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  • IndigenEtsy: A curated list of handmade native goodness

    It calls itself “the world’s handmade marketplace.” And if you’re the crafty, self-starting entrepreneur type, you likely already know its name — Etsy.

    Started up seven years ago as a site for “very-very small businesses,” Etsy has become massive in its own right: 15+ million members, 875,000+ active shops, and 13+ million listed items. So it should come as no surprise that a few Indigenous items/shops should pop up here and there. In fact, the examples I am about to showcase are among the roughly 700 items that cropped up when I conducted a search using the term ‘Indigenous.’

    Alas, determining how many are of genuine origin and/or optimal benefit to an Aboriginal artist/vendor I cannot say with 100% certainty, but I tried to use my native spidey sense to separate out the pretenders from the real thing. (Corrections welcomed.)

    And so, here now, in no particular order, is a sampling of what most caught my eye, in the hopes it will catch your fancy enough that you might consider making an Aboriginal artist very happy today.

     

    Circles of Life

    According to his profile, self-taught urban Indigenous artist Sheldon Lee “originates from the Thungutti Tribe of New South Wales” in Australia. Lee’s shop — Thungutti Dreaming — features nearly 50 one-off original artworks (ranging in price from $36 to almost $2,000), including this gorgeous piece, Circles of Life.

     

    Our Country

    Mia Mia Aboriginal Art Gallery in Australia is a social enterprise operated by the Aboriginal Artists Development Fund. Its Etsy shop features a variety of artist-approved reproductions on fine art canvas, with a percentage of each sale going directly to the artist to “help support themselves, their family and their community.” The painting depicted here, Our Country, was jointly created by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Michelle Possum Nungurrayi and Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi.

     

    RezMau5

    According to the profile of Lut Stamp (Entiat/Sioux), “I weave a story through my work, of Indian people, and how we live today … This is the real thing. Native Art, Native style.” His piece of ‘Native bling,’ RezMau5, is a great example of what Stamp calls ‘Pop Native Americana’ for sale at his Etsy shop, ‘ModernTradish.’

     

    Whale Tail

    The sewn seal and sea otter skins of Shaaxsaani strive to echo and extend the Southeast Alaska rainforest culture of this Tlingit artisan. Her shop features a variety of items, from purses and hairbands to bracelets like this sealskin-and-bone beauty entitled, appropriately enough, Whale Tail.

     

    Via her MikmaqQuillArt Etsy shop, Mi’kmaq artist Cheryl Simon handcrafts porcupine quills, birch bark, sweetgrass and spruce root into art inspired by traditional “designs and petroglyphs found throughout Atlantic Canada.”

     

    TeeHawk Designs (owned/operated by Cheryl Shannon, whose “multicultural background” means she’s “influenced from all angles”) offers a fun array of bottle-cap resin necklaces that includes some Native American flags and symbols, like this ‘Intertribal 49,’ the perfect pow-wow trail accessory.

     

    If I had a mantle (and $600), I personally would love to hang this picture by Jamie Luoto above it. “Inspired by [her] Sami ancestry, [she] painted this reindeer in traditional Sami clothing.” The Sami inhabit Sapmi, a Scandanavian region encompassing parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. Check out Luoto’s store ‘MissBojambo‘ for more pics of animals striking curious poses.

     

    árbi2 basic

    The elegant and clean design of ‘árbi2 basic‘ (by Neeta Inari, originally of Inari, Finland) is “based on traditional Saami jewellery, which is lavishly decorated with small jingling pendants, drops and jump rings to ward off evil spirits and malevolent underground people.” The word árbi is North Saami for ‘heritage.’

     

    Using an “off-the-loom peyote stitch technique,” MexiFolk‘s made-to-order earrings are the creation of CEspinoza, who offers “modern and unique iterations of this beautiful Indigenous art form,” like these ‘estrellitas’ (little stars), a shorter-style ‘Feliz’ earring.

     

    TRIBE

    Gregory Beauchamp, aka beauchamping, “grew up in Tualatin, Oregon, where a majority of the streets are named after Native American tribes. We lived on Nez Perce, my best friend lived on Kickapoo.” Here, ‘TRIBE‘ well illustrates the whimsical voice present throughout much of Beauchamp’s work available for sale on his shop.

  • How UN envoy’s visit launched food fight and debate over who speaks for Indigenous north in Canada

    Nestled deep within the recent brouhaha over the visit to Canadian soil by Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, is an interesting sub-text: namely, who, in a complicated country like Canada, is in the best position to speak on behalf of Indigenous peoples?

    De Schutter

    Well, as anyone even vaguely familiar with Aboriginal issues knows, the answer depends on who you ask and who else might be doing the talking, and the UN’s Special Rapporteur’s visit is perhaps as good a case as any to illustrate why Aboriginal representation is no straightforward affair.

    Following up on his mandate to ensure signatory countries’ promote and pursue their citizens’ right to food under various international laws, the UN envoy declared in his end of mission statement that he was “disconcerted by the deep and severe food insecurity faced by Aboriginal peoples across Canada living both on- and off-reserve in remote and urban areas.” During his visit, the Special Rapporteur was earlier quoted as saying that Canada is home to “a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples.” As De Schutter himself would put it, “I have to say, my concerns are extremely severe, and I don’t see why I should mince my words.”

    So that’s what someone from the UN thinks about the state of Indigenous food security in this part of the world. What about Aboriginal people themselves?

    Aglukkaq

    Let’s begin with Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuk woman who also serves as the federal Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. After initial indications suggested no Cabinet member would do so, the Conservative minister ended up meeting with De Schutter at the last second. According to her version of that sit-down,

    “As an Aboriginal person from the North, I was insulted that Mr. Schutter chose to ‘study’ us, but chose not to ‘visit’ us. In fact, Mr. De Schutter confirmed to me that he did not visit a single Arctic community in Canada during nearly two weeks of travel within Canada.”

    Media reports around the same time had Aglukkaq reportedly calling De Schutter “ill-informed” and “patronizing” toward Aboriginal people in the Arctic, and saying that she was “disappointed” with their meeting. Not unlike some mainstream media outlets (e.g., this commentary in the National Post) Aglukkaq questioned the UN food envoy’s decision to even visit this country, citing the fact that, by “the United Nations’ own measure, Canada ranks sixth best of all the world’s countries on their human development index.”

    (Interestingly, that UN Index Aglukkaq cites was used a few years back as the basis of a First-Nations-only HDI developed by Indian Affairs Canada; its ‘Registered Indian HDI‘ revealed “a considerable gap” in the quality of life between First Nations people and Canadians over the period of 1981 to 2001. A more recent Aboriginal Affairs document reports that the “HDI gap between registered Indians and other Canadians has remained virtually constant between 1996 and 2006.” Moreover, a 2007 study entitled “Indigenous well-being in four countries: An application of the UNDP’s Human Development Index to Indigenous Peoples in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States,” found that, were Indigenous peoples in Canada to be given their own, stand-alone ranking in the overall HDI rankings in 2001, they would have placed 33rd, or a full 25 spots below Canada’s actual ranking of 8th that same year.)

    But it was the health minister’s choice to frame her comments “as an Aboriginal person” that I wish to focus upon here. Like any skilled politician, she no doubt chose her words carefully and deliberately, so I regard it as fair to wonder what her intent was by opening with the phraselet, “As an Aboriginal person from the North.” By invoking a cultural/geographical location clearly meant to differentiate her from the decidely non-Aboriginal (as well as ‘insulting’ and ‘patronizing’) Mr. De Schutter, did Ms. Aglukkaq perhaps mean to imply that her perspective should be somewhat privileged as far as what ought or ought not to be said concerning the well-being and interests of Aboriginal people in that region?

    Simon

    If so, perhaps someone forgot to tell Mary Simon. The president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Simon also met with De Schutter during his 11-day trip, and, according to Nunatsiaq Online, she pretty much agreed with the Special Rapporteur that Aboriginal peoples in Canada’s north face some daunting challenges in accessing nutritious food [UPDATE: Simon’s full comments can be found in this press conference transcript]. Citing statistics that show nearly seven in 10 Inuit households lack food, Simon said

    “This is six times higher than the Canadian national average. It is also the highest documented food insecurity rate for any Aboriginal population residing in a developed country. … It is our hope that Inuit disparities relating to the right to food will be recognized by Mr. De Schutter in his final report and that these findings will prompt action…”

    Presumably, like Ms. Aglukkaq, Ms. Simon made these comments at least in part in her capacity as ‘an Aboriginal person from the North.’ In Ms. Aglukkaq’s case, it was also as an Aboriginal person serving as a senior minister in the Conservative-led Government of Canada. Ms. Simon, meanwhile, made her statements as an Aboriginal person leading a national Aboriginal political organization.

    Here, questions emerge. Questions like, how much, if at all, should these individuals’ respective affiliations and associations be factored into any consideration as to who may truly speak for — that is, truly represent — the interests of the north and its people(s)?

    As an Aboriginal person myself, I’d be curious to know what others think about how we might weigh these seemingly competing claims against one another, claims to speak (or even act) in the name of a region’s Indigenous peoples.

  • Aglukkaq’s anger towards UN food security envoy is political, not personal

    It was a bit of a messy hour in Question Period this afternoon when Inuk MP and federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq (right) found herself in what can only be described as the contortionist position of having to express indignation about this week’s critique by a visiting UN envoy scrutinizing Canadian “food security.”

    Olivier De Schutter (left) came to Canada to investigate the facts about the affordability and accessibility of nutritious food for all Canadians.  (Don’t be fooled: it was primarily about Inuit, First Nations and Métis people.) His conclusion? Access and affordability just aren’t there.

    De Schutter says northerners can’t afford nutritious food.  The federal government’s subsidy program for exorbitantly priced staples — flour, butter or lard, sugar — is inadequate. All the more so in light of the fact that so much personal income must be spent on housing, heating and transportation (the latter for healthcare, among other things).

    The UN envoy suggested Ottawa might want to consult northerners to find out what might be more appropriate as a subsidy. He noted northerners are having an increasingly hard time feeding themselves with local goods because the high price of fuel — and climate change— mean traveling farther afield to get those caribou or seals.

    But Aglukkaq responded with bitterness.  She rejected him — god forbid — as an “academic.” She characterized De Schutter’s assessment as patronizing, the view of an outsider who, outrageously, hadn’t even set foot in the Arctic. She called his preliminary report “ill-informed.”

    But what she did not deny was the fact that, for northerners, nutritious food is a luxury.  Hard to get access to. Out of reach for many.

    Good thing. Because, as Minister for all Canadians in the entire Canadian north, she wouldn’t be telling the truth if she flatly denied there was a problem.

    For Minister Aglukkaq, the real problem is the Europeans who have trashed the seal hunt and hurt northerners’ incomes. And, to her mind, it’s not the reconfiguring of subsidies by the federal government that leaves many looking for alternatives, it’s anti-sealing.

    I noted with interest that De Schutter’s negative assessment didn’t phase Mary Simon, the outgoing President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. Her experience representing Inuit is that, yup, life’s harder now. More expensive. With less help from the south.

    It seems to me that Aglukkaq’s anger is political, not personal.

    As Minister of Health for all Canadians, Aglukkaq surely knows that the north encompasses far more than the Arctic. And, in fact, De Schutter did visit some northern communities in Manitoba and Alberta, however technically south of the territories’ borders they may fall.

    It would be disturbing to hear the Minister defend the nutritional standards available to many Métis and First Nations communities in the northernmost parts of our western provinces. I’m not saying she has to set foot in God’s River. But as Minister for all Canadians, she oughtta know all the same.

  • Asinabka Festival: Creating spaces for Aboriginal arts in Ottawa

    Amidst the tulips, tourists, and perfectly landscaped government spaces of Ottawa, lives an understated yet growing independent arts scene.

    Though sometimes hard to spot for those casually passing through, this scene — rife with small galleries, film collectives, indie music shows, and festivals — has helped to transform the side streets of the nation’s capital into a marketplace of exceptionally interesting artistic diversions.

    Now a new and promising festival will soon add to this mix. This June, the inaugural Asinabka Film and Media Arts Festival promises seven days of events teeming with Indigenous-focused film screenings, visual and media art, gallery crawls, and music. Taking its inspiration from similar gatherings like Toronto’s imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and Peterborough’s Ode’min Giizis, Asinabka enjoys support from the local film and Aboriginal communities in Ottawa’s downtown core.

    Asinabka's Adler (right) and Wong

    MEDIA INDIGENA’s Kerry Potts recently sat down with Asinabka Co-Directors Howard Adler and Chris Wong to talk about their aspirations for the festival and how they intend to carve out a unique, Aboriginal art space amongst the tulips.

    * * *

    MI: Tell me about your vision for starting this festival.

    Howard Adler (HA): We were hanging out last summer a lot, and we were doing a weekly meeting up on Victoria Island practicing the language. We started talking about starting an arts festival, and then we realized there’s already an arts fest called The Solstice Fest here. So, we thought about what our own creative interests are with film, and that there isn’t an Indigenous film festival here in the Nation’s Capital, so that was our rationale. It all started on the island.

    MI: Where does “Asinabka” come from?

    HA: The festival takes its name from Victoria Island and Chaudière Falls.  Traditionally these areas are called Asinabka. William Commanda, an Algonquin leader, helped to keep the area a sacred gathering place.  We wanted to keep his vision going by using the space and by reinforcing the use of the name as one of the original names for Ottawa.  It was a place you’d stop when coming into Ottawa. We kind of want to bring that history back to life.

    MI: How do you plan on carving out a space for Aboriginal film amidst a city whose art scene tends to lean toward the mainstream and tourist industry? 

    Chris Wong (CW):  By having the name of the festival of Asinabka, we’re reclaiming that space. We’re pointing to a sacred space that exists here 365 days a year.  The festival will encourage Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to explore Aboriginal cultures, get involved in the festival’s activities, and get people to think about this space as an Indigenous artistic space.   They’ll look at Indigenous people as not just relics of the past, but as living a modern life in a modern city, and have people reflect on that. Also, we’ll bring in that sort of vibe to cultural institutions, where Indigenous and non-Indigenous people can mingle, interact, share stories and ideas with each other. You look at Canada and Ottawa as French and English primarily, but we want to encourage Indigenous filmmaking in the language, and get people involved in the culture both through history and in modern life.

    MI: What kind of work can people expect to see at Asinabka this June?

    HA: Thematically, we are programming work that deals with Indigenous topics and issues.  We’re accepting work by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Though 99% of our submissions are by Aboriginal artists. We also don’t want to exclude Aboriginal people who are talking about other topics not conventionally deemed “Aboriginal” too.  We’re trying to balance taking about Indigenous themes and allowing people to talk about other topics.  We’re trying to have our cake and eat it too.

    MI: Who are some artists that are really blowing your minds right now?

    CW: Ben Powless is an activist and photographer. He’s been travelling the world fighting for Indigenous rights, from the tar sands to the Amazon.  He was in Peru traveling through the Amazon when there was a massacre in a native village. He was invited to take pictures of the aftermath.  We’ll be showing these works at the festival, and hope to pin him down for what will be a really inspiring artist talk.

    Another amazing guy is Ottawa’s own Bear Witness. Bear and I go back about 20 years to the Native Friendship Centre. We were part of a youth council and went to the Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We went to this 2500 year old native city on top of a Mesa that has been continuously occupied as a native town since before Jesus Christ. Bear is a video artist and DJ who has been really blowing up with A Tribe Called Red. That crew has been touring all over Canada and the USA with their video and DJ mash-up set, ‘Electric Pow-Wow,’ that has a distinctly urban and Indigenous flavor.

    HA:  I also love Native Visual Productions out of Toronto, who fuse graffiti with woodland style art. They’ve done live painting with Broken Social Scene and Drake. Their thing is indigenizing urban spaces.  They’ll be doing live-painting performance along with live DJs. It’s going to be amazing.

    MI: What makes Aboriginal film distinct from mainstream film, or is there a distinction?

    HA: I don’t necessarily think there has to be a distinction.  It’s a voice, or voices, that are distinct and different from other people’s voices. If you highlight Indigenous voices in Canada, you’re going to get different stories.

    MI: In recent years, festivals like Sundance have moved away from their Aboriginal-specific programs and now make Aboriginal films part of the larger festival. Why do you feel the need for a distinctly Aboriginal fest?

    HA: We need this Aboriginal-focused festival, particularly in the nation’s capital, where decisions are made about us, as Native people, for us. There are so many people who might be in charge and making decisions who have no experience with First Nations, Métis or Inuit in Canada. It’s kind of appalling that people can be making these decisions without any connection to the people they are managing. We have an opportunity to show these stories from an Aboriginal perspective.  Out of any place in Canada, this is one of the most important places to have this perspective shared.

    Just because we have an Aboriginal film festival here, that shouldn’t make other festivals, like the Inside Out Festival, think they don’t have to program anything Indigenous. We don’t want to ghettoize Aboriginal art, but I think there really is a need to focus on it. I think other festivals should focus on it too.

    MI: Any recommendations for “must see” film and events this year?

    HA: Everything! Our opening event is going to be a cultural gathering with an outdoor screening. We’re also screening the Ottawa premiere of an excellent film called Smoke Traders that just screened at Hot Docs.  It investigates whether the tobacco trade in the Aboriginal community is an act of sovereignty or criminal activity.

    The imagineNATIVE program is going to be a big draw. A lot of people don’t travel from Ottawa to Toronto in October for their festival, so bringing imagineNATIVE here is a big thing.

    Finally, Thursday June 21 is going to be a Gallery Crawl, that’s going to be a not-to-miss event with visual, media art and performance, as well as a DJ crew. We’ll be moving from a bourgeois, wine and cheese space (Gallery 101), to Fall Down Gallery, a more lowbrow, beer and bannock type of space.  We just want to show how accessible art can be.

    MI: What will “success” be to you this year? 

    HA: People showing up.

    CW: Yeah.

    The 1st annual Asinabka Film and Media Arts Festival will take place June 18-24 at various venues across Ottawa, including Victoria Island, Mayfair Theatre, Gallery 101, Fall Down Gallery, The National Archives, The National Gallery, Museum of Civilization, and Club SAW.  For more information visit www.asinabkafestival.org.

  • Tracking the Cross-Canada Cuts to Aboriginal Affairs

    Aboriginal Affairs' HQ

    Media reports indicate that hundreds of employees with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (née Indian Affairs) have recently received letters telling them that their jobs could be “affected” as part of a larger wave of federal budget cuts seeking to eliminate just over 19,000 public sector jobs by 2015.

    Based on “figures released by public-sector unions,” CBC provisionally reports that 619 people at Aboriginal Affairs now know that they could be affected (i.e., targeted for possible elimination) once the dust finally settles. For a sense of how these numbers could/will break down by region, I’ve begun compiling an assemblage of the bits and pieces flowing over the web (to be updated as further and firmer details emerge). Here’s what dribbled out so far in terms of regional specifics:

    • CBC News North reports a total of 17 AANDC jobs to be cut in Iqaluit, out of “a total of about 85-90 people working at that office … [or] 20 per cent,” says a union official
    • in British Columbia, “75 public servants at the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs received 75 notices,” according to figures provided by the Public Service Alliance of Canada to TimesColonist.com

    Apparently, it could have been worse. According to APTN National News, some observers feared much deeper cuts: “In all, Aboriginal Affairs received a cut of only 2.7% of funding, compared to the 5% or 10% that was expected.” The Nation, meanwhile, reports an “average reduction of 6.9% across all other government departments.”

    To try and put these AANDC staff cuts in perspective, I did a quick and dirty web search to find out just how many people work at Aboriginal Affairs as a whole, but, after some time spent trying to navigate the less than helpful websites of AANDC and Treasury Board, came away empty-handed. The only source of readily available data I did find — a site championing Aboriginal Affairs HQ as one of the National Capital Region’s Top Employers for 2012 — listed the total number of “full-time employees” at AANDC as 5,480.

    But there’s more to federal funding for Aboriginal peoples than that which emanates through Aboriginal Affairs, and there too cutbacks will have an impact.

    Cases in point: the recent withdrawl of support for Indigenous-specific health programs, including a wholesale cut to the core operational budget of the National Aboriginal Health Organization, as well the elimination of the First Nations Statistical Institute and the National Centre for First Nations Governance; in all cases, cuts were made with no clear indications as to what or who would replace these efforts in their respective areas of expertise.

    As well, one shouldn’t forget the fact that, as Treasury Board notes, AANDC is but “one of 34 federal departments and agencies delivering Aboriginal and northern programs and services.” So to the extent that other departments/services of relevance to Aboriginal people (e.g. Parks Canada, Environment Canada) will feel the impact of these federal budgetary cuts, their collective or aggregate effects on Aboriginal people — “collateral damage,” in the words of one scribe; an “attack” on Aboriginal “policy capacity” according to others — is arguably that much greater, a cumulative computation that will have to wait until another day.