Uploaded February 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Portrait of Lee-Ann Martin, 2019 #GGARTS winner youtu.be/XCU1pq_31ZU
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Lee-Ann Martin is the 2019 winner of the Outstanding Contribution Award for the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Aquiles Ascenscion.
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and AvidEye Productions. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
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Transcript:
If the world were to decide to ignore contemporary Indigenous art, I would ask people to think about the Indigenous art that they know today and think about the world without it. Think about the Kent Monkmans, Rebecca Belmores and all the other artists today—in Canada alone, nevermind in the rest of the world—and the perspectives that they bring to it, the expansion of a certain consciousness.
It was my interest in art from the very beginning that led me towards curating Indigenous art, because at the time—we’re talking 1987, over 30 years ago—there weren’t exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous art very often or in very many art galleries or museums in Canada at that time. And I didn’t choose curating at the time. I think curating more chose me, because I needed to get my master’s degree and study the issues of Indigenous peoples and museums in order to work in museums to have at least one voice. There needed to be more Indigenous representation.
Close Encounters, which I co-curated with three colleagues, was an international Indigenous exhibition to look at the future. And the idea about the future was the fact that for so long, Indigenous people, cultures, arts, have been relegated to the past by the public, researchers, historians, anthropologists, art historians, and so we wanted to say, “No, we can see the future too, and we can imagine it, and we can make it real.”
Nearly 20 years, I really feel that in Indigena in 1992 to Close Encounters, looking at the future, I felt that there has been great movement in understanding the complexities and perspectives of Indigenous peoples. To me, what we did 25 years ago was really just prying the lid off the box. And now it’s open, and it’s exciting, and complicated and challenging.
Portrait of Lee-Ann Martin, 2019 #GGARTS winner youtu.be/XCU1pq_31ZU
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Lee-Ann Martin is the 2019 winner of the Outstanding Contribution Award for the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Aquiles Ascenscion.
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and AvidEye Productions. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
If the world were to decide to ignore contemporary Indigenous art, I would ask people to think about the Indigenous art that they know today and think about the world without it. Think about the Kent Monkmans, Rebecca Belmores and all the other artists today—in Canada alone, nevermind in the rest of the world—and the perspectives that they bring to it, the expansion of a certain consciousness.
It was my interest in art from the very beginning that led me towards curating Indigenous art, because at the time—we’re talking 1987, over 30 years ago—there weren’t exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous art very often or in very many art galleries or museums in Canada at that time. And I didn’t choose curating at the time. I think curating more chose me, because I needed to get my master’s degree and study the issues of Indigenous peoples and museums in order to work in museums to have at least one voice. There needed to be more Indigenous representation.
Close Encounters, which I co-curated with three colleagues, was an international Indigenous exhibition to look at the future. And the idea about the future was the fact that for so long, Indigenous people, cultures, arts, have been relegated to the past by the public, researchers, historians, anthropologists, art historians, and so we wanted to say, “No, we can see the future too, and we can imagine it, and we can make it real.”
Nearly 20 years, I really feel that in Indigena in 1992 to Close Encounters, looking at the future, I felt that there has been great movement in understanding the complexities and perspectives of Indigenous peoples. To me, what we did 25 years ago was really just prying the lid off the box. And now it’s open, and it’s exciting, and complicated and challenging.
