 and CUNY, the City University of New York at the Graduate Center. It's another day on planet Earth, another day in New York City. And we are continuing our journey around the world. Yesterday, we were in Kenya and we're listening to three great theater workers who told us about the new developments, how it is, how they experienced the time of Corona actually quite well, very low. Very low cases and they feel that their government is handling it so much better than the U.S. and they are right. And so today we move on to a country that seems so far away from New York and America, yet it is so close, it's Canada. And we had the seagulls and that many exchanges with playwrights, writers with the Quebecois delegation, Emmanuel Siouard who helped us to connect to this Champierre and everyone in New York, Taylor Gaines who's now there, but people in New York do not know so much about Canada. They know more about, perhaps, you were Britain and in France, in Paris, they know more about Canadian playwrights and artists on Berlin than we in New York do. So it's something very strange. There seems to be a time wall, an invisible wall between those two countries. And as Michael Moore in his great documentaries also showed when it came to gun violence and others, this is just an invisible markation on the ground. Things work differently. There are different forms of government, different forms of engagement, different forms of healthcare, different forms of art support. And it does show how radically different it is and that the forms we live by are of significance. Today it's again a day of incredibly high cases in the U.S. It's a big spike, 85 to 90%. It is going up. It's a devastating situation for testing. Meanwhile, almost all the industrial nations in the world have testing available in the U.S. A long, long line. Some people have to wait for two weeks. I want this morning to have if I want to get a test, how long would it be the earliest I was offered this? The 17th of July. So something is going terribly wrong. Numbers in India, Russia, Brazil, UK are going up. UK is terribly hit. And they're doing something really wrong there. They don't seem to be able to manage it in a good way. Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president who so recklessly ignored this crisis now has been tested positive. Today just came out and Brazil started late, but already I think they have over 35,000 dead people. It's one of the countries that's really, really in danger. The U.S. government put $1.6 billion into a vaccination Novavax. People think it might work, but it's not really clear. And of course, we all hope that by the end of the year there is a vaccination. Australia is again in lockdown in Melbourne. Israel is thinking about a lockdown again as a Switzerland depression in healthcare workers has been detected. They are not doing well. It's way too long a time around the globe. It's devastating numbers of people infected, but also the daily onslaught and no end inside is putting a big strain on everyone. International students in the U.S. are in danger. It looks like they all will have to leave the U.S. even if they're already here. They will not get a visa to stay here. They save online courses are available. Why would you be in our country? It's shocking, it's wrong. It's against that idea that studying, so it's being part in a different country is significant. So we hope that this will not be the case, but it is quite shocking what we are going through. The UK gave $2 billion towards the arts with all they are doing wrong for the vaccinations and keeping the people safe. They put $2 billion towards museums, theater companies and places that create cultural events. In the U.S., we don't see that New York City actually lost 1 million jobs. New York City alone in this crisis, it's devastating. It will take many, many years to get back to New York City, but what it was, if it ever will. And we do believe in this city, it's a great city and things will change, but it is a devastating moment and still no indoor dining and it is complicated. Animals are dying, there are less slaughterhouses all across Europe and in the U.S. are being monitored and so their transports have more animals and them in the farms, they can get out. So there is really, and not just in the human world also in the animal world, there's many infections for those poor creatures. So it's showing what everything was wrong already. Again, it shows that forms are not working. We need new initiatives, new ideas and we have to reinvent everything. It's like in the creation myth, as spider women told us, we are in a new creation myth. There's a mad king, there is a plague in the country and things are not working and we have to find different ways. There are also studies now coming out in Europe that say not only coughing and being close is dangerous. Heavy particles actually fall quite fast onto the earth, but in rooms, in air, particles might stay much, much longer. It has to be studied. The World Health Organization is not fully accepting that as a possible means of transmitting the virus, but it looks like it is a much more dangerous hemathoron. If there will be any mutations, what's normally happens, we all do not know what will be. Tesla, together with the German company, is producing little units that will print RNA testing and once something is available, they hope they can find something to produce vaccinations independently in France, which is a great idea. So things are out there, never the medical and scientific community has collaborated so closely together. Over 100 vaccinations are out there and if there's a 1% chance that one of them works, it should be something in here. So after our talks again, which went from Africa, Japan and Hong Kong, which is a very, very complicated situation after also the talk with our colleagues in Hong Kong, where China now is fully implementing a law that is disrespectful of signed agreements and for theater artists, it will be complicated to do and continue to do the work they have been doing. We now go to Canada and I apologize for my long introduction, but we think we are recording the presence at the moment. We learned that we didn't think about this when these talks starts, but this is an archiving of the presence of the moment. And no other profession was properly will have such a large documentation of what happened in the time of Corona in the performing arts world. And today we really needed to hear from Canada. So with us are two brilliant representatives of Canada and this theater. So with us is the great Emily Monet. Emily, hello there. She is working at the intersection of theater and performance and media arts and her artistic practice favors collaborative processes of creation and is typically presented an interdisciplinary theater and immersive performance experience. She's the artistic director of the Onishka Productions and is the artist and resident at the Centre du Théâtre d'aujourd'hui in Montreal. She founded four years ago, ICS, the Indigenous Contemporary Scene, a nomadic platform for the presentation of live arts by and creative exchanges for Indigenous artists. And they went to Edinburgh already with it. She is a Algonquin Anishinaabe and French and she grew up in Ottawa-Web, Quebec and Laulips in Montreal. Monet Young, if I say it right, with us also, and she suggested that, is Greg Hill, a very good friend of hers, the National Gallery of Canada's inaugural Audien Chair and Senior Curator of Indigenous Art. He is an artist and part of the Mohawk Kenyan K. Hakka member of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. He has built an impressive collection of contemporary Indigenous art at the gallery and is a senior curator there and he, of course, is curating series there for that great, great space. So both of you, thank you for joining. Thank you for listening. Now it's time to listen to you. Where are you exactly? And normally I say, what time is it? But I guess it's the same time as New York. So, Emily, where are you now? Well, I'm in the Utawe. I'm in a town near Ottawa called Chelsea. So it's right in the Gatineau Park. And yeah, so it's surrounded by lakes and there's a river and trees. And it's also the place around here that I grew up. So it's actually quite special to be back. So I really feel like I'm taking care of my roots. And so that's quite nice. When did you move there? When did you go there? Well, I was born in Ottawa. So I grew up in that area of a lot of my childhood and teenage years. But now I live and work in Montreal. But because of the pandemic and the confinement, then I left the city because that's really where the hotspot is in Canada. It's Montreal is really hotspot of Canada. So it just made more sense to just leave the city and be in nature and really seize that opportunity to make big changes in my life in that way. So part of it was moving, moving, moving out of the city. Yeah. Since only March or? Since only March, yes, yes, yes. And because also everything has stopped in theaters. So all the tours and the rehearsals and the shows have been canceled. So everything has opened up. So it just made more sense to come and re-ground myself and resource myself because it was really a mirror on the pace of life that we have in the industry. It's an industry too, right? Theater because we do get caught in that machine of having to present work, having to some right grants and then making sure that we have activities planned for through the year and so on. So it's been everything stopped. And it was as uncertain as it was at times and stressful. It was also an opportunity, I think, to cease to really reflect on my practice and on being more stable and present in the moment. So yeah, that's where it is right now. What were you when you basically had to make up your mind? What were you doing? Well, I was in Sydney, Australia with Greg. We were actually at the Sydney Biennale Art Biennale. And we had to change our flights right away. It was, they were thinking of closing the borders. And I remember we were like, ooh, should we change our tickets? And then they actually, I think they close the borders like four or five days after. So we really had to change our tickets. And then we had to be in quarantine and got tested too. And then since then, I think people are getting more used to the fact that this is the way we live now. So people are slacking off a bit in terms of restrictions but it's still important to stay as confined as possible. So you were theater play in Sydney on exhibition or what was your... I was accompanying Greg. I mean, Greg, maybe you can talk more about the Biennale but it was the first time there was an indigenous curator for the Biennale. So that was, there was a very big representation of indigenous artists at the Biennale all from all over the globe. So, yeah, and there was a big conference that was starting but they had to cancel, everything was being canceled. So we had to cancel everything too. And then when I was coming back, I was supposed to go to Guayana, French Guayana to go on tour for a play that I wrote called Okinom. And we had to cancel too, like everybody. So it came to a full stop. So Greg, you rather go to Sydney or is it closer than being in New York City? What is your relation to New York and the scene here? And tell us a bit what you did in Sydney. Well, I'll get to that. First, I'm going to answer your first question, like where am I? Because I'm in the same house as Emily, right? So just like the backtrack a little bit, we're in a relationship, that's why we were in Sydney at the same time and we're actually in the same place now. As Emily was explaining, you know, partially due to COVID and the really the risk of being in a big city like Montreal, which is much like New York in that sense. Here, here, here in Chelsea, which is just a little bit north of Ottawa, there's not much COVID positive in this region. So that's a good thing. And as Emily was saying, you can really see that people are relaxing here and kind of going back as restrictions ease to life as normal in a lot of ways. Things were very different for us, you know, when we were in Sydney. What was it? You were, you were, you segue to Sydney. What was it specifically you wanted to know? No, the idea that perhaps we, in New York, if you'll be as close as it should be and the Indigenous are, so is it you feel closer to the scene in Sydney or in New York than to New York? Well, well, I mean, as a Mohawk or a person of Mohawk ancestry, I feel pretty close to New York, New York State. Those are our traditional territories. So in New York, there's a lot of Indigenous people in New York. So I've been to New York many times for artwork to go to exhibitions, to see artwork to visit collections, to visit artists. And most recently we were there for Kent Lickman's unveiling at the Met. So those two commissioned paintings, I believe, yeah, they should still be there installed in the lobby at the Met, which was a fantastic moment, you know, for the Met to recognize Indigenous art in that way and they're kind of opening up now to Indigenous artists and Black artists being more representative. So, yeah, New York is, as an art center, has always been important. And in the Indigenous art world, it's important as well. Many, many artists, Indigenous artists from all over congregate in New York, just like non-Indigenous artists because of access to... There's more access there, there's more working spaces, there's community. And we have all different kinds of communities. So New York is an important one. Yeah, Nomes, thank you. That's good to know that in that world level, it's a great exchange. How is the situation for Indigenous artists in Canada when we spoke to spider women, Marielle and Gloria, their son-in-law died, a company member died, friends died? So we are very, very much infacted, very much inflicted by this. And of course, in fact, the two-byte. But this is just, how is it in Canada? Well, I think a lot of regions are still not too exposed to the virus, regions where a lot of Indigenous communities are. But they're more vulnerable too, so it's very important to protect and make sure that the virus does not travel to these regions because then it can be very, very, more than problematic. It's going to be a catastrophe because the health system is not the same as in the city. So to have access to respirators and to medicine will be very hard or impossible in some cases. And there's a lot of people or elders too. So it jeopardizes the life of our elders too. So it's very important to stay, to make sure that we still confine and we respect these regulations that the government has put into place because it's a responsibility to make sure that we don't jeopardize the life of our elders. That's what I think about a lot, personally. There's, I mean, there's an early on with the onset of COVID. I think when you think back in Indigenous communities in history and epidemics of smallpox that wiped out 90% of populations in some areas of the country in Canada and the West Coast, two waves of smallpox, what, 30 years apart, I think, that just devastated communities. And this trauma, this history is still very much alive in us, in our friends. So the fear of COVID going to those communities that were devastated that long ago is still alive. And it adds to it in that sense. But also, as Emily was saying, like the real importance to protect and to shelter elders who are keepers of language, of tradition, of customs. So we, yeah, it's interesting to experience it in that way and to think about from Indigenous perspectives how that translates to in how it's redefining what we think of as curating what a curator does. Traditionally, a curator cares for objects, and now our role is kind of shifting more to caring for artists. Especially for contemporary curators, you know, it's an important part of your job is your relationship with the artist. But this is becoming more important. And even care for each other within our institution. Like I work at the National Gallery of Canada, it's a national level institution. So in essence, it has a national scope. But with COVID and the kind of insular environments we're all having to create around ourselves, there's been a lot of internal reconfiguring or internal reckoning, you could say too. And it's just the whole world has changed just in terms of how we exist in the world. And I think like the very literal things of Emily, just in our case, Emily having to move from Montreal to here and how much that has changed both of our lives. So there's the macro and the micro view in relation to what COVID is doing. But the picture you painted at the outset, it's pretty dire what's happening in the US, the UK, Brazil, and we're in a pretty good situation here relatively. So I mean, my heart was out to you and dealing with that in New York. Even our personal circles, we don't know too many people that came down with it. I know a few, but deaths, not as much. So that's a good thing. But I guess I feel blessed right now to be in a more positive situation that we're in. But I think it's also a reality check because pandemics are very directly linked to the degradation of the environment and the industry of farming and slaughterhouses. And it has a direct effect on me as an artist too, because I can't work. If we can't be in places where we can gather, it's really affecting my practice as well. So I think it's a reality check because there's probably going to be a second wave and it's probably just the start of more climate change consequences, more pandemics too. We have prophecies too that speak of this too. So I can't not think about what I've heard elders say or medicine people say about these prophecies. Well, I don't carry the knowledge to be able to transmit it like that. But it is even in the creation stories that we have. There was a world before this one too, and the world was destroyed and recreated. So I think it's still that spiral of creation and destruction. But I'm not as worried for maybe the earth, because the earth has the power to heal and regenerate itself. It's more for us as human beings. And one of the prophecy that we often refer to is one of the eight fire of the seventh fire, and then we're coming to a crossroad. And probably we are at that crossroad, and there's two different paths to choose. And one, if we continue in that greed mentality of taking too much, then pandemics will happen and more things. So it's something to think about too, I think. Are you both concerned for your communities? Well, what is my community? My community is my family, a group of artists that I have, my peers. I'm concerned for them, of course. I'm concerned for my community of artists that I know through my profession. I'm concerned for my reserve community. I didn't grow up there. I was born in Fort Deere, Ontario, so I don't refer to Six Nations as a Grand River Territory as my community, because I know that they're, of course, I'm concerned for people there in the state. How is the situation there? How is the situation there? Do you have some insight? It's not bad. It's Ontario near Toronto, but conditions there are relatively good compared to how some reserves are in Canada. So I think that it's relatively in a good place. You know, I have, like everyone, I have elderly relatives in care, and that's of course a concern, but so far so good there as well. It's more, I think the effects are more personally working from home for now four months, I guess, since we arrived back from Sydney in March 15th. And those kinds of adjustments, I mean, I'm literally trying to go through, figure out medically what's happening with me, because I'm having difficulty breathing, and it's like there's all these different theories right now as to why COVID is not one of them. But it's a result of this, whether it's ergonomics or asthma or this or that, there's something going on. And that's a thing. Our work has shifted so much to having to figure out how to do it, recalibrate, do everything, perform all of our functions. We're actually, I feel, we're twice as busy as we were before in terms of dealing with, it's more difficult to do things. I spend a lot of my time like this in meetings every day. Except for the weekends. And it's been amazing to see how much work we've been able to do since that we are doing, but at the same time, like everyone, there's a huge shift in getting to this point. There's no real end in sight either. The National Gallery is opening to the public on July 18th. Staff, the only staff that are actually there are the ones that have to be there. The frontline staff, some conservators, because we as curators can work fairly well from a home office. We're not required and even recommended to stay at home for the time being. It's strange to be, I find it strange to be at home and not able to enjoy the things of being at home. So it's, so there's this confusion. I've always tried to very much divide between my personal life and my work life. And now it's of course very difficult to do that. So it's those kinds of things that are, but I'm thinking about now. Emily, you as an artist, also as a working artist, with this great work on creating system for your community. I know my colleagues, Peter Ackerson, I'm very frequent talk to you for that book, Tramma Churches and all that. What are you thinking about in your artwork and the essential questions why we do art, what we have to focus on in these months of uninterrupted often hours of thinking is something changing? How deep do you go and can you share a bit? Well, I can speak of two things. First thing, which is having quite a big impact on me, is making a garden. This is my first garden that I'm making. And I've been very, very inspired to think about my practice as I'm in the way that I garden. So really taking the time to observe and give care to the seeds and the plants that's growing. And thinking of that reciprocity between the giving care to those plants and the giving that the plants will feed me or will beautify the space. So I think there's something to, and it's in align with the seasons and the natural rhythms. So I think there's a lot to learn about just watching things grow. And the thing is when COVID exploded, it was just the start of spring. So here the seasons are very marked in Canada. So we really, when we came back, there was some snow and it was just being made maple syrup. It was my first time making maple syrup. And there was something very, very beautiful to just be able to watch nature change with rhythm and observe life being created. Because what we do is we create, right? And our psyche and our imagination is a dwell, but we have to take care of that too. So it's been, I guess, by being more in that moment, that slowness was also very informative of how I want to be now with my art. Because I was traveling a lot and I was involved in a lot of projects. I'm still, I still have a lot to do now. My practice has more shifted to writing and adapting my work. I'm collaborating with some institutions here. They're called La Seine Nationale du Son to adapt one of my play into a podcast series. So really thinking it's not a theater for radio, it's fiction for the ears. So how we can, then, you know, it's the play itself, but then you can add interviews with different knowledge keepers in align with the themes of the play. So it's kind of interesting to think of that and think more in terms of storytelling for the ears. So that's been interesting. And then the second, and I have to create my upcoming production, which is going to be premiered in April in Montreal, if everything goes all right. And right now with everything that's been happening with Black Lives Matter and the police brutality towards Indigenous and Black communities, it feels very on point that I'm working on the life of the first slave here in Canada in 1740. Her name was Marguerite Du Plessis. And she was an Indigenous woman. She was the first one to create a court case to ask her to to have her freedom recognized because she was born here. And she claims that she had a French father and that she was baptized. So there was a big trial. It was the first one here in Canada that took place. And of course she lost because the judge was a slave owner, as if everybody in higher positions in Montreal at the time. And she was deported to Martinique. And there is actually a big history of Indigenous slaves that were deported to the West Indies for about 60 years from the end of the 1600s until the seven year war between France and England that was in 1760, I think, or around that time. George Washington started as a young officer for the British Army. Yeah. But go on. Yeah, I'm sorry. So I'm writing for three actresses. It's a choral piece. And it's really to link the stories of slavery between Indigenous and Black African women that came to Martinique. But also to, well, to, I don't know if celebrate as the word, but to give justice or importance to the stories of resistance of Black and Indigenous slave women and how that resistance has been transmitted through the generations to now. And how is it embodied now? So, yes, so I'm writing about that right now. This is my new project. And there's actually a really great book. I have it right here. It's called Bonds of Alliance. And he's a scholar and historian. I think he teaches at the University of Ohio. Brett Rushforth. And this has been my Bible so far. And he's really been researching about Indigenous and Atlantic slavery in New France. And yeah, so it's, yeah. That's what I can say now. Yeah. So it is going really deep back into roots and history that Native Americans next to the devastating killings by the white settlers, you know, also were enslaved in a part of that slave. And the creation process too, to have to make sure that the team is as much as possible Indigenous and Black within all the designers and the actors and the dramaturgs. So I'm looking forward to being able to be in the same room again. Hopefully if that thing is going well, it will be in September, the first residency. And yes, it will be very precious. I think to be able to be in a space together and start going deep into this, this, this subject. And we also talked to artists from Martinique and maybe, you know, your idea to collaborate. I mean, this story is so complex. As far as I know, also the Cherokee Nation own slaves, I think they had about four or 5,000 towards the end of the Civil War and also relent owners. And so it's a very complicated issue. All of it. But Greg, how is it, how is it for you at that time of isolation next to work also? But what do you think about? What are your, what are the existential questions? Emily also said that we all asking us. Well, as I was mentioning earlier, just rethinking, you know, what does it mean to be a curator in these times? So I think in that, that question, you know, is also being tackled. Existentially the institution, the gallery is trying to figure out what is its role during these times as, you know, because these are colonial institutions. The black lives matter, matter was an issue for the gallery because someone in communications, I guess, kind of in an effort to show alliance with the black lives matter movement posted the black lives matter logo on our Instagram account with no explanation, no, no context. And so it became a lightning rod for everything to question just what is the National Gallery of Canada's intention and what are they doing to support black lives? How do black lives matter for the National Gallery of Canada? And when you take a close look at that, you see that black lives don't really matter. Not in the staff, not in the amount of works that are on view or in the collection. That the only black representation at the gallery is in security guards and cleaners. The staff is predominantly white. And, you know, we've made some inroads in terms of indigenous representation and that's my role there. And the department, we actually have a department of indigenous art, it's the exhibition that I've, and my co-curators have put together, it's called Abadakwene, Continuous Fire, Food Continuel in French, and it's a show that where, that expands the idea of indigenous and indigeneity. So it's a global kind of survey of contemporary indigenous art. And in thinking globally in that, we, so we have artists from Central America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, the, from Africa, from the Nordic countries, and of course Canada and the US. So, so in terms of skin color, there's, you know, all different colors and, and when we're, when we're thinking about indigeneity in Africa, it becomes a very layered and complex question. And indigeneity is interpreted in different ways all over the world. And it does and does not apply. It doesn't fit in Africa very well. It doesn't fit in South America very well. But it's still a question about territory and where, of course, where people come from and how they represent themselves and how they're affected today through history of colonialism. So in the exhibition are a number of artists that deal with these issues. And, and I'm really happy that the public's going to get another chance to see it until October. Yeah, that it is quite remarkable that the Black Lives Matter movement, which according to research is the largest civil rights movement ever in the history of the United States, just by sheer numbers of people going on, that they, which happened during COVID, you know, that one of the ramifications that's going around the world that people really are rethinking their own relations, but also institutions, especially about Europe and Africa, everywhere we talk to there really a strong, strong connections. Emily once had, I think, Dawn Dumont, a Canadian writer, she had to play a fancy dancer and it dealt with the disappearance, I think, of Native American women, very high numbers. Yeah. Killing and talking about what you just mentioned earlier, police brutality. How is that situation in Canada? Are you following that? Yes. Well, we had, it's now, I mean, I'm hoping that it's of public knowledge to every Canadian that this is an epidemic, a serious epidemic in the country, because there was an inquiry that took place in the last three years, three years. And the final report came out last June, June in 2019, with many recommendations, but also stating very bluntly that what is happening right now in regards to Indigenous people is a genocide. And our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, or the Prime Minister of Canada said, well, he actually said, he recognized that it was. So, I mean, then there was many ministers that have or people in power and journalists and a lot of on social media contesting and trying to minimize that it wasn't. But I think it's important that people start naming things as they are. And so it is a very important issue. And I've been following a little bit in the states and seeing that it's that there while I saw that in Minnesota, there was an inquiry that was being created into the missing and murdered Indigenous women. So, yeah, I know that in the states, it is a very similar situation and that needs to be put into the light way more. But it is a very important issue here. Women and children and two-spirit and trans and people are the people are the most vulnerable to. I'm sorry, I'm thinking in French, so some words don't come to me right away, but those are the most marginalized communities. So it. It manifests itself. In the, in the death polls, basically, in the murders. Right at the moment of Black Lives Matter, there were two Indigenous persons that were killed in New Brunswick. That was last month. It was at the same time as, as the, yeah, as the manifestations and all that. So there was a woman in Edmondston in New Brunswick that was killed by a cop in her home. And a few days later, there was a, an Indigenous man that was also killed by a police. So, I mean, I think all of this is proving that it is important to, to link those struggles together and to have solidarity between, between Black and Indigenous groups. Hmm. In your, in your, your work of making art, do you feel something is shifting, is changing like your upcoming productions or your work? Will you, will you, will there be an impact? I would say yes and no. I think yes in the sense that it is important to have hope and to be actively creating change. And I can see, for example, in my personal case that I have, I'm artist and resident at that theater in Montreal. I'm also going to be the next artist and resident at Esposchool, which is another theater. And they give me, it's a residency for three years. So they give me the means to really have my vision, to develop my vision. And those are really wonderful opportunities. And so far I feel and I felt that I was free to bring in the team that I wanted. So I think it's pretty amazing to have Indigenous bodies or people at the theater. But then if you look at the figures, it's still, it's still hardly any, especially here in Quebec, it's in Montreal. There's hardly any people of color, playwrights or directors or people on stage a little bit more, but still it's such a minority. It doesn't represent the population here in Montreal or in Quebec. The people that you see on stage or the storytellers, that's, it's quite terrible to see that the numbers actually are not changing. So it feels, mentalities or maybe it's our circles of people that are all artists or people that are thinking more in their politics is more aligned to mine. But when you look at the figure, it's a long way to go still. Yeah. Tell us a bit about the idea, if I said or ICS, what you created is that so as an artist, you, in the idea of a Joseph Boyce who says, I have an enlarged understanding of things we create as social sculptures or connections or as Greg says, like the work of a curator is shifting also to living beings or to create communities. What is the idea of your... It started because I felt so I was in 2016 and I felt there was no festival or nothing or no platform for the presentation of interdisciplinary work by Indigenous artists. So it really stemmed from that, that I felt we needed a space. And then with ICS, I partner up with other institutions or festivals or venues to present work. So we've partnered up with FDR, last summer was with the Edinburgh International Festival, the Fringe and the International Book Festival of Edinburgh. So we were able to present the work of several Indigenous artists. And the idea is to basically amplify the voices of these artists, but also especially internationally, what came about was that there needs more education about what's happening in Canada because a lot of people have this very positive idea of Canada abroad, but when you do look at Indigenous issues and people, it's not such a glossy picture anymore. So it's important to educate people too. And so to have that international solidarity. Are you an agent in a way? You connect artists or... So people say I would like to include artists and you make suggestions and... I think I'm more like an artistic director or a curator in that sense. So I create a program. I like to work with themes as well. So then I kind of choose the works or the artists in regards to the theme that we want to tackle. It's hard work. And it's not always easy to reconcile being an artist and a producer or a curator. And I think after Edinburgh now I want to... I'm taking a break and focusing on my art for now. So the next one won't be happening before 2022. You create a platform for artists. So in a sense you're promoting artists. You don't represent artists as an agent. More and more Emily and I are trying to find ways to work together as well. So as an artist team, I have a practice as an artist as well. I was able... I only invited me to participate in the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. And I went there... I came to mind because you mentioned how people... The view of Canada is generally not known, right? And even that they're a state of Indigenous peoples in Canada and Canada's history. And this part of my project is kind of tackling a little piece of that. And what is the name? What's the origin of the word Canada? Where does it come from? It comes from Mohawk word, Ganada, and it's town or village. That was recorded by Jacques Carchier in 1535 and transmuted to Canada. And in that process is land dispossession and identity dispossession and the kind of total erasure of history of Indigenous peoples in Canada. So this project is a way of putting that back. So it's a project to redesign the national symbols of Canada, replace the name Canada with Ganada, change the flag so that it represents Indigenous peoples, First Nations, Métis and Inuit with three feathers and where the maple leaf would be in the flag. And then to just kind of surreptitiously insert it in different places through the years. So this was an opportunity to create a space within the Canada hub that was part of the Edinburgh Festival and create Ganada Club and to communicate all those ideas. So there was an interesting opportunity. So kind of explaining that as really a lot of what you do and having been one of those artists that benefited from the platform that you created, which does a lot of work, the Indigenous contemporary scene. We changed the word Canada everywhere to Ganada. So it was a way for people to start thinking about the Indigenous origins of the Indigenous origin of the word and the Indigenous presence in this territory that we now call Canada. Fantastic project. I think it's an important idea to define the work and as an artist also become a curator, to also think in structures and the part of the change. What guides you in your what do you look for when you say I put together these artists in that context under that theme? What is your... Well, I guess it depends, you know, if I'm working with... I mean, that's why I call it a platform instead of a festival because sometimes one year we organise the creators exchange. So those are important spaces for us together among us and to have discussions, but also to engage artistically together or creatively. So we had invited... When we did that, we had invited... And the theme was around self-representation and representation. So we had invited a Maori choreographer based in Sydney, her name is Victoria Hunt, and she led a workshop based on a performance that she did about the human remains of her ancestor being in a museum in London. And so, yeah, so it was taking that theme and then guiding us as a group to think about these questions, but also it was during FTA, so we were able to go see a lot of works that come from many places in the world and organise artists or talk backs for conversations with the creators themselves. So to... I mean, to just foster more conversations, I guess, on form, on art, and see how then that regenerates us and that inspire us. In Edinburgh, which is before the festival happened, we also did a creator's exchange on the land because it was also important to connect to the land. And from my many travels over there, I feel that Scottish people, especially Gaelic people, feel very close to... Or there's a lot of resonance for them with what is happening in Canada in terms of land theft, boarding schools having the language taken away from them, but here in Canada, it was Johnny McDonnell who was born in Glasgow, who was the Prime Minister of Canada and who created, you know, residential schools and so then there was this conversation about when you've been oppressed, do you become an oppressor or this kind of many layers that exist in these conversations? And a lot of Indigenous people here in Canada have ancestry that are Scottish. So they have ancestors in Scotland as well. So to be able to address all these questions and the programming was kind of articulated around these questions as well. What can we learn? I mean, we also have listeners from around the world. I think it's Europe or Africa and Asia. From the practices of Indigenous artists going back to tradition, but also contemporary ones. We are in a different situation at the moment. We have to reinvent forms, we have to adapt. But what experiences do you have or do you think is something that people should think about or know about? What is something we should take into consideration? I think one of the distinguishing features of a lot of work by contemporary Indigenous artists is from non-Indigenous artists is the connection to culture and bringing traditions forward. Traditions evolve and change over time. But what comes through in a lot of the work is how connected and how relevant these knowledges are to contemporary lives and even to conceive of ourselves in the future. That, and in those knowledges and in that connection is the intrinsically the relationship between human beings with the rest of the planet, with the rest of the environment. What is our position in relation to our relatives who are not just people, but the Earth, the land, the skies, the waters, the animals, the plants, the spirit beings, all of that. And that concept is very much alive and very much held and treasured. And if you're thinking that way, you're existing in the space, in the world in a very different way. And you can manifest that thinking in those relationships in how you organize your life, how you choose to do things. Like as Emily is talking about becoming more aware, slowing down and becoming more aware of the seasons and the changing in the plant cycles through physically digging in the ground and planting things and watching them grow. These are things that in our capitalist culture we've removed ourselves from, we've distanced ourselves from food production and created these large factory farms. And COVID is coming out of that, how we treat animals now in food production. So it is, these things are connected and it's causing us to rethink in so many ways in what I think of artists. I think artists are very, when I say artists, I mean theater artists, all kinds of artists are uniquely placed to comment on these things, to remind us that there are different ways of being in the world and to give direction and to ask questions and to challenge us. That comes to your mind, Emily, I'm serious about it because I feel, we are a bit lost in the way where things went, everybody says that, it's now came to a halt. We are realizing perhaps more than you have been knowing since centuries that, yeah, that critical zone, the 10 meters above us, the 10 meter below us that we live, we are alive because of plants, because it's alive, we had Friderick who works with Bruno Latour and he said, be realizing that we are not at the center of the universe, like Galileo found out, or it's not the center of the universe, actually we are part of the universe, and we are floating around that right now, humans have to understand that we are part of nature, that we are part of that, that we live through others and we don't respect it, we don't understand it, it will destroy us. So I think Indigenous artists and spider women too said that, so they said, I talk to the trees, I put my hand in the dirt, I connect to the living things and I appreciate them, and if there is the big threat, it is an environmental threat, if there is any great theme right now, perhaps it is the environment, everything Trump does, hopefully it can and will be returned, but the environmental damage, how will that be changed, and we need to be aware. So I think, I would like to hear what you feel in your theater work or performance work where you felt this is something that worked to communicate that, or the way you did it, is there something or other artists, you know about what you feel, this is something that should be considered the way we produce it, the way we show it. Well I think like what Greg said, everything is interconnected, interrelated, so it is important to work towards healing our connection to the land and being able, for that I think a lot of it is listening or deep listening and being able to hear the land or hear the plants or hear and feel that connection. I think there is a lot in that and that is really where I want to take my practice now and really think more deeply about that and I am sure it is going to be very beneficial in how I want to create and what I want to say, for sure the stories and what we will want to say and share with the world will be influenced by what we are going through right now. It doesn't mean that we are going to write about pandemics or the environment, but this experience that we all have collectively will have a profound impact I think on us and I am hoping, because sometimes I am afraid that we will just fall back in the train of how it was and this is the worry but if we are wise enough to seize this opportunity to really reflect in a deep way and try to apply these changes in the way we live and the way we create and the way we write and the way we love and the way we take care of the community I think it will be inspiring and if I go back to this new word that I am working on about Marguerite Duprécy part of my research her trial was very well documented I have her trial but when she lost the trial then we know nothing we know she was deported to Martinique and when I traveled there I was trying to find where did she go in the archives I couldn't find anything I found some information about the man that owned her and sold her to a plantation in Martinique so then a lot of the work was about finding that memory but in the invisible about really tuning in and feeling well would she have been in this place and the work is to honour her life she was the first activist indigenous activist in Canada when I think of it because she was the first one to have a trial and seek justice at that level so her life is important her legacy is important and it is all there my work is just to try and make it visible accessible and what I want to do or how I'm thinking about this work is to create an honour song for her because her human remains are in this part of the world that is very far from her ancestors and her people so I want to sing her back home in a way and the work is very much informed by that and the actors that I there are three women one of them is from Martinique and two other are indigenous from here so a lot of the work is to sing for these women that are heroes and that have to be brought back to the surface to our ancestors basically that's a significant and important contribution I remember Gloria or Maria said because we don't tell the story, carry them in us in a file sort of way and society is sick because they don't hear the stories and contribution you make of course is towards healing and honouring and singing the song and acknowledging that as you both say the representation of indigenous people, people of all colour is important in the United States but also as you both point out in Canada where we all think it was free spirited but in this theatre scene at least what also friends and colleagues say it is not as prominent as once things even in TV and TV commercials it's a much bigger variety you see the people on the street on the screen but in theatre itself still it has some way to go and your work is an important contribution towards that visibility and I think now also as a moment that perhaps created an opening an irritation, a shock which we go through in the western world our colleagues from Africa say we live like this for decades or centuries with uncertainty, with malaria, with wars it's just you guys who all of a sudden understand that there's something you don't know it's going to end and to live that you can die from a handshake basically and or from the wrong world your poster wrote somewhere and so it's it isn't quite quite a remarkable time you live in and really thank you both for sharing and I'm here hearing back what you said about the smallpox which as far as I know also intentionally was transmitted by the army through blankets or others but they knew that there was no protection against smallpox, no vaccinations as you said, 80-90% of the population died from that it's shocking to really think about this and as Black Lives Matters for Right he says this is the original sin of America the slavery but then there is also the sin, the curse under the curse which it's you know the taking away of indigenous lands in a fashion that was a colonial imperial mindset and it still hasn't shined through it's almost like the Udipus Muth where you know that he kills his father and see through the mother and he is cursed but then the underlying curse was that his father mistreated the Korean as a young king a young guest he had a son of a friend and then he was cursed and some will kill you so the underlying curses and I think what you bring out there and show is significant also in New York City in the Nape land it's not mentioned it's not acknowledged as often as in Australia often in public ceremonies it's very clearly stated I don't know exactly how it is in Canada but there is a lot of work we have to do and this is a moment where we can really think about it and I suppose for really for taking the time and it could go on much longer and I hope I was able to ask the right questions to get a little insight and it's of course so complex and it goes so deep and perhaps we also need other forms and just simple conversations but I felt really that we got a little little insight as we come closer to the end a bit over time what is your advice you would give to young artists whether they're indigenous or not and to our listeners how to use this time best based on your experience what should we do to find meaning or to create meaning and how can we use this complicated time Greg and you were first family I just just make art just do things just be inspired if you're a filmmaker have a camera if you're by paints start drawing right yeah I think it's just do it just do it to continue your practice I think I mean to try to look at it in a positive way that maybe this is the time if you're an artist and you're able you have the physical space even the mental space to create to think about your practice to do it but I think you know singularly it's a time to think about what we've been talking about too those existential questions why does my art matter what do I matter as a human being in relation to the rest of the world and how can I improve that relationship and honor those relationships yeah and I think it's also it's okay if you're not creating making art it's also totally fine creation is happening all the time if we look at it so maybe it is also a time to just be a sponge and go through things and eventually that will manifest in some creation after so I think it's also okay not to do anything yeah and as you said earlier to observe right to see that's what we can do with our bodies and we can observe and be in the moment so really really thank you for giving us an insight and sharing your experience I hope one day you both will come to the Siegel Center when we are open and running again and come with Immanuel Siora and others and with the Quebec Guard delegation here in New York and we all intensify this and it's good to know that independent from the theater performance scene of course you know that as Greg pointed out there have been longstanding connections between the individual arts and filmmaking between those two countries but somehow I always feel the performing art world it should be much closer and it's not and I'm always buffled by that and I don't fully understand it we continue our journey around the world tomorrow we will have Satuki Ishihara young a very significant Japanese experimental writer who is pushing forward post-feminist post-punk I would always say crafter of words and I'm interested to hear what she is going through in Japan that is also experiencing a second wave now at the moment and how the situation is for artists. First day Nigel Smith from the Flea Theater here in New York will tell us how his experiences was COVID he took over the Flea from Jim Simpson and he's a young black curator, artistic director and now he's in the presenting organizations, representing his theater and which he inherited his community and of course in this heated times of corona so we will hear how he is trying to keep this all together and then John Glott from Italy a most significant writer who did the great Vietnam play I think in the 60's America Hurrah at La Mama and Belgium born and refugee who came here now has a big farm upstate Shantigar a retreat where he feels we have to connect to the land as you both also said we have to listen to it we have to meditate and we have to create new practices in the arts and compass beyond the simple performing or the machine of the industry as Emily said in the beginning that it is really a time to think and I think maybe he has found some answers he's done that now for some decades so really thank you both of you thanks for howl around for hosting us it's fantastic to be here with you out of Emerson College so we have that platform as Emily would say that also connects us all closer and Travis and Vijay who is with us every morning and Sun Young and Andy my single team and to your listeners for taking again time out of your life and of your time to listen to ours I think it is very significant to listen to our for example Canadian indigenous artists or fellows what it's on their mind so it's a check with reality and not get the door and say how are you doing what is the state and as both of them pointed out what we think about Canada or in this case not be this what it's really is about there's so many things in our lives that we do see it wrongly we don't know enough and this series this little series is a contribution towards that and it's important to have listeners to also then perhaps think and take the ideas of what Emily said you know maybe connect to the or listen closely observe as Craig said you know support the community support your colleagues the other is how to get can support to your own life and it might really save our life and our country if we listen closely what artists say artists are part and have always been part of progressive justice they were always on the right side in the complex struggle and fight for liberties and freedom and they are again now and we have as the myth you or the prophecies as you mentioned only we have to decide as societies and countries and humans where do we want to go ourselves but also for our societies and these are important and significant decisions and we should listen to artists and their solutions and suggestions so thank you both and I hope to see and hear you all again and thanks for tuning in so stay tuned wear a mask it is important and thank you