This thesis examines the conflicted relationships between the construction of a national culture and identity located in landscape painting and the continuing presence of Native art and identity in Canada in the 1920s. It contends that the first was predicated on the assumed disappearance of the second. The first of five case studies examines and questions the validation of the Group of Seven at the imperial centre: the British Empire Exhibitions held at Wembley in 1924 and 1925, from which Native presence was excluded. The critical responses, collected and republished in Canada, are analyzed to show the unspoken influences of British landscape traditions, the means by which Group paintings were used to re-territorialize the nation, and to destabilize the myth of an essential Canadian national consciousness. The first confrontation between Canadian native and Native art occurred when a small group of Northwest Coast carvings was included within a related exhibition in Paris in 1927. The French critical responses validated the Native pieces but withheld recognition of the Group's works as national and modern. The reviews were collected but suppressed. The third study examines the work of the American artist Langdon Kihn. He was employed by the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways to work with the folklorist/ethnologist Marius Barbeau in producing images of the Stoney in Alberta and Gitksan in British Columbia. His ambiguous works supported claims to Native presence and cultural continuity, which ran contrary to repressive government policies, but were critically disciplined to ensure a message of discontinuity. The fourth investigates a program to restore the poles of the Gitksan, while changing their meaning to one signifying cultural decrepitude. Gitksan resistance testified to their agency, cultural continuity and identity. The fifth examines a program fostered by Barbeau to turn the Gitksan and their poles into the subjects of Canadian painting as "background" for the emerging nation's identity. This confrontation, which included Jackson, Carr and others, foregrounded all the problems. The exhibition which resulted in 1927 unsuccessfully attempted to join Canadian native and Native art and effect closure on the "narration of the nation".

This thesis examines the conflicted relationships between the construction of a national culture and identity located in landscape painting and the continuing presence of Native art and identity in Canada in the 1920s. It contends that the first was predicated on the assumed disappearance of the second. The first of five case studies examines and questions the validation of the Group of Seven at the imperial centre: the British Empire Exhibitions held at Wembley in 1924 and 1925, from which Native presence was excluded. The critical responses, collected and republished in Canada, are analyzed to show the unspoken influences of British landscape traditions, the means by which Group paintings were used to re-territorialize the nation, and to destabilize the myth of an essential Canadian national consciousness. The first confrontation between Canadian native and Native art occurred when a small group of Northwest Coast carvings was included within a related exhibition in Paris in 1927. The French critical responses validated the Native pieces but withheld recognition of the Group's works as national and modern. The reviews were collected but suppressed. The third study examines the work of the American artist Langdon Kihn. He was employed by the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways to work with the folklorist/ethnologist Marius Barbeau in producing images of the Stoney in Alberta and Gitksan in British Columbia. His ambiguous works supported claims to Native presence and cultural continuity, which ran contrary to repressive government policies, but were critically disciplined to ensure a message of discontinuity. The fourth investigates a program to restore the poles of the Gitksan, while changing their meaning to one signifying cultural decrepitude. Gitksan resistance testified to their agency, cultural continuity and identity. The fifth examines a program fostered by Barbeau to turn the Gitksan and their poles into the subjects of Canadian painting as "background" for the emerging nation's identity. This confrontation, which included Jackson, Carr and others, foregrounded all the problems. The exhibition which resulted in 1927 unsuccessfully attempted to join Canadian native and Native art and effect closure on the "narration of the nation". / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

La création artistique autochtone est indissociable des luttes politiques. Dans un contexte colonial, les modes d’être, d’agir et de penser Autochtones sont profondément affectés. L’art est une arme puissante dans cette lutte pour la décolonisation. Cette étude s’intéressera ainsi au potentiel de transformation et de décolonisation de la création artistique autochtone, à travers la pratique artistique de l’artiste Algonquine Nadia Myre. Plusieurs de ses œuvres adressent la mixité identitaire et la violence coloniale subie par les Autochtones. Indian Act (fig.1) dénonce, à l’aide d’une réécriture perlée traditionnelle et participative, un texte de loi colonial qui a conduit à une injustice épistémique profonde. Pour adresser ces problématiques, nous nous ancrerons sur un objet particulier, le wampum. Dans cette recherche, nous le considérerons comme un vecteur de résurgence et de décolonisation profondes. La position socio-politique ancienne et contemporaine essentielle du wampum en fait un support didactique privilégié de résurgence. Grâce à l’utilisation du motif du wampum dans la pratique artistique de Nadia Myre, nous pourrons cheminer à travers ces luttes et comprendre comment les artistes Autochtones les engagent. Le wampum sera présenté comme une rhétorique discursive, matérielle et immatérielle, un hypertexte, un hyperlien (Haas 2007) entre tradition et modernité, oralité et écriture, qui sera supportée par la théorie de l’intermédialité. Jacques Derrida et la Déconstruction seront également convoqués pour examiner le travail de réécriture effectué par Myre dans Indian Act. Il s’agira également de comprendre comment la proposition participative de Nadia Myre pourrait permettre un engagement allochtone vers une justice épistémique décoloniale. / Aboriginal artistic creation is inseparable from political struggles. In a colonial context, Aboriginal ways of being, acting and thinking are deeply affected. Art is a powerful weapon in this struggle for decolonization. This study will therefore focus on the transformative and decolonizing potential of Aboriginal artistic creation through the artistic practice of Algonquin artist Nadia Myre. Several of her works address the mixed identity and colonial violence suffered by Aboriginal people. Indian Act (fig.1) denounces, through a traditional and participatory beaded rewriting, a colonial law that has led to a profound epistemic injustice. To address these issues, we will focus on a specific object, the wampum. In this research, we will consider it as a vector of deep resurgence and decolonization. The essential ancient and contemporary socio-political position of wampum makes it a privileged didactic support of resurgence. Through the use of the wampum motif in Nadia Myre's artistic practice, we will be able to walk through these struggles and understand how Aboriginal artists engage them. Wampum will be presented as a discursive rhetoric, material and immaterial, a hypertext, a hyperlink (Haas 2007) between tradition and modernity, orality and writing, which will be supported by the theory of intermediality. Jacques Derrida and the Deconstruction will also be convened to examine the rewriting work done by Myre in Indian Act. It will also be a question of understanding how Nadia Myre's participatory proposal could enable an allochtonous engagement towards decolonial epistemic justice.