An arts program in “B.C.” is quietly leading the way in not only promoting and preserving Indigenous art, history and practices, but also setting the stage for the next generation of up-and-coming Indigenous artists by working to decolonize a largely European-influenced field.
They have been doing so for years, relatively unnoticed.
“As important as any aesthetic theory stemming from Europe is, Indigenous contemporary art theories from here are essential to understanding contemporary art today on a broad scale,” said Tania Williard, who is an assistant professor at University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) and leads the Indigenous Art Intensive.
The program was started in 2014 at UBCO by professors Mike Evans and Stephen Foster. Tania has been running the intensive since 2019 and is focused on uplifting Indigenous culture in a university setting and shifting the dialogue within the industry.
“I’m interested in making space for thinking about and valuing syilx, Secwépemc, Nlaka’pamux (peoples and cultures),” said Tania. “In my experience as a Secwépemc person, our histories, our practices, our aesthetics are really diminished and or not spoken of in that way. And so to really kind of make space for that is important to me.”
Meghann O’Brien, Jaimie Isaac, Tania Willard, and Meagan Musseau were the Woven Together Artist Panel speakers, during the Summer Art Intensive in 2018. They are pictured in front of Tania Willard’s installation in the courtyard of the Kelowna Art Gallery, July 2018. Photo courtesy of UBC
The month-long residency program hosted in syilx homelands on the UBCO campus in “Kelowna,” features a series of courses, lectures, art shows and opportunities to create art. World-renowned Indigenous scholars, curators and artists travel from their nations to discuss their artforms with students in an immersive way. Each week, a keynote is delivered alongside weekly panels and discussions with visiting artists, and other class activities such as art exhibitions, performances, readings and field trips.
Visiting artist Manuel Axel Strain, presenting on their artform and bodies of work during the month-long, 2022 Indigenous Art Intensive hosted at UBCO located within syilx homelands. Photo by Tania Williard
This year, the four keynote speakers were: Tracey Kim Bonneu, Steven Loft, Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Michelle LaVallee from nations across “Canada.” The invited resident artists also collaborate to create a new body of work with the students, and this year included eight artists from across the country.
Recently the group invited Raven Chacon, a Pulitzer Prize winning Diné artist known for their work as a composer of chamber music, who taught a sound-art course.
In 2017, Alex Janvier, a member of Indigenous Group of Seven, and James Luna, a legendary Payómkawichum, Ipi, and Mexican-American artist, visited the program.
“Things like that, that really showcase the amazing content and talent of Indigenous contemporary artists, in all mediums, is something I’m interested in celebrating,” Tania said.
Decolonizing the world of contemporary art
The Arts Intensive is working to break down the study of art and consider several things while doing so: what the students can learn from the systems already in place, and what they can contribute to it in terms of Indigenous art and culture.
Together, students study art at an intense level. They work together to identify the questions, concepts and messages the art in question contains, and discuss this as a group. This dialogue, Tania explained, is key to decolonizing systems already in place, offsetting messages of European systems, aesthetics and values.
Photo courtesy of the University of British Columbia
“I think that it’s really essential that we build a kind of decolonial aesthetic, and think about that within Indigenous contemporary practice, that situates us really resolutely in syilx territories, and ecologies,” said Tania.
The program continues to be a leader in “B.C”. and across “Canada,” in terms of elevating Indigenous art. This program is the reason Tania came to UBCO in the first place.
She’s focused on moulding the program into something that specifically caters to the needs of Indigenous students, such as shortening the requirement for in-person classes. She’s working toward an accessible Masters of Fine Art program that doesn’t require extensive time spent on-campus, with a focus on Indigenous contemporary art, informed by land-based knowledge. This way, students can come together for a short period of time before finishing the remainder of their course from their homelands.
The program deserves all the attention it can get, Tania explained. Because it’s run by a small team, often their efforts are put into organizing the program, and not talking about it publicly. She’s grateful to lead the program which was previously funded by a Canada Council grant, and is now funded by an internal grant from the university. Next year, they will again be seeking funding.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
