Tawâw! Nyaweh Sgënöh! Tunngasugitsi! Bekanwe! 

Please join Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge, Onsite Gallery and the Indigenous Visual Culture Program for a LIVE two-hour celebration of National Indigenous People’s Day on Monday June 21, 2021, from 12:00pm to 2:00pm (EDT)! OCADU President Ana Serrano will offer a warm welcome to the global community! 

This event is developed as part of Wapatah’s Global Indigeneity outreach initiatives and led by Brittany Bergin, Mariah Meawasige, and Natalja Chestopalova, with generous support from Lisa Deanne Smith of Onsite Gallery. 

Greetings from the 4 Directions is a free and ally friendly event. The discussion will be offered in English and will include simultaneous ASL interpretation.

Greetings from the 4 Directions

Starting in the East, this exciting virtual celebration of National Indigenous People’s Day will feature a series of LIVE and pre-recorded greetings, songs, and knowledge exchanges. With performances from the Great Plains to the Great Lakes, the Northern Arctic to the Southern Amazon, join the OCADU community in honouring the Summer Solstice and Festival of the Sun.  

Featured guests from the 4 Directions 

// Hosts: Gerald McMaster and Susan Blight 

// Elder Whabagoon, Keeper of Sacred Pipes, artist, land defender and water protector 

// Bill Crouse, Faith keeper, artist and leader of a Seneca dance group Allegany River Dancers 

// Olinda Silvano, Shipibo-konibo artist from Peru and author of the “Encanto de Kene” series 

// Eric Tootoosis, Poundmaker Cree Nation Knowledge-Keeper 

// Mathew Nuqingaq, Inuit artist, sculptor, and performer 

Strengthen your Indigenous (Art) Relations

Wapatah and Onsite Gallery are very excited to announce the official release of the Indigenizing the (Art) Museum Virtual Series as a set of In-Conversation lectures with leading curators from (art) museums around the world. Developed as part of Wapatah Centre’s Global Indigenity initiative, the series has been praised as “one of the pandemic’s wonderful opportunities to rub shoulders virtually with leading art world figures” by Portia Priegert of Galleries West. Each lecture braids together dialogues about curators changing the future of museum collections and asks poignant questions about how curators all over the globe are working to decolonize and Indigenize museums and curatorial approaches. Official release: June 21, 2021. 

Image Caption: Sundance at Red Pheasant Reserve – 24”H x 36”W /61cm H x 92cm W – 1970 -Acrylic on Canvas – Allen Sapp – The Allen Sapp Gallery – The Gonor Collection

Visual design by Mariah Meawasige, @makoose