Hundreds of Indigenous artists made their way to Fredericton this week, to celebrate Wabanaki art, to network and to showcase their own talent at the Petapan First Light Symposium this weekend.
The conference is just what Indigenous artists needed, said Jeff Ward.
“This is for the artist by the artist, and I think it’s so important for us to share our stories,” said Ward, 48.
He’s L’nu, Mi’kmaw for person of the land, from Metepenagiag Mi’kmaq Nation and now lives in Membertou First Nation on Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island). Ward made the 643 km trip because he thinks networking and funding are still barriers for Indigenous artists but events like this can create pathways to meeting those shortfalls.
Information Morning – Fredericton13:53Indigenous art in Atlantic Canada
Petapan is a major arts symposium opening today in Fredericton, and it features the work and performance of more than 150 Indigenous artists in Atlantic Canada.
Ward is an actor as well as the general manager at the heritage park in Membertou, where they sell authentic Indigenous crafts.
“My day-to-day business is to work and promote art, and I need to see what’s out there, and who’s out there,” said Ward.
He attended the film festival part of the event Friday with his uncle George Paul. Ward said he was inspired by the films showcased and hopes Indigenous actors can be featured in big budget films in the future.
Asha Bear is a filmmaker and student at the University of New Brunswick. She is also an entrepreneur and beaded the earrings she’s wearing. (Oscar Baker III/CBC)
One filmmaker who got to make her debut at the film festival is Asha Bear, who is Wolastoqew and Mi’kmaw from Neqotkuk First Nation in New Brunswick. Her film Indigenous Identity screened at the Friday event on St. Thomas University campus.
The film is a personal story of Bear’s and features her mother and sister as actors in the short film.
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“It’s about my journey with my Indigenous identity and what I went through,” said Bear, 26.
“My grandmother is a residential school survivor, so growing up I didn’t really get much like culture or anything like that. It’s just really about how I became who I am today, and embracing my Indigenous identity.”
Her grandmother was forced to attend the Shubenacadie residential school n Nova Scotia. Now, Bear is learning to dance sing and drum and runs a beading business.
Petapan runs June 9-12. Corrina Merasty, one of the organizers, is Cree from Mathais Colomb First Nation in northern Manitoba but has lived in the Wabanaki region for decades. She said the event is about learning from one another.
About 30 vendors set up in downtown Fredericton to sell crafts. (Oscar Baker III/CBC)
“We’re all coming together as a real way to connect, to network, to celebrate and think about what we’re going to do in the future,” said Merasty, who is also the Indigenous arts outreach officer with ArtsNB.
Events include a fashion show, art exhibits, medicine walks, an Indigenous vendors market and a film festival. Organizers covered the cost of travel, lodging and food for the artists. Merasty said the event cost close to $500,000 and was funded by the Canada Council through Mawi’Art: Wabanaki Artist Collective.
Corrina Merasty is an Indigenous arts outreach officer with ArtsNB and was on the planning committee for the Petapan First Light symposium. Merasty is also a filmmaker and actor. (Oscar Baker III/CBC)
Merasty is an actor and filmmaker herself and said the arts are meaningful to her life.
“I can’t live without the arts.” said Merasty.
“Arts has saved my life, to be honest with you. And that’s what I try to spread.”
Vendors at the market sold Indigenous crafts, artwork and fabrics. (Oscar Baker III/CBC)
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.
