Don't call it reconciliation: These Indigenous and settler artists are teaming up for 'conciliation'
'The word itself sort of speaks to the idea that we've done it several times, but really we haven't'
The idea of reconciliation can be a bit murky. What does it actually look like in practice? What does it look like, for example, when applied to the world of art? Over the last several years, a few pairs of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists have attempted to make reconciliation more concrete — although, as Blackfoot artist Adrian Stimson points out, we probably shouldn't actually be using the term "reconciliation" at all.
"The word itself sort of speaks to the idea that we've done it several times," he says. "But really, we haven't. It's 'conciliation.'"
The idea behind "reconciliation" — of settlers and Indigenous people trying to forge a new path together — is something he's open to, but he thinks it works better on an individual basis than an institutional one.
"I've always believed that conciliation happens between individuals," he says. "It doesn't happen between a government and me or a government and you, right? It happens between you and I ... I don't want to put it in success terms, but I do have more success when I actually meet with individuals one-on-one. They can hear my story; I can hear their story ... And I think for a lot of the cases in Canada, there truly hasn't been those connections between individuals between First Nations [people] and non-First Nations."
So when fellow artist A.A. Bronson approached him about helping him to craft a public apology to the people of Siksika Nation, Stimson's home community, he decided to hear Bronson out. In addition to being a prolific artist with a decades-long career, including having been a member of the art collective General Idea, Bronson is also the great-grandson of the Rev. J.W. Tims, an Anglican missionary at the turn of the last century. Tims founded and ran the residential school on Siksika.
"It's something I've been conscious of my entire life," Bronson says of his great-grandfather's legacy. Bronson's grandfather also ran a residential school, and he says that his own father struggled with guilt about his family's legacy. He adds that his own aging made him feel a new sense of urgency around delivering an apology on behalf of his family.
"I kept thinking, 'Oh my God, well, now I'm 75. I've got to do something. If I don't do something, then it's over. Nothing's going to be done,'" he says.
Stimson was interested in Bronson's idea and appreciated the way he brought it up — so he brought Bronson's offer to the elders in Siksika.
"There was that suspicion, you know? 'Who is this? Who is this fellow coming to us wanting to apologize?'" he says. "We took it to the elders and they came back and said, 'Well, it's not too often that somebody comes in and apologizes. Perhaps we should listen to him.' He approached it in a good way ... He came to us and asked us if he could apologize to us, you know, giving us the option, and giving us agency."
The end result was "A Public Apology to Siksika Nation," which Bronson first presented at the Toronto Biennial of Art in 2019, with Stimson creating an artistic response. The Biennial was curated by Candice Hopkins, a member of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation whose curation work frequently explores Indigenous history via art. She says that she appreciated the personal nature of Bronson and Stimson's work, and the fact it was a specific conversation about a specific place.
"I think that sometimes it's easy to dismiss something as historical fact," she says. "But history is embodied by all of us and experienced by all of us ... I think what was important about what Adrian and AA are doing is they're not thinking about this process as something that gives a metaphor or something that you represent somehow or create an image of, but as an action and as a responsibility."
Calgarian filmmaker Chris Hsiung says that when first started his Elder in the Making series with Blackfoot filmmaker Cowboy Smithx, he wasn't thinking about it in terms of conciliation or reconciliation.
"Reconciliation was not the word that came to mind," he says. "Even though it is [reconciliation] in the sense of like, yeah, take the time to learn about this history."
One of the things that most struck Hsiung was the similarities between his life and upbringing as the child of Chinese immigrants and Smithx's upbringing as an Indigenous person
"I think the reason Cowboy and I connected is because even though I grew up here, my parents aren't from here," he says. "So there's a sense of still being a bit of an immigrant to this area. And with Cowboy, I got a sense that he was also trying to learn about his history. He grew up very much in-between two worlds. And I grew up in two worlds as well, too, so I really connected with that. So I thought, 'Why don't we explore this history together?' We're both foreigners to this place, but he was a foreigner in his own home, you know?"
Since Elder in the Making has been added to school curriculums in Alberta, Hsiung says he's been struck by the response to the film from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
"It's surprising, the kind of connections that people have made," he says. "Like that new Canadians actually connected with me being in there and learning the story. And then people who are more from a small-town experience, they recognize the love of the land in the story, and they connect with it that way, right? I had a very powerful response from lots of Indigenous communities as well ... A lot of young Indigenous people don't have a connection to the land, don't have a connection to their culture, necessarily. And so this was a film that connected with young people [so they] can see really strong, positive role models."
Stimson says that conciliation can only happen when non-Indigenous people come to the table and take an active role. He says that, for example, while he's thrilled to see more Indigenous curators in Canada's galleries, "I would hope it's not their sole job to be the decolonize in the institution because that job has to be undertaken by, you know, by the non-Indigenous people who are in those institutions."
That said, Bronson adds that for non-Indigenous people interested in making art about conciliation, it's important to not centre yourself.
"The less I talk, the better, the better it is in terms of conciliation," he says. "Indigenous peoples know a lot more about us white people than we know about them, right?"
Click here for more on CBC's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation programming.
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