Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Land rights and environmental issues have long been the cause of fiercely intense and heated disputes between the Canadian government and Aboriginal communities in British Columbia.As a province rich in natural resources and with much unceded Aboriginal territory, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been times of intense discussion and debate as to how to address and resolve these issues.Contemporary Aboriginal Northwest Coast artists have become powerful voices for facing issues that affect their communities and Canadians at large.This thesis focuses on the representation of land loss and environmental concerns in British Columbia through the work of contemporary Cowichan Coast Salish and Okanagan artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun and Kwakwaka'wakw artists Marianne Nicolson and Sonny Assu.The objective is to bring a fresh perspective to understanding the politicized artistic practice of these three artists by considering their work as a form of environmental activism.I examine the relationships between the three artists while contextualizing their work within twentiethcentury developments in Northwest Coast art.This research is informed by in-person interviews with the artists conducted in January 2016, as well as the work of scholars Gerald Vizenor, Philip J. Deloria and James Clifford among others.
Author: Jasmine Inglis
Language: English
Topic: Art, Politics, and Modernism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W2890102492