words from Indigenous Arts Planning Conference > Gail Tremblay

"All of the art Indigenous people do is political—if you decide to do the traditional things and develop them. You are refusing to assimilate and that is a political act. If you decide to make work about the effects of nuclear pollution on your reservation, you are making a political act. If you decide to make art in a European tradition as an Indigenous person, it is a political act. The issues of being an Indigenous person will inform the conversations that people have to have in the world and the art world. We want students to show all over the world. Make Indigenous presence PRESENT in the world. Most important thing is to allow the conversation to stay very fluid and to realize that whatever we do it is not the only way to do Indigenous art. It comes from people choosing to maintain a culture together. Art is an act of sovereignty and an act of existence and presence in Indigenous Arts Planning Conference: Summary Document 30 the larger world. It means to have conversations with our communities on what it means to have a sustainable existence in this world." ---> Gail Tremblay, September 2013. MFA in Indigenous Arts Planning Conference, Evergreen State College.