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wāwīndamaw – promise: Indigenous Art and Colonial Treaties in Canada, Nordamerika Native Museum (NONAM), Zurich, Switzerland (April 8, 2022 to January 8, 2023).

wāwīndamaw means promise. Three Anishinaabe artists, Barry Ace, Michael Belmore, and Frank Shebageget respond to the concept of treaty and treaty-making processes in Canada; inherent rights and relationship to land and power; and the historical and contemporary impacts from an Indigenous perspective.

For wāwīndamaw. promise: Indigenous Art and Colonial Treaties in Canada, Ace created a brand new site specific work that is an extension of his 2018 collaborative work For as long as the sun shines, grass grows and water flows made during his Art + Law Indigenous Artist in Residence Program, a partnership between the Arts Council Windsor & Region, the University of Windsor Faculty of Law and School of Creative Arts (Windsor, Ontario, Canada).  The Art + Law residency brought together 94 students, faculty, and participants from the Indigenous community and the general public around a collaborative project that coalesced a very complex document, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s – 94 Calls to Action. The TRC was charged to listen to Survivors, their families, communities and others affected by the residential school system and educate Canadians about their experiences. Starting in 2008, the TRC spent 6 years travelling to all parts of Canada and heard from more than 6,500 witnesses. They also hosted 7 national events across Canada to engage the Canadian public, educate people about the history and legacy of the residential schools system, and share and honour the experiences of former students and their families. In June 2015, the TRC held its closing event in Ottawa and presented the executive summary of the findings contained in its multi-volume final report, including 94 “calls to action” (or recommendations) to further reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous peoples through social, political, economic and cultural reparations including the recognition and honour of treaty agreements.

During the  Art + Law Indigenous Artist in Residence Program, the participants worked with Ace and completed over a 4 day period 54 mixed media beaded panels with 94 handwritten call to action scrolls that were mounted together in a continuous horizontal row set against a larger painted blue strip referencing a wampum belt. By creating this site specific collaborative work, Ace and the participants completed Call to Action #83, in particular “for Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to undertake collaborative projects and produce works that contribute to the reconciliation process;” and Call to Action #28, “law schools in Canada to require all law students to take a course in Aboriginal people and the law, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations.”

For as long as the sun shines, grass grows and water flows (2018) is included in the NONAM exhibition wāwīndamaw. promise: Indigenous Art and Colonial Treaties in Canada.

Ace’s new site specific work for the exhibition is based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). While the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) – Calls to Action document is applicable within Canada, UNDRIP is an international instrument that calls for the international recognition of Indigenous treaty rights by the United Nations and signatory countries. Article 37 of UNDRIP states:

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements concluded with States or their successors and to have States honour and respect such treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements.

2. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as diminishing or eliminating the rights of indigenous peoples contained in treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements.

The new work waawiindmawaa – promise (to promise something to somebody) consists of three floor pottery vessels that rest on top of three mounds of sand mixed with cedar, sage and tobacco. Evenly spaced apart, each vessel is positioned directly below and is in dialogue with For as long as the sun shines, grass grows and water flows (2018). The collaborative workshop sessions took place in Zurich at NONAM with a second session taking place at the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (MEG) in Geneva. They involved 46 international law students, artists and general public participants (23 in Zurich and 23 in Geneva) who each hand-beaded a floral motif design and hand wrote one of the 46 UNDRIP articles in graphite on a sheet of vellum. At the start of the workshop, each participant confirmed their participation by first surrendering their rights to the collaborative work by signing a witnessed document and symbolically accepting one Swiss Franc in exchange for the extinguishment of their rights. This surrender was a wry reference to the treaty-making process in Canada.

During the workshop, the participants discussed and reflected on the meaning and intent of UNDRIP and its impact on Indigenous peoples in Canada and globally.  At the conclusion of the workshop, the vellum sheets were rolled into scrolls and attached to the beaded floral medallion with a tobacco tie and placed in one of the three pottery vessels.  This collaborative work is a collective acknowledgement of UNDRIP and a commitment by the United Nations and Canada as signatory to this international declaration to uphold and honour the treaty agreements (including other social, political, economic and cultural rights contained therein) with Indigenous peoples of Canada. When read together, the works are a contemporary visual and mnemonic waawiindmawaa – promise.

waawiindmawaa – promise draws international attention to the twenty-five references to UNDRIP cited in the TRC Calls to Action, including:

TRC Call 43. We call upon federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to fully adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation.

TRC Call 44. We call upon the Government of Canada to develop a national action plan, strategies, and other concrete measures to achieve the goals of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The work also fulfills the TRC Call #83 and takes it to an international level, “We call upon the Canada Council for the Arts to establish, as a funding priority, a strategy for Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to undertake collaborative projects and produce works that contribute to the reconciliation process.” 

While undertaking the workshops in Zurich and Geneva between April 22 and April 28, the Assembly of First Nations, National Chief RoseAnne Archibald was in New York City calling for the United Nations to launch an independent investigation into Canada’s role in violations of human rights associated with residential schools. She made the request at the 21st Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on April 25, 2022 and also sent a written request to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Barry Ace acknowledges all of the participants for their unwavering support in the completion of these collaborate works and for their artistic activism and advocacy in heightening international and domestic awareness of social, political, economic, environmental, cultural, treaty and land based rights of Indigenous people in Canada and globally.

Barry Ace acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts; Nordamerika Native Museum (Zurich, Switzerland);  Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (Geneva, Switzerland); and the Embassy of Canada to Switzerland and Liechtenstein (Bern, Switzerland).

Barry Ace is represented by Heffel Galleries (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver).

Download PDF Poster (here)

Download Program PDF (here)

Download Workshop PDF (here)

Workshop Video Short (MEG/NONAM) (here)

Manitoulin Expositor “Peace pipe used in 1836 Manitoulin Treaty signing being repatriated to Mnidoo Mnising”

Cover art for Les Cahier du CIÉRA Journal #Numéro spécial – 2023-04-04 Déclaration des Nations Unies sur les droits des peuples autochtones : des pistes d’interprétation

List of Participants by UNDRIP Article:

Zurich (NONAM)

1. 1. Morena Dollé
   2. Sebastian Benavides Florez
   3. Souad Khairallah
   4. Gabriella Naidu
   5. Sabrina Berardelli
   6. Helena Nyberg
   7. Simon Karrer
   8. Heinz Entzeroth
   9. Viola Stäheli
   10. Ulrike Kastrup
   11. Melanie de Visser
   12. Esther Siegrist
   13. Nina Mildred Reuther
   14. Laura Tschigg
   15. Laura Sigg
   16. Daniel Seitz
   17. Sairan Kareem
   18. Yvonne Sandoz
   19. Katharina Kägi
   20. Lea Sophie Richter
   21. Peter Keller
   22. Rahel Benavides Florez
   23. Eveline Nussbaumer (Runa Löb, Karin Kaufmann)

Geneva (MEG)

1. 24. Rosie H. Cook
   25. Romy Peschl
   26. Juan José Ruiz Quintero
   27. Anouck Hoyois
   28. Eduardo Cavalcanti de Mello
   29. Yannick Gilestro
   30. Adriana Batalha
   31. Kyle Lynch
   32. Margot Donzé
   33. Thomas Gindrat
   34. Johnathan Watts
   35. Isabel Garcia Gomez
   36. Larissa Mina Lee
   37. Jason Nemerovski
   38. Monika Egli
   39. Farzad Fallah
   40. Kilian Anheuser
   41. Marisa Giustiniani
   42. Chiara Cosenza
   43. Barry Ace
   44. Lucie Monot
   45. Mauricio Estrada Muñoz
   46. Mariia Bykova