Panel

This panel brings together native scholars and artists, each working at the intersection of activism, art, and digital media, who reflect on various strands of Indigenous climate relations that work towards improving the quality of our lives. Artist and VLC Borderlands Fellow Maria Hupfield (Anishinaabek, Wasauksing First Nation) and theorist Jennifer Wemigwans (Anishinaabek, Wikwemikong Unceded Territory) together with two-spirit curator, activist, and historian Regan De Loggans (Mississippi Choctaw / Ki’Che Maya) discuss recent projects spanning Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. They consider how digital modalities may protect and promote traditional forms of thought and introduce essential kinship bonds with the natural world and one another, and how the digital sphere enables connectivity that may allow us to reimagine today’s primarily toxic relationship to climate. Ultimately, their approaches form a radically innovative model for thinking about futurity. Art historian Mikinaak Migwans (Anishinaabe of Wiikwemikoong Unceded Territory) responds following the panel presentations. Migwans’ work focuses on museum objects as relatives and the place-making labor of customary art forms, with a particular emphasis on natural fiber weaving traditions of the Great Lakes. The session is co-chaired by Anne Swartz and Connie Tell.

Panelists
Maria Hupfield, (Anishinaabek, Wasauksing First Nation) University of Toronto, 2020-2022 VLC Borderlands Fellow
Regan De Loggans, (Mississippi Choctaw / Ki’Che Maya), Independent Historian and Curator
Jennifer Wemigwans, (Anishinaabek, Wikwemikong Unceded Territory), University of Toronto

Respondent
Mikinaak Migwans (Anishinaabe of Wiikwemikoong Unceded Territory), University of Toronto

Chairs
Anne Swartz, Savannah College of Art and Design
Connie Tell, Independent Curator, The Feminist Art Project

TFAP@CAA 2021 Affiliated Society Session, presented in partnership with The Feminist Art Project (TFAP), a program of the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities at Rutgers University.