Evolution of art takes delegates Beyond Survival

Page 6

It is time to take control of Native work and move on from the past, said aboriginal artists at an international conference in Hull.

Artists from around the world came to the Museum of Civilization to take part in the first international conference of Indigenous writers, performing and visual artists. Called Beyond Survival - The Walking Dreamer Ends The Silence, the conference allowed some 200delegates three days to network and participate in workshops with one another.

Merata Mita, a Maori film maker from New Zealand, said the most important element of the conference for her was it gave the impetus to progress from dealing only with the victimization of indigenous people by European colonizers. Aboriginal people are "overthrowing the mantle of the victim. We are not going to sit back any longer and blame, blame, blame the witness," she said.

"We take our destiny in our own hands and move forward and leave the past behind. Our traditions are strong enough to sustain us to go forward," Mita added.

Hohua Tutengaehe, a Maori elder, expressed the same sentiment during the closing session saying, "Stop the blaming. If we cannot forgive we cannot progress."

Many of the delegates expressed similar feelings that indigenous art must be seen as a legitimate form rather than simply a vehicle to document the victimization by whites.

The conference grew out of the 1990 International Indigenous Education Conference held in New Zealand. During that conference several delegates who were

also artists met in a special session. From that session grew a contact group with the aim of organizing a conference to deal with the issues of artistic expression.

Jeannette Armstrong, director of the En'owkin International Writing School in Penticton, B.C., was one of the main driving forces behind organizing the conference. It was her dream that such a conference could take place. "That commitment was put in my heart, anything I could do to make it possible I would do," she said.

"I feel right now that I'm not standing alone," said Armstrong.

The best demonstration of the new-found togetherness was an impromptu jam session on Sunday afternoon. Playing together were musicians from the United States, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand and Australia.

Delegates from each country have given their names to form an international contact organization. Mike Meyers, from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, said there is a need for artistic non-governmental organizations as most aboriginal NGO's are political. The artistic organizations would be both regional and internationally based to lobby for the defense of indigenous culture, he said.

"I feel we have come to a point where we're not sure of each other but we trust each other enough to support one another," said Armstrong.

Support for Beyond Survival came from mainly the En'owkin Writer's school, the Canadian Native Arts Foundation, the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which donated meeting rooms. Armstrong said the biggest hardship in organizing the conference was finding funding because of the recession.