledge and its role in contemporary design and beyond.

Qummut Qukiria! showcases the thriving art and culture of the Indigenous Circumpolar peoples in the present and demonstrates its importance for the revitalization of language, social wellbeing, and cultural identity.

Educator Information
Qummut Qukiria! means "up like a bullet" in Inuktitut and is used to convey excitement and enthusiasm. It also signifies the connection to the land and nature's offerings in the Circumpolar North. 

Features over 200 images as well as essays from artists, educators, and scholars on contemporary Inuit and Sámi life and art, including filmmaking, sculpture, storytelling, and design.

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368 pages | 9.25" x 6.75" | Hardcover

Moving the Museum documents the reopening of the J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art with a renewed focus on the AGO’s Indigenous art collection. The volume reflects the nation-to-nation treaty relationship that is the foundation of Canada, asking questions, discovering truths, and leading conversations that address the weight of history and colonialism.

Lavishly illustrated with more than 100 reproductions, Moving the Museum: Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO features the work of First Nations artists — including Carl Beam, Rebecca Belmore, and Kent Monkman — along with work by Inuit artists like Shuvinai Ashoona and Annie Pootoogook. Canadian artists include Lawren Harris, Kazuo Nakamura, Joyce Wieland, and many others. Drawing from stories about our origins and identities, the featured artists and essayists invite readers to engage with issues of land, water, transformation, and sovereignty and to contemplate the historic and future representation of Indigenous and Canadian art in museums.

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Celebrates the renewed focus on Indigenous art at the J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art. 

Features essays on the curatorial decisions made in redesigning the gallery, as well as pieces on individual artis and the history of Canadian, Indigenous, and Black art at the AGO.

Over 100 images, including art by Karoo Ashevak, June Clark, and Rebecca Belmore.

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270 pages | 10.25" x 10.25" | Hardcover

Dempsey Bob: In His Own Voice is based on the first full-scale solo museum exhibition of this extraordinary Tahltan-Tlingit artist, one of the finest living carvers of the Northwest Coast. Drawing from extensive interviews with the artist by the exhibition’s curator, Sarah Milroy, the book presents the story of his life told his own way, including extensive and intimate reflections on the creation of particular works. Gorgeous photographs of the artworks, which are drawn from key private collections in Canada and public collections in Canada, the US and beyond, are supplemented with material from his sketchbooks to create a vivid portrait of the creative process.

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208 pages | 9.00" x 10.00" | Hardcover

Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art is a landmark volume that brings together over eighty contemporary Indigenous knowledge holders with extraordinary works of historical Northwest Coast art, ranging from ancient stone tools to woven baskets to carved masks and poles to silver jewellery. First Nations Elders, artists, scholars, and other community members visited the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia to connect with these objects, learn from the hands of their ancestors, and share their thoughts and insights on how these belongings transcend the category of “art” or “artifact” to embody vital ways of knowing and being in the world. Texts by the authors sketch the provenance of the objects, and, in dialogue with the commentators, engage in critical and necessary conversations around the role of museums that hold such collections.

The voices within are passionate, enlightening, challenging, and humorous. The commentators speak to their personal and family histories that these objects evoke, the connections between tangible and intangible culture, and how this “art” remains part of Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples’ ongoing relationships to their territories and political governance. Accompanied by over 300 contemporary and historical photographs, this is a vivid and powerful document of Indigenous experiences of reconnection, reclamation, and return.

Featuring contributions by:

ʼLiyaaʼmlaxha—Leonard Alexcee, Goldʼm Nitsʼk—Wii Gandoox—Mona Alexcee, Widiimas—Peter Alexcee, Kʼodalagalis—Byron Alfred, Skwiixta—Karen Anderson, Chaudaquock—Vera Asp, Don Bain, Stan Bevan, Jo Billows, Dempsey Bob, Raymond Boisjoly, Naxshageit—Alison Bremner, Wákas—Irene Brown, Tʼaakeit Gʼaayaa—Corey Bulpitt, Vanessa Campbell, Jisgang—Nika Collison, Nalaga—Donna Cranmer, Gloria Cranmer Webster, Joe David, Guud san glans—Robert Davidson, ʼWalas Gwaʼyam—Beau Dick, Idtaawgan—Mervin Dunn, Sharon Fortney, Yéil Ya-Tseen—Nicholas Galanin, qiyəplenəxw—Howard E. Grant, sʔəyəłəq—Larry Grant, taχwtəna:t—Wendy Grant-John, Müsiiʼn—Phil Gray, Tʼuuʼtk—Robin R.R. Gray, Wii Gwinaał—Henry Green, secəlenəxw—Morgan Guerin, Haaʼyuups, KC (Kelsey) Hall, J̌i:ƛʼmɛtəm—Harold Harry, qoqʼwɛssukwt—Katelynn Harry, 7idansuu—James M. Hart, YaʼYa Heit, Kwakwabalasamayi Hamasaka—Alan Hunt, Corrine Hunt, Tłaliłilaʼogwa—Sarah Hunt, Tsēmā Igharas, Pearl Innis, Haʼhl Yee—Doreen Jensen, Kwankwanxwaligi—Robert Joseph, kwəskwestən—James Kew, Gigaemi Kukwits, Peter Morin, Nugwam ʼMaxwiyalidzi—Kʼodi Nelson, ʼTayagilaʼogwa—Marianne Nicolson, Gwiʼmolas—Ryan Nicolson, Jaad Kuujus—Kwaxhiʼlaga—Meghann OʼBrien, Ximiq—Dionne Paul, A-nii-sa-put—Tim Paul, Xwelíqwiya—Rena Point Bolton, Oqwiʼlowgʼwa—Kim Recalma-Clutesi, Skeena Reece, Nʼusi—Ian Reid, Greg A. Robinson, Siʼt Kwuns—Isabel Rorick, Maximus (Max) Savey, Anaht pi ya tuuk—Sheila Savey, Linda Smith, Xsim Ganaaʼw—Laurel Smith Wilson, θəliχwəlwət—Debra Sparrow, səlisəyeʔ—Leona Sparrow, Wedłidi Speck, Marika Echachis Swan, Simʼoogit Gawaakhl of Wilps Luuyaʼas—Norman Tait, Snxakila—Clyde Tallio, Nakkita Trimble, Xˇùsəmdas Waakas—Ted Walkus, Nuuwagawa—Evelyn Walkus Windsor, Hiłamas—William Wasden, Jr., Tsamiianbaan—William White, Tania Willard, Skiljaday—Merle Williams, Gid7ahl-Gudsllaay Lalaxaaygans—Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson, Tʼɬaɬbaʼlisameʼ—Tʼɬalis—Mikael (Mike) Willie, Lyle Wilson, Nathan Wilson, and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas.

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384 pages | 10.31" x 11.96" | Hardcover

In a gorgeously illustrated exploration of the art of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Mischief Making disproves any notion that play is frivolous. Deploying mischievous tactics, Yahgulanaas shines a spotlight on serious topics.

Expressive and exuberant, comic and imaginative: these characteristics suffuse the work of the internationally recognized creator of Haida manga. His distinctive style stretches, twists, and flips the formlines of classic Haida art to create imagery that resonates with the graphic vitality of Asian manga. Mischief Making delineates the evolution of the artist’s visual practice into a uniquely hybrid aesthetic, uncovering its philosophical underpinnings. Initially focused on paper-based narratives, his work has expanded into painted canvases, mixed-media installations, repurposed automobile parts, large-scale public art projects, and animated forms. Yet despite its mutability, Yahgulanaas’s art is consistently engaged with contemporary cultural concerns, investigating the intersections of Indigenous and other worldviews, the politics of land, cultural heritage, and global ecological affairs.

Mischief Making reveals the artist’s deep understanding of the seriousness of play. His refiguring of lines and stories opens up a realm in which the disruption of what’s expected allows different ways of experiencing, knowing, and seeing the world to emerge.

Reviews
"This is an exciting journey through the refreshing life’s work of one of Canada’s foremost Indigenous artists. Learning from Nicola Levell’s insightful analysis opens the eyes to a wondrous world beyond stale and superseded categories of ‘tradition’, ‘Western’ and ‘Indigenous’! Highly recommended!" — Arnd Schneider, professor, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

"The Northwest Coast dances with the East and 8.5 tons of stainless steel/copper/marble, then strides to Emma Lake. A comprehensive look at the work of Yahgulanaas – we witness in text, he is doing what he can – just like the hummingbird."

Coalesce is a fusion of distinct Anishinaabeg aesthetics of the Great Lakes region with refuse from Western society’s technological and digital age in order to intentionally shift an object’s materiality and its accepted paradigm within the physical world. It is through the integration and juxtaposition of recognizable materials used in the making of Anishinaabeg material culture, such as glass beads and porcupine quills, with new-found materials, such as electronic components (capacitors and resistors), that this body of work disproves any notion of Anishinaabeg cultural stasis. Coalesce demonstrates the continuum of Anishinaabeg innovation and expression by making use of disparate materials that knowingly coalesce and segue seamlessly into contemporary Anishinaabeg artistic tradition and material culture.

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48 pages | 7.00" x 8.50"

Outdoor School features recent works of contemporary environmental art and writing by more than twenty-five Canadian and Indigenous artists who propose radical new ways of thinking and being outdoors together.

For more than a decade, the Outdoor School project has provided a framework for interdisciplinary artists to come together and share projects that reimagine ways of relating with the landscape.

The experiential and community-based art projects described in Outdoor School present an alternative to scientific, commercial and colonial conceptions of land and nature in the face of climate change and mass extinction. These art practices include activities like mushroom foraging, water witching, trespassing, pumpkin-boat sailing, cloud identifying, ravine running, honey extracting, spell conjuring, rabbit hunting, coyote walking and more. The project calls attention to creative, counter-cultural works that are focused on education, community and place, and blur the boundaries between art and life, nature and culture.

Featuring interviews, essays and over 150 photographs, Outdoor School is an important contribution to discussions of contemporary art and ecology, foregrounding work that is marginal and ephemeral by nature.

Artists featured in Outdoor School include Alana Bartol, Diane Borsato, Bill Burns, Carolina Caycedo, Sameer Farooq, FASTWÜRMS, Ayumi Goto, Maggie Groat, Gabrielle Hill, Peter Morin, Public Studio, Helen Reed, Genevieve Robertson, Jamie Ross, Aislinn Thomas, Vibrant Matter, Jay White, Tania Willard, Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson and D'Arcy Wilson.

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192 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | colour photographs

Authenticity Note: This work has received the Authentic Indigenous Text label because of the Indigenous contributions to this work.  Non-Indigenous contributors are also featured, and the editors are not Indigenous.  It is up to readers to determine if this resource is authentic for their purposes.

A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother’s life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family’s troubled history.
 
When Danielle Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal during an attempt to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, and letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash.

Geller, an archivist and a writer, uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home, and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey where she confronts her family's history and the decisions that she herself had been forced to make while growing up, a journey that will end at her mother's home: the Navajo reservation.

Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Exploring loss and inheritance, beauty and balance, Danielle Geller pays homage to our pasts, traditions, and heritage, to the families we are given and the families we choose.

Reviews
“Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller is a journey story we’ve never read before. Geller travels through snippets of her own life and that of her mother’s, creating a narrative where all roads lead to her mother’s home in the Navajo Nation. It’s an honest, intimate, and heart-wrenching memoir that explores fractured family, the damaging effects of alcoholism and poverty, and what it means to seek healing from legacies of trauma. This book gave me chills. Trained as a librarian and archivist, Geller has created a type of archive, a living collection of memories and documents that speak to a life that is at once precisely individualistic while also being universally resonant. Read this book.”—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina

“Dog Flowers pulls the few remaining threads of an unraveled family life. This courageous, honest, desperate, tender, and compelling book tells a daughter’s story of her troubled mother. In Dog Flowers, we learn that a handful of threads can never reweave the blanket of family, or patch up what a mother’s abandonment has torn. What little we learn of Geller’s Navajo mother comes from collaged notes and journal entries, photographs and reportage; it’s a story full of gaps. Which is exactly what’s remarkable about this book: Geller does not seek to make anything whole but herself. She refuses to deal in the tropes of redemption and reconciliation—which just shows how much strength it takes not to judge another’s life or lie about it. Even her return to her mother’s Navajo Nation does not bring about an easy cultural reunion, although it does give us a satisfying sense that while an immediate family can fall apart, an extended family, a tribe, ties a tight web that might just hold.”—Heid E. Erdrich, award-winning poet, author, and editor of the award-winning New Poets of Native Nations 

“A Navajo woman’s memoir of family, loss, and self-discovery. [Danielle Geller] takes readers on two parallel journeys: that of her mother, Laureen, who left the Navajo reservation at age nineteen, “almost as soon as she could,” and her own, which begins with her notifying her sister Eileen that their mother was dying. . . . After Laureen’s death, Geller collected her mother’s belongings, “packed into eight suitcases” and including “her diaries, her photos, and the letters she kept.” Using these personal items, the author expertly weaves her story into Laureen’s. . . . Geller’s mix of archival research and personal memoir allows readers to see a refreshing variety of perspectives and layers, resulting in an eye-opening, moving narrative. A deftly rendered, powerful story of family, grief, and the search for self.”—Kirkus Reviews

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272 pages | 6.12" x 9.25" | 27 black & white photos | Hardcover

From Griffin Poetry Prize winner Jordan Abel comes a groundbreaking and emotionally devastating autobiographical meditation on the complicated legacies that Canada's reservation school system has cast on his grandparents', his parents' and his own generation.

NISHGA is a deeply personal and autobiographical book that attempts to address the complications of contemporary Indigenous existence. As a Nisga'a writer, Jordan Abel often finds himself in a position where he is asked to explain his relationship to Nisga'a language, Nisga'a community, and Nisga'a cultural knowledge. However, as an intergenerational survivor of residential school--both of his grandparents attended the same residential school in Chilliwack, British Columbia--his relationship to his own Indigenous identity is complicated to say the least.

NISHGA explores those complications and is invested in understanding how the colonial violence originating at the Coqualeetza Indian Residential School impacted his grandparents' generation, then his father's generation, and ultimately his own. The project is rooted in a desire to illuminate the realities of intergenerational survivors of residential school, but sheds light on Indigenous experiences that may not seem to be immediately (or inherently) Indigenous.

Drawing on autobiography, a series of interconnected documents (including pieces of memoir, transcriptions of talks, and photography), NISHGA is a book about confronting difficult truths and it is about how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples engage with a history of colonial violence that is quite often rendered invisible.

Reviews
“With NISHGA, Jordan Abel has reinvented the memoir, incorporating personal anecdotes, archival footage, legal documentation, photos and concrete poetry to create an unforgettable portrait of an Indigenous artist trying to find his place in a world that insists Indigeneity can only ever be the things that he is not. Abel deftly shows us the devastating impact this gate-keeping has had on those who, through no decisions of their own, have been ripped from our communities and forced to claw their way back home, or to a semblance of home, often unassisted. This is a brave, vulnerable, brilliant work that will change the face of nonfiction, as well as the conversations around what constitutes Indigenous identity. It's a work I will return to again and again.” —Alicia Elliott, author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

“In NISHGA, Jordan Abel puts to use the documentary impulse that has already established him as an artist of inimitable methodological flair. By way of a mixture of testimonial vignettes, recordings of academic talks, found text/art, and visual art/concrete poetry, Abel sculpts a narrative of dislocation and self-examination that pressurizes received notions of “Canada” and “history” and “art” and “literature” and “belonging” and “forgiveness.” Yes, it is a book of that magnitude, of that enormity and power. By its Afterword, NISHGA adds up to a work of personal and national reckoning that is by turns heartbreaking and scathing.” —Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of NDN Coping Mechanisms and A History of My Brief Body

"This is a heart-shattering read, and will also be a blanket for others looking for home. NISHGA is a work of absolute courage and vulnerability. I am in complete awe of the sorrow here and the bravery. Mahsi cho, Jordan.” —Richard Van Camp, author of Moccasin Square Gardens

“Jordan Abel digs deeply into the questions we should all be asking. Questions that need no explanation but ones that require us to crawl back into our bones, back into the marrow of our understanding. NISHGA is a ceremony where we need to be silent. Where we need to listen.” —Gregory Scofield, author of Witness, I Am

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288 pages | 7.25" x 8.62"

For seventeen years, Ian McAllister has lived on the rugged north coast of British Columbia, one of the last places on the planet where wolves live relatively undisturbed by humans. The Last Wild Wolves describes his experiences over that period following two packs of wolves, one in the extreme outer coastal islands and another farther inland in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest.

The behavior of these animals -- which depend on the vast old-growth forest and its gifts -- is documented in words and pictures as they fish for salmon in the fall, target seals hauled out on rocks in winter, and give birth to their young in the base of thousand-year-old cedar trees in spring. Most interestingly, scientific studies reveal a genetically distinct population of wolves -- one that is increasingly threatened by human incursions.

Reviews
"McAllister's extraordinary photographs come from waiting for his subjects to show themselves. He watches from tree platforms built over rivers where the wolves catch salmon, and he shoots while sitting motionless among packs that have consented to tolerate his presence among them . . . The resulting photos are thrilling, especially the close-ups of wolves' faces . . . and the panoramic landscape shots, but the word-pictures conjured by McAllister's text are equally vivid." —Victoria Times Colonist

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192 pages | 11.00" x 10.50"

The Mi’kmaq of Atlantic Canada were here for thousands of years before the arrival of European peoples. Niniskamijinaqik / Ancestral Images: The Mi’kmaq in Art and Photography presents their unique culture and way of life through the remarkable and sometime complex lives of individuals, as depicted in artwork or photography.

The opening images in this collection were created by the Mi’kmaq themselves: portrayals of human beings carved into the rock formations of Nova Scotia. Then there are the earliest surviving European depictions of Mi’kmaq, decorations on the maps of Samuel de Champlain. Finally we see portraits of Mi’kmaw individuals, ancestors in whom we see their “humanity frozen in the stillness of a photograph,” as the writers of the book’s foreword describe.

Niniskamijinaqik / Ancestral Images includes 94 compelling pieces of art and photography, chosen from more than a thousand extant portraits in different media, that show the Mi’kmaw people. Each image is an entry point to deeply personal history, a small moment or single person transformed into vivid immediacy for the reader.

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128 pages | 10.00" x 8.00" | b&w photographs

The Skeena, second longest river in the province, remains an icon of British Columbia’s northwest. Called Xsien (“water of the clouds”) by the Tsimshian and Gitksan, it has always played a vital role in the lives of Indigenous people of the region. Since the 1800s, it has also become home to gold seekers, traders, salmon fishers and other settlers who were drawn by the area’s beauty and abundant natural resources.

Voices from the Skeena takes readers on a journey inspired directly by the people who lived there. Combining forty illustrations with text selected from the pioneer interviews CBC radio producer Imbert Orchard recorded in the 1960s, the book follows the arrival of the Europeans and the introduction of the fur trade to the Omineca gold rush and the building of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad.

Open the pages to meet Robert Cunningham, an Anglican missionary who would later become the founder of the thriving Port Essington. Here too is a man called Cataline, a packer for whom no settlement was too remote to reach, and the indominable Sarah Glassey, the first woman to pre-empt land in British Columbia. At the heart of these stories is the river, weaving together a narrative of a people and their culture. Pairing the stories with Roy Henry Vicker’s vibrant art creates a unique and captivating portrait of British Columbia that will appeal to art lovers and history readers alike.

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112 pages | 11.00" x 8.00" | 40 colour illustrations

This work has received the Authentic Indigenous Text label because of the interviews/contributions with Indigenous people like Vicky Sims and Chief Jeffrey H. Johnson. It is up to readers to determine if this work is authentic for their purposes.

Additional Information
192 pages | 7.08" x 9.03" | Colour photos throughout

This book shares the life story of Anishinaabe artist Rene Meshake in stories, poetry, and Anishinaabemowin “word bundles” that serve as a dictionary of Ojibwe poetics. Meshake was born in the railway town of Nakina in northwestern Ontario in 1948, and spent his early years living off-reserve with his grandmother in a matriarchal land-based community he calls Pagwashing. He was raised through his grandmother’s “bush university,” periodically attending Indian day school, but at the age of ten Rene was scooped into the Indian residential school system, where he suffered sexual abuse as well as the loss of language and connection to family and community. This residential school experience was lifechanging, as it suffocated his artistic expression and resulted in decades of struggle and healing. Now in his twenty-eighth year of sobriety, Rene is a successful multidisciplinary artist, musician and writer. Meshake’s artistic vision and poetic lens provide a unique telling of a story of colonization and recovery.

The material is organized thematically around a series of Meshake’s paintings. It is framed by Kim Anderson, Rene’s Odaanisan (adopted daughter), a scholar of oral history who has worked with Meshake for two decades. Full of teachings that give a glimpse of traditional Anishinaabek lifeways and worldviews, Injichaag: My Soul in Story is “more than a memoir.”

Awards

• 2020 Indigenous Voices Awards Winner for Works in an Indigenous Language
  

Reviews
“This is the story of an Anishinaabe journey across time and space. This is more than an autobiography of trauma, it is a celebration of resilience.”– Margaret Noodin, Associate Professor, English and American Indian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Invocation
Family Tree
Community Tree
Introduction
Section 1 Odinimanganikadjigan
Section 2 Nibinaabe
Section 3 Wikwedong
Section 4 Bimisi
Section 5 Miskwadesshimo
Section 6 Papawangani
Section 7 Migisiwiganj
Epilogue

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Zaagi'idiwin: Silent, Unquestionable Act of Love, creates an intersection where viewers meet to understand and explore the essence of relationships, the meaning of connection/disconnection, and the pain of loss. Through the making and documentation of jingle dresses, Marshall explores the deeply personal stories that have shaped her perception of the complexities of her family history in the context of Canadian history. The social inequities, resistance, and sorrow communicated in this body of work serve as a springboard to examine the act of compassion and forgiveness, which ultimately helps to move forward to a new and more affirmative place of being.

Additional Information
28 pages | 5.25" x 10.50"

For over two decades, Manitoban artist Gerald Kuehl has travelled to the far-flung corners of Canada to draw out these answers from the last generation of Indigenous Peoples born on the land, and, pencil in hand, to record their likenesses and experiences. These Elders shared their gripping stories with him so that he might share them with the world.

Picking up where Kuehl’s acclaimed Portraits of the North left off, these pages follow the artist as he crosses the 60th parallel into Nunavut and the Far North, to meet the few Inuit Elders who still remember the days when their people lived entirely off the bounty of the land. The astonishing graphite pencil drawings and accompanying stories within—the result of Kuehl’s travels in Nunavut over thirteen years, hundreds of interviews with Elders, and thousands of hours at the drawing board—provide an unprecedented, poignant account of the changing realities Inuit experienced over the course of the last century, and their bright hopes for the future. These are tales of hardship and survival, of family and tradition, and of optimism and resilience. These are the faces and the voices of the Far North.

Additional Information
240 pages | 10.25" x 10.50"

David Neel was an infant when his father, a Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw artist, died, triggering a series of events that would separate him from his homeland and its rich cultural traditions for twenty-five years. When he saw a Potlatch mask carved by his great-great-grandfather in a museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the encounter caused the aspiring photographer to wonder if he could return to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Drawing on memory, legend, and his own art and photographs, Neel tells the story of his struggle to reconnect with his culture after decades of separation and a childhood marred by trauma and abuse. David returned to the Pacific Coast, where he apprenticed with master carvers from his father’s village on Vancouver Island, and his career as an author and artist took him to the United States and to Mexico, to Europe and back again to British Columbia. Along the way, he met and photographed some of the most talented artists and Indigenous people of his generation. His travels helped him grow as a man and become an accomplished and prolific artist, but they also reconfirmed the healing power of returning home.

The Way Home is a testament to the strength of the human spirit to overcome great obstacles and to the power and endurance of Indigenous culture and art.

Educator Information
This memoir is a must-read for anyone interested in Canadian art and artists, particularly Indigenous art, as well as those learning about or active in cultural revitalization in Indigenous communities.

Subjects / Themes: Indigenous Art, Canadian Art, Memoir.

This resource is recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 list for grades 9 to 12 for Art Education, English Language Arts, and Social Studies.

Caution: includes memories of domestic violence.

Additional Information
192 pages | 8.00" x 10.00"

Every object tells a story.

Picking Up the Pieces tells the story of the making of the Witness Blanket, a living work of art conceived and created by Indigenous artist Carey Newman. It includes hundreds of items collected from residential schools across Canada, everything from bricks, photos and letters to hockey skates, dolls and braids. Every object tells a story.

Carey takes the reader on a journey from the initial idea behind the Witness Blanket to the challenges in making it work to its completion. The story is told through the objects and the Survivors who donated them to the project. At every step in this important journey for children and adults alike, Carey is a guide, sharing his process and motivation behind the art. It's a very personal project. Carey's father is a residential school Survivor. Like the Blanket itself, Picking Up the Pieces calls on readers of all ages to bear witness to the residential school experience, a tragic piece of Canada’s history.

"In the traditions of my Salish ancestors, a blanket is gifted to uplight the spirit, protect the vulnerable or honour the strong. I made this blanket for the Survivors, and for the children who never came home; for the dispossessed, the displaced and the forgotten. I made this blanket so that I will never forget -- so that we will never forget." - Carey Newman

Reviews
"Picking Up the Pieces is both a crucial record of history and an outstanding assertion of love and community. The story behind the creation of the powerful Witness Blanket project is one of great care and consideration, with residential school Survivors and their families at the centre. By sharing his own family's connection to a brutal and shameful part of Canadian history, renowned artist Carey Newman brilliantly guides us through the meticulous and thoughtful process of creating one of the most important pieces of art to exist in this country. I had the privilege of experiencing the Witness Blanket on its tour, and it was a poignant moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Reading how it all came together is yet another vital experience. Like the Witness Blanket itself, Picking Up the Pieces will educate and enlighten Canadians for generations to come. It's a must-read for anyone seeking to understand Canada's residential-school saga. Most importantly, it's a touchstone of community for those survivors and their families still on the path to healing." — Waubgeshig Rice, journalist and author of Moon of the Crusted Snow, March 2019

Educator Information
Themes: Indigenous Art, Reconciliation, Residential Schools, Survivor Stories, Intergenerational Trauma

Suitable for most ages (about 12 years+).  Useful social studies or Indigenous studies resource for pre-teens and teens; however, it does make reference to sexual, emotional, and physical abuse and trauma.

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 11 and 12 and as a teacher resource.  Useful for these subjects: English Language Arts, Media Studies, Social Studies.

Additional Information
180 pages | 10.75" x 10.00"

Itee Pootoogook belonged to a new generation of Inuit artists who are transforming and reshaping the creative traditions that were successfully pioneered by their parents and grandparents in the second half of the 20th century.

Itee Pootoogook (1951-2014) was part of a generation, including most famously his cousin Annie Pootoogook, that transformed the creative traditions of Inuit art.

A meticulous draughtsman who worked with graphite and coloured pencil, Itee depicted buildings in Kinngait that incorporated a perspectival view, a relatively recent practice influenced by his training as a carpenter and his interest in photography. His portraits of acquaintances and family members similarly bear witness to the contemporary North. Whether he depicts them at work or resting, his subjects are engaged in a range of activities from preparing carcasses brought in from hunting to playing music or contemplating the landscape of the North.

Itee was also an inventive landscapist. Many of his finest Arctic scenes emphasize the open horizon that separates land from sky and the ever-shifting colours of the Arctic. Rendering the variable light of the landscape with precision, he brought a level of attention that contributed, over time, to his style.

Featuring more than 100 images and essays by curators, art historians, and contemporary artists, Itee Pootoogook: Hymns to Silence celebrates the creative spirit of an innovative artist. It is the first publication devoted exclusively to his art.

Additional Information
198 pages | 9.00" x 10.00"

This gorgeous book offers an incomparable glimpse into the experiences and history of more than one hundred First Nations and Métis elders from Canada’s North —“the last generation born on the land.” These stunning graphite pencil portraits are rendered with love, respect, and painstaking detail, along with gripping intimate profiles assembled from oral accounts and anecdotes. Their poignant facial features, lines, and creases, weathered by the harsh outdoors and a lifetime of challenges, are like badges of their remarkable achievements, sustained resolve, inspired patience, and deep-set defiance to the hardships their people have endured for generations. The masterful realism of Kuehl’s work helps uncover the tales of these seasoned individuals—their many triumphs and trials revealing in turn a greater portrait of life in the communities of Northern Canada, a compelling homage, and an enduring historical legacy. The portraits capture images of Cree, Ojibway, Oji-Cree, Dene and Métis peoples.

Additional Information
236 pages | 10.03" x 10.03"

In They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever, ‘Nlaka’pamux elder Annie York explains the red-ochre inscriptions written on the rocks and cliffs of the lower Stein Valley in British Columbia. This is perhaps the first time that a Native elder has presented a detailed and comprehensive explanation of rock-art images from her people’s culture. As Annie York’s narratives unfold, we are taken back to the fresh wonder of childhood, as well as to a time in human society when people and animals lived together in one psychic dimension.

This book describes, among many other things, the solitary spiritual meditations of young people in the mountains, once considered essential education. Astrological predictions, herbal medicine, winter spirit dancing, hunting, shamanism, respect for nature, midwifery, birth and death, are some of the topics that emerge from Annie’s reading of the trail signs and other cultural symbols painted on the rocks. She firmly believed that this knowledge should be published so that the general public could understand why, as she put it, “The Old People reverenced those sacred places like that Stein.”

They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever opens a discussion of some of the issues in rock-art research that relate to “notating” and “writing” on the landscape, around the world and through the millennia. This landmark publication presents a well-reasoned hypothesis to explain the evolution of symbolic or iconic writing from sign language, trail signs and from the geometric and iconic imagery of the dreams and visions of shamans and neophyte hunters. This book suggests that the resultant images, written or painted on stone, constitute a Protoliteracy which has assisted both the conceptualization and communication of hunting peoples’ histories, philosophies, morals and ways life, and prepared the human mind for the economic, sociological and intellectual developments, including alphabetic written language.

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.75" x 9.75" | 2nd Edition

From Timbits to totem poles, Canada is boiled down to its syrupy core in symbolic forms that are reproduced not only on t-shirts, television ads, and tattoos but in classrooms, museums, and courtrooms too. They can be found in every home and in every public space. They come in many forms, from objects—like the red-uniformed Mountie, the maple leaf, and the beaver—to concepts— like free healthcare, peacekeeping, and saying "eh?".

But where did these symbols come from, what do they mean, and how have their meanings changed over time? Symbols of Canada gives us the real and surprising truth behind the most iconic Canadian symbols revealing their contentious and often contested histories.

With over 100 images, this book thoroughly explores Canada's true self while highlighting the unexpected twists and turns that have marked each symbol's history.

Reviews
“What do timbits, the beaver and the blue beret all have in common? They are all iconic symbols of Canadian identity and they are all subjects of this amusing, insightful book. Along with poutine, totem poles, roll up the rim and plenty more. Pop culture meets serious history. What better way to understand the origins of our national dreams, eh?” —Daniel Francis, author of Selling Canada: Three Propaganda Campaigns that Shaped the Nation

"Sharp, insightful and deeply funny: At once celebrating and critiquing symbols within Canadian identity, contributors are invariably witty and sometimes barbed, creating a rich, quick and satisfying reading experience." – Ottawa Life Magazine

"The beaver may be a rodent, the north merely a compass point, and the paternity of poutine still undecided but these, among many, signs and symbols define, sometimes divide, and frequently distinguish Canadians. While worthy of any library, this insightful, informative and entertaining collection proves that Canadiana, demystified, de-mythed and de-kitsched, can go “coffee table”. Solid and original scholarship, superb illustrations, concise and punchy writing combine with (sometimes self-deprecating) humour." – Jane Koustas, professor of modern languages, Brock University

"Symbols of Canada is a path-breaking book. It unravels the real origins and cultural significance of national symbols such as the “Mountie” or the Maple Leaf that are widely popular but little understood. This book will prove informative not only for Canadians but for anyone interested in the issue of national identity." – John Bodnar, Department of History, Indiana University

"Symbols of Canada challenges us to think about why particular stories, activities, landscapes, and events are invested with national meaning. From colonialism to consumerism, the contributors to this collection deftly connect the past with the present, and demonstrate how national symbols are made, re-made, and sometimes forgotten." – James Opp, professor of history, Carleton University and co-editor of Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada

"Nations exist through their symbols. Dawson, Gidney, and Wright have drawn together an impressive array of scholars to reveal – with insight, flair, shrewd judgement, humour, and unexpected serendipity – how Canadian national symbols do their work." – Richard White, Department of History, University of Sydney

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction - Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney, and Donald Wright
1. Beaver - Colin M. Coates
2. Canoe - Jess Dunkin
3.Totem Pole - John Sutton Lutz
4. North - Donald Wright
5. Lacrosse - Gillian Poulter
6. Hockey - Kristi Allain
7. National Anthem - Michael Dawson and Catherine Gidney
8. Flag - Donald Wright
9. Fleur-de-lys - Alan Gordon
10. Maple Syrup - Elizabeth L. Jewett
11. Canadian Pacific Railway - Bill Waiser
12. Mountie - Michael Dawson
13 .Dollard des Ormeaux - Patrice Groulx
14. Laura Secord - Cecilia Morgan
15. Vimy Ridge - Ian McKay and Jamie Swift
16. Peacekeeper - Kelly Ferguson
17. Anne of Green Gables - Michael Dawson and Catherine Gidney
18. Niagara Falls - Karen Dubinsky
19. Universal Healthcare - Cheryl Krasnick Warsh
20. Eh? - Steven High
21. Poutine - Caroline Durand
22. Tim Hortons - Michael Dawson and Catherine Gidney
Acknowledgements
Photo Credits

This work is both a "coffee table" type of book but also a collection of essays on various motifs that are often used to represent Canada.

Additional Information
256 pages | 9.25" x 8.75"

Text Content Note: While Indigenous content is found in this work, it is not the sole focus and is limited.

Known for her expansive multidisciplinary approach to art making Vancouver-based Dana Claxton, who is Hunkpapa Lakota (Sioux), has investigated notions of Indigenous identity, beauty, gender and the body, as well as broader social and political issues through a practice which encompasses photography, film, video and performance. Rooted in contemporary art strategies, her practice critiques the representations of Indigenous people that circulate in art, literature and popular culture in general. In doing so, Claxton regularly combines Lakota traditions with "Western" influences, using a powerful and emotive "mix, meld and mash" approach to address the oppressive legacies of colonialism and to articulate Indigenous world views, histories and spirituality. This timely catalogue is the first monograph to examine the full breadth and scope of Claxton's practice. It's extensively illustrated and includes essays by Claxton's colleague Jaleh Mansoor, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia; Monika Kin Gagnon, Professor in the Communications Department at Concordia University, who has followed Claxton's work for 25 years; Olivia Michiko Gagnon, a New York-based scholar and doctoral student in Performance Studies; and Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Additional Information
160 pages | 9.08" x 10.60"

“I feel that it is important to re-establish our Salish footprint upon our lands, to create a visual expression of the link between the past and present that is both accessible and people-friendly. . . . I create unique, ‘original’ artwork that honours both my people and the diverse group of peoples from around the world who have come to live upon our lands on the Northwest Coast. My hope is that my art leaves a lasting impression on visitors, locals, and the surrounding communities.” — Susan Point

This beautifully designed book is the first to explore Susan Point's publicly commissioned artworks from coast to coast.

Susan Point’s unique artworks have been credited with almost single-handedly reviving the traditional Coast Salish art style. Once nearly lost to the effects of colonization, the crescents, wedges, and human and animal forms characteristic of the art of First Nations peoples living around the Salish Sea can now be seen around the world, reinvigorated with modern materials and techniques, in her serigraphs and public art installations—and in the works of a new generation of artists that she’s inspired.

People Among the People beautifully displays the breadth of Susan Point’s public art, from cast-iron manhole covers to massive carved cedar spindle whorls, installed in locations from Vancouver to Zurich. Through extensive interviews and access to her archives, Robert D. Watt tells the story of each piece, whether it’s the evolution from sketch to carving to casting, or the significance of the images and symbolism, which is informed by surviving traditional Salish works Point has studied and the Oral Traditions of her Musqueam family and elders.

In her long quest to re-establish a Coast Salish footprint in Southwest British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the US, Point has received many honours, including the Order of Canada and the Audain Lifetime Achievement Award. This gorgeous and illuminating book makes it clear they are all richly deserved.

Additional Information
208 pages | 10.17" x 12.39" | Colour photographs throughout | Hardcover 

Social action art in book form, Perception: A Photo Series encourages readers to look and then look again.

Tired of reading negative and disparaging remarks directed at Indigenous people of Winnipeg in the press and social media, artist KC Adams created a photo series that presented another perspective. Called “Perception Photo Series,” it confronted common stereotypes of First Nation, Inuit and Métis people to illustrate a more contemporary truthful story.

First appearing on billboards, in storefronts, in bus shelters, and projected onto Winnipeg’s downtown buildings, Adam’s stunning photographs now appear in her new book, Perception: A Photo Series. Meant to challenge the culture of apathy and willful ignorance about Indigenous issues, Adams hopes to unite readers in the fight against prejudice of all kinds.

Reviews
"Indeed, the potential lasting impact of this collection can’t be underestimated; this is socially engaged art at its best." — Kirkus Reviews, March 2019

"KC Adams' Perception series challenges us to bridge thought and reality; emerging on the other side better having challenged ourselves to see Indigenous peoples for what they really are. We are grandparents, parents, children - and everything in between. As Adams shows through this incredible exhibition of faces and feelings, we are beautiful, whole, and complex peoples irreducible to stereotypes and slander." — Romeo Saganash (Cree, father, activist, and dreamer)

"KC Adams's Perception series absolutely captured the most devastating perceptions from the colonial mind, and the accompanying lack of knowledge about the truth of Canada's historical relationship to Indigenous Peoples. Succinctly and beautifully, KC transformed that narrative in this series. It is a prolific piece which will always be a source of inspiration for truth and reconciliation. It is unforgettable. Kichi miigwetch KC Adams!." — Tina Keeper, March 2019

"We hear the saying, “A picture can say a thousand words” quite often, but sometimes we don’t take the time to actually look at what we are seeing and what it is saying. Sometimes photographs are taken for fun, with no real meaning behind them. But there are times when a photograph is taken for a purpose, taken to deliver a message. KC Adams, with Perception, is doing just that. She is not only delivering a message, she is also making a statement in order to break down the racial prejudices and stereotypes towards the indigenous community in Canada.... From looking at the first picture that shows their reaction to what people think of them to looking at their second picture that shows their look of pure happiness coupled with their name, their tribes, and the words they would use to describe themselves is what is causing people to think twice, think differently, and spark conversation." — Leslie Trotter, NetGalley, March 2019

"I admire what KC Adams did when she kept hearing disparaging remarks and slurs against the Native peoples of Canada. As an indigenous person herself, she too, had been subjected to mistreatment and prejudice just be being someone who looks different. She was determined to find a way to get people's perceptions to change. The Native/indigenous people and their cultures were here to stay and non-Native people had to come to terms with and accept that. Adams choose to use her skill as a photographer as a catalyst to address the racism and prejudice head on.... She took a series of two photographs of the same person; one as she said a racist remark, the other as she said something positive about the person. She then put up these pictures as posters around municipal areas. The first picture was headlined with the slur said while filming it, the bottom said "Think again". The second picture (taken when she invoked a positive response in them) told who they were and some things about them. This photography series (now captured in her book Perceptions) helped people recognize their own reactions to Native peoples and realize that they were unfair and untrue.... I love when art is not only creative, but an agent for social change! Kudos, Ms. Adams! Well done!" — Kathy Fuchs, NetGalley, February 2019

"Perception is an impressive collection...an inside look into a living legend’s photography practice (I say this in no uncertain terms) and, more importantly, as Adams intended, a reminder to look past the hurt in search of a love that can bring us all home." — Lindsay Nixon, Editor-at-Large Canadian Art, author nîtisânak, Metonymy Press, March 2019

"This is an amazing portrayal of the indigenous community. The emotions displayed by each individual are clearly defined. I highly recommend this resource be placed in all libraries and used to dispel racism and discriminatory ideas." — Shelley Stefanowich, NetGalley, April 2019

Educator & Series Information
For Grades 9-12 / Young Adults

Foreword by Katherena Vermette; Critical essay by Cathy Mattes

Caution: Mature subject matter/language in some instances as this book is dealing with stereotypes and prejudice (radicalized language and derogatory terminology).

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 10 to 12 for Art Education, Social Studies, Social Justice, and English Language Arts.

This book is part of The Debwe Series, a collection of exceptional Indigenous writings from across Canada.

Additional Information
120 pages | 6.75" x 9.00" | Hardcover | Foreward from Katherena Vermette

Facing the monumental issues of our time.

In a 2012 performance piece, Rebecca Belmore transformed an oak tree surrounded by monuments to colonialism in Toronto's Queens Park into a temporary "non-monument" to the Earth.

For more than 30 years, she has given voice in her art to social and political issues, making her one of the most important contemporary artists working today. Employing a language that is both poetic and provocative, Belmore's art has tackled subjects such as water and land rights, women's lives and dignity, and state violence against Indigenous people. Writes Wanda Nanibush, "by capturing the universal truths of empathy, hope and transformation, her work positions the viewer as a witness and encourages us all to face what is monumental."

Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental presents 28 of her most famous works, including Fountain, her entry to the 2005 Venice Biennale, and At Pelican Falls, her moving tribute to residential school survivors, as well as numerous new and in-progress works. The book also includes an essay by Wanda Nanibush, Curator of Indigenous Art at the AGO, that examines the intersection of art and politics. 

Rebecca Belmore is one of Canada's most distinguished artists. She has won the Hnatyshyn Award (2009), the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2013), and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2016). A member of Lac Seul First Nation, she was the first Aboriginal woman to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale. She has also participated in more than 60 one-person and group exhibitions around the world.

Additional Information
132 pages | 10.25" x 10.25" | 198 Illustrations

A stunning retrospective highlighting the playfulness, power, and subversive spirit of Northwest Coast Indigenous artist Sonny Assu.

Through large-scale installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and painting, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop-art sensibility. This stunning retrospective spans over a decade of Assu’s career, highlighting more than 120 full-colour works, including several never-before-exhibited pieces.

Through analytical essays and personal narratives, Richard Van Camp, Marianne Nicolson, Candice Hopkins, and Ellyn Walker provide brilliant commentary on Assu’s practice, its meaning in the context of contemporary art, and its wider significance in the struggle for Indigenous cultural and political autonomy. Exploring themes of Indigenous rights, consumerism, branding, humour, and the ways in which history informs contemporary ideas and identities, Sonny Assu: A Selective History is the first major full-scale book to pay tribute to this important, prolific, and vibrant figure in the Canadian contemporary art world.

Reviews
"Educators and students will find numerous access points and opportunities to examine our nation's beliefs, actions, words, and legislation. [This book] also invites readers to knowledgeably and compassionately consider how we can reconcile all that has been with all that can be"—Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2018-2019

"Framed by contributions from some of our brightest Indigenous intellectuals, Sonny Assu’s canvas is more than an examination of how Indigenous Peoples respond to the Canadian experience. His witty and gentle hand offers Canada a mirror to consider its own scarred identity."—Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

“This brilliant book not only provides readers with an overview of the career of one of Canada’s most important artists but also links his development to the contemporary creative practices of First Nations artists in BC politics and history—the intersection of stories with visual expression. All this unveils historical truths and artistic insights that elevate Sonny Assu to greatness." —Dr. Ron Burnett, Order of Canada, Order of BC. President and vice-chancellor, Emily Carr University of Art and Design

Educator Information
Recommended for Grades 9-12 for these subjects: Art Education, Social Justice, Social Studies.

Additional Information
224 pages | 8.50" x 10.00"

The Land We Are is a stunning collection of writing and art that interrogates the current era of reconciliation in Canada. Using visual, poetic, and theoretical language, the contributors approach reconciliation as a problematic narrative about Indigenous-settler relations, but also as a site where conversations about a just future must occur. The result of a four-year collaboration between artists and scholars engaged in resurgence and decolonization, The Land We Are is a moving dialogue that blurs the boundaries between activism, research, and the arts.

The contributors to this book include leading artists and scholars engaged in questions of resurgence, restitution, and decolonization.

Contributors: Jordan Abel, Leah Decter, Jonathan Dewar, David Garneau, Ayumi Goto, Allison Hargreaves, Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill, Jaimie Isaac, David Jefferess, Layli Long Soldier, The New BC Indian Art and Welfare Society Collective, Sophie McCall, Peter Morin, Skeena Reece, Dylan Robinson, Sandra Semchuk, Adrian Stimson, Clement Yeh, and Keren Zaiontz.

Reviews
"This beautifully produced, richly illustrated volume not only offers readers a visual journey into the featured artistic installations and performance pieces, but through its creative use of text and graphic design is itself an artistic statement on reconciliation." --Winnipeg Free Press

Educator Information
Recommended for students in grades 11 and 12, as well as at a college/university level.  

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.50" x 9.50"