SUPPORTING NWAC’S ART AND CULTURE PROGRAMMING
NATIVE WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
JERRY WHITEHEAD “Being Together”
The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) is a national Indigenous organization representing the political voice of Indigenous women, girls, TwoSpirit, transgender, and gender-diverse (WG2STGD+) people in Canada, inclusive of Métis, Inuit, and First Nations, both status and non-status, on- and off-reserve. NWAC is an aggregate of 13 Indigenous women’s organizations from across Canada, and was founded on the collective goal to enhance, promote, and foster the social, economic, cultural, and political well-being of Indigenous WG2STGD+ people within their respective communities and in Canadian society. With 48 years of programming experience, NWAC works to preserve Indigenous culture and advance the wellbeing of all Indigenous WG2STGD+ people, their families, and their communities.
TNWAC opened the doors to our Social and Economic Innovation Centre, in Gatineau, Quebec, in 2022. The Centre serves as both our national headquarters and a cultural and economic hub for Indigenous people and community members. The five-storey building features Artisanelle, an in-house boutique that seeks to empower Indigenous women and gender-diverse entrepreneurs; a rotating art exhibition space featuring the work of Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists; and Café Bouleau, which serves Indigenousinspired cuisine.
The Centre also hosts a number of flexible rental spaces with various styles and themes, perfect for small meetings and public engagements. The rooms include distinctions-based spaces for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, a flexible space designed to host arts-based activities and training,
cultural spaces for ceremonies and healing activities, and larger roundtable gathering spaces. Artisanelle, Café Bouleau, and these rental spaces provide a revenue generation stream to support NWAC’s work in delivering services and engaging in advocacy initiatives.
–Since opening the Centre in 2022, NWAC has hosted rotating exhibitions of art from Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists and has held
“We want to become a central place where Indigenous women can sell their products… and become significant participants of the economy.”
Lynne Groulx, NWAC’s Chief Executive Officer
several arts-based events and workshops to engage community members in “The Vault”.
It is important to ensure this space is open and available to all members of the public, while also seeing that Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists can have their voices heard and can elevate their careers as an artist. NWAC also recognizes there is a keen interest from the public for more opportunities to engage with and understand the unique experiences and perspectives of Indigenous WG2STGD+ people from across Canada through artwork. Through the Centre’s revenuegeneration stream, NWAC does facilitate the sale of some artwork—purchasing artwork from Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists—and uses any proceeds to further support the operations of our art programming.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 14(iv), 79, and 80, and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) Calls for Justice 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.7, 16.11, and 17.25 indicated that uplifting and supporting Indigenous perspectives, languages, and cultures through art are critical to education, reconciliation, and healing. Our project also answers the Calls for Justice 4.1 and 4.1, which underscore the importance of economic security for Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, through the purchase of artwork from Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ artists.
With the launch of NWAC’s Social and Economic Innovation Centre, there is an opportunity to contribute to this important goal by establishing a national art program and exhibition space for Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists. The Centre is a social, cultural, and economic development hub for Indigenous WG2STGD+ people, and as such is the perfect space for hosting arts-based services and programs. Rotating exhibition space will be open to all those visiting or residing in the National Capital Region and will establish an important space for Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists to make their voices heard and elevate their careers in art. It will also be a space for all Canadians to engage and learn about Indigenous perspectives and experiences.
NWAC has identified four core activities that are central to meeting the goals of our art and culture programming, which we have already begun to carry out. These core activities are:
1. building capacity for art and culture programming
2. acquiring artwork by Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists
3. networking with and holding educational workshops for Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists
4. offering guided art tours
Given the significant interest in NWAC’s existing art and culture programming, as well as the demand for Indigenous artwork, NWAC is looking to build capacity to support and expand our existing program.
This involves expanding the staff assigned to NWAC’s Art and Culture Unit, to ensure that we have people on staff who can identify and curate new art pieces from Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists in “The Vault” and throughout the Centre. The additional staff will also work with artists to ensure their art is being represented in a culturally relevant manner. Specifically, additional staff would include a curator who will help us refine our curatorial practices.
Currently, NWAC hosts submissions from Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists from across the Americas, with continued priority placed on reaching Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists from across Canada. We are also exploring avenues for collaboration and potential exhibitions with a number of prestigious institutions at the municipal, provincial, and national level. Discussions are ongoing.
This networking could lead to significant partnerships that would garner widespread attention and highlight the importance of the work we are doing to highlight Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists. A curator
would help us build relationships with renowned cultural institutions across the country, better identify Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists from across Canada, and host more artistic pieces. The curator will also be responsible for conducting research that would lead to expanding our existing collection.
Indigenous women is the beginning of a long-term effort to address the most important development challenges, based on the idea that women not only improve their livelihoods when they become empowered, but that this has a positive impact in their families, communities, and the country.”
Guisela
“Showcasing the work of– Godinez, Guatemala’s ambassador to Canada.
Managing NWAC’s Indigenous art is another critical piece. This would involve proper storage, safeguarding Indigenous intellectual property rights, and implementing new signage in the Centre, specifically in “The Vault”. It’s crucial that the public be able to access educational opportunities related to highlighting the perspectives and experiences of Indigenous WG2STGD+ people. NWAC’s plan is to become a leader in providing Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists with new opportunities to showcase their artwork in a public setting.
Among other duties, the curator will be responsible for properly storing new and outgoing pieces of art, organizing the stock so that we can access a piece of art quickly and plan new art shows. Bilingual signage for each art piece must be accurate and representative of the artist’s intentions. With respect to intellectual property, the curator will play a critical role in ensuring that NWAC protects the rights of the individual artists we showcase in our space.
The demand for Indigenous artwork is high and NWAC’s art sales social enterprise has achieved tremendous success in its first year (close to $60,000 in art sold between June 2022 and March 2023). We are always looking to acquire new pieces from Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists, and require funding to support our efforts in acquiring art from Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists in Turtle Island and Inuit Nunangat.
A significant component of these acquisition efforts is building relationships with Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists. This will involve domestic travel for NWAC staff to travel to networking events and engage with Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists and/or for Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists to travel to our Centre. This will help us build our own collection of unique Indigenous art representative of a variety of Indigenous artists (both active and deceased).
While the focus of these trips is to acquire art for display and sale, it is also critical to build long-term relationships with Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists across Turtle Island and Inuit Nunangat. By supporting Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists, NWAC is contributing to ongoing efforts of economic reconciliation. We are also helping to lift up their careers by purchasing their art at fair market value and displaying their art at the Centre.
In 2021, NWAC launched a call to young Indigenous artists, with support from TikTok, to submit artwork which we would purchase and display in our Social and Economic Innovation Centre. The call-out included the following prompt for the artwork: “What does resiliency look like to you?”
We received a high volume of responses and purchased over 30 pieces from young Indigenous artists. Many of the submissions included narrative responses to the prompt—thus providing insight into the meaning behind the artwork. Here are examples of the artwork that was purchased as a result of this initiative.
“A little girl using a Tuuq (ice chisel), a tool essential for Inuit to survive in the Arctic, to access food and water. The little girl is using the Tuuq as a symbol of strength and resilience; as a visual of being carried by the next generation.”
– Kaytlyn Niego
“The painting Future Generations was inspired by the stories of residential school survivors who had the strength to overcome their traumas and continue to embrace our culture. Resiliency to me looks like our ancestors and our future generations who continue to heal and head toward brighter futures. Since completing the first artwork, I have since created a second titled Healing. This piece was mostly inspired by the woman who raised me, my grandmother, who was a residential school survivor. This piece was tailored to the stories she shared with me. The trauma she faced, the alcoholism she struggled with, and how she had to heal her own inner child, representing the broken child being in a warm embrace. She is one of the most resilient and inspirational people I know.”
– Kara Tourangeau
To help aspiring Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists grow their career, NWAC will host eight mentorship and networking workshops both in-person and virtually. These workshops will be used to connect Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists with one another and provide new economic opportunities.
Through this project, NWAC plans to host a
If there was one word to describe ribbon skirt maker Winter Aputi Doxtator, it would be “growth”—growth in creating from a place of trauma to a place of balanced beauty; growth from sewing as a hobby to sewing to provide an income; and growth from what was a pastime or side-gig to a successful, full-time business.
Ms. Doxtator learned the basics of sewing before many kids are even potty-trained. At just two years old, she was already practising how to thread plastic needles and bead on mesh materials purchased from the dollar store. Between the ages of 8 and 12, she and her brother started to create outfits and headpieces to wear in powwows. Now, about 20 years later, she is making a career out of sewing.
As children, sewing was a part of “growing up,” Ms. Doxtator said. “It was good for development.” And when they were able to create their own powwow pieces, it became a “two birds, one stone” scenario.
Later in life, when dealing with infertility and a miscarriage, sewing became therapeutic. She was diagnosed with endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome and was told she would never be able to carry a child to term.
“I was sewing, really, just to get up and do something instead of being in bed,” says Ms. Doxtator. But creating was never something to take the place of, or suppress, her trauma. Sewing was, and still is, a tool to help her feel it, embrace it, and grow through it. “That trauma is present and you have to attend to it as much as you can.”
Through grief and trauma, she honed her skills for making ribbon skirts, which she is most known for today. Creating became a way to express herself when she couldn’t find the words.
“There’s a lot of different teachings, backgrounds, stories, and legends, and they’re all so beautiful. Not all of them are able to be put into words though,” says Doxtator. She made a water and walleye ribbon skirt as an expression of gratitude she felt for the skill of fishing, which occupied much of her time while trying to heal from depression. She felt powerfully attached
to the skirt, but never wore it. She didn’t understand what the purpose of the skirt was until she met a fisherman’s widow.
“There was a woman whose husband of 20 years had passed away. They always went out fishing together. I got the skirt out and it fit her perfectly. And I was like, ‘Perfect. This is yours. It was made for you,’” Doxtator says. “She doesn’t speak English, so it was the perfect form of expression.”
With time, and healing, came two successful, full-term babies for Doxtator and her husband. And, through that, her sewing also grew.
“The way I sew now comes from a place of victory and conviction and just happiness rather than the way things were before,” she says.
From there, Ms. Doxtator was invited to speak as a panelist at one of NWAC’s Indigenous Artisan Business Network workshops, which she says was another career-altering experience for her. She
describes it as both “exciting” and “scary” and certainly something that took her outside of her comfort zone.
“People within my own circle were like, ‘I never knew you were a speaker’ and I was like, ‘Well, I never had a chance to speak before’,” says Ms. Doxtator. She said the experience solidified her presence as a businesswoman and allowed her to speak on some “really big topics” she hadn’t publicly or professionally talked about before.
“I never had a platform where I could talk about my business, or how I got started or what makes it tick, or anything like that,” she said. “It was a really big learning curve for my little league business. But I’m super happy to have had it happen.”
She used the space as a panelist to talk about the challenges she has faced being a young, female, Indigenous entrepreneur, all while overcoming personal triumphs and traumas. She also spoke of her aspirations and vision for her business’s future.
Her story and transparency touched many others, too, because after speaking as a panelist her business grew significantly. “I really started kind of going viral. I had a lot of orders coming in. A week and a
To ensure ongoing accessibility of NWAC’s art exhibition space, we have been facilitating guided tours and providing detailed information on the many art pieces on display throughout the Centre. The tours are an example of how we are amplifying the work of Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists from around the world—empowering their perspectives and experiences and helping to further build their career as an artist.
$800,000
Investing in the Native Women’s Association of Canada’s art and culture programming initiative will help us:
1. Support and expand the capacity of our Art and Culture Unit to support engagements with Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists and activities around art management, storage organization, and Indigenous intellectual property
2. Build relationships nationally to support the acquisition of artwork and the economic resiliency of Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists
3. Provide networking and mentorship opportunities for Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists and aspiring artists
4. Showcase and educate the Canadian public and visitors to Canada on art by Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists through detailed guided tours of the Centre, particularly “The Vault”
• Develop a policy on Indigenous intellectual property and put into implementation
• Host three rotating Indigenous art showcases in “The Vault”
• Engage in/facilitate three domestic trips per year to build relationships and network with Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists in Canada, and acquire their artwork
• Acquire $100,000 worth of artwork made by Indigenous WG2STGD+ artists in Canada
• Host eight networking/mentorship workshops, each with 25 people (200 people in Year 1)
• Host 10 tours per month, with an average of eight guests per tour (80 people in Year 1)
Join us as we elevate and celebrate Indigenous artists and advance reconciliation through art.
Miigwetch, Thank you, Merci
Contact:
Nan Wehbe - Director, Philanthropy
Native Women’s Association of Canada
SUPPORTING NWAC’S ART AND CULTURE PROGRAMMING
NATIVE WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
DEBRA VINCENT “From Darkness to Light”