Public Studio & Nyle “Miigizi” Johnston
This Place, Neyaashiinigmiing

Doris McCarthy Gallery | Scarborough, Ontario | 2020
Two video projections on custom screens, carpets, wall paint
With: Lenore Keeshig, Ange Loft, Dave Wall, Miles Rufelds, Nicole Innese-Nash, Luca Tarantini

This Place, Neyaashiinigmiing weaves a set of narratives about genetically modified fish, nuclear power and private hunting islands, against the backdrop of the Bruce Peninsula’s unforgettable landscape. In an immersive installation of video, sound and drawings, the work examines the ongoing court case between the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) and the Canadian Government contemplating how exploitative threads from Canada's colonial history continue today and have deep environmental and social impacts. Canadian Senator Justice Murray Sinclair has famously argued, regarding Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation initiatives, that “reconciliation is a verb, it is something you do.” As today’s corporate and state apparatuses feel ever-more opaque and insurmountable, we are increasingly reminded that any such conciliatory “doing” will only be possible through solidarity across cultural and class divides, between Indigenous and settler Canadians.

Public Studio produced This Place, Neyaashiinigmiing in collaboration with Nyle Miigizi Johnston, an artist, muralist, storyteller from Neyaashiinigmiing, as well as poet and geomythologist Lenore Keeshig, artist Ange Loft, composer Dave Wall, and artists Miles Rufelds, Nicole Innese-Nash, and Luca Tarantini. These works sketching imaginative and poetic associations between the political, ecological, and legal narratives that play out across Indigenous and settler history. Together, our stories weave contrasting tales of past and present, creation and colonization, dispossession and perseverance.

We thank the following who have collaborated, contributed, and helped us to form this work together: Alyssa Bistonath, Jarvis Brownlie, Jean Borrows, John Borrows, Lindsay Borrows, Lorena Fontaine, John Greyson, Kathy Guirguis, Polly Keeshig-Tobias, Peggy Mansur, Ted & Phyllis Johnston, Francis Lavalley, Fredric Lavalley, Dave Stevenson, David McLaren, Chief Greg Nadjiwon, Wendell Nadjiwon.