Visual

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

Additional Information
288 pages | 7.25" x 8.62"

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"

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"

“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

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"

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"

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

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.

Additional Information
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.

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"

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"

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"

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