Mi’Kmaq Expression

Culture Through Art

When you see this symbol write down the information!

What is Culture?

The accumulated habits, attitudes, and beliefs of a group of people that define for them their general behaviour and way of life; the total set of learned activities of a people.www.geographic.org/glossary.html

What is art?

a form of human activity created primarily as an aesthetic expression, especially, but not limited to drawing, painting and sculpture.myrlejohnson.tripod.com/id12.html

How can art show us what people believe, think or feel?

Depict in drawings

Functional use of items

Design

Color choice

Medium

Concept

Messages

Pre-Contact Art: Purpose

Important messages

Legends – Oral to symbols

Instructions

Later - Treaties

Pre-Contact Art

Functional

Clear Purpose

“Obvious” messages

Pre-Contact Art

Handed down

Textures/textiles obtainable from environment

Useful in someway

Pre-Contact Art

Function

Design based on obtainable resources

Materials in Mi’Kmaq Art: Traditional Materials

ReedsPorcupine QuillsVoiceLeatherFeathersStains/Natural Dyes

Materials in Mi’Kmaq Art: Modern Materials

The same materials you would expect in any art

Messages tend to be culturally relevant to the Mi’Kmaq experience

Tradition, Change and Survival: Mi'kmaq Tourist Art - Musée McCord Museum

Pre-Contact Art

Art had a purpose

Not just for the sake of creation but for a message, a meaning

Why do you think art was not for expression?

Why do you think it had a purpose?

Mi’Kmaq Art

Shows history

Brings history alive

Shows legend, stories, myth and reality

Mi’Kmaq Art

Meaning may be subtle or obvious

Meaningful Art

Art is representative of the experience: historical, legends, stories, shared histories (drawings, sculptures), useful or resourceful in it’s creation (moccasins, baskets, canoes…)

Art is More than the Obvious

Art is …

Words, Music, Drama, Poetry, Literature

Read the poem by Rita Joe (I Lost My Talk)

I Lost My Talk – Rita Joe

I lost my talk The talk you took away. When I was a little girl At Shubencadie school.You snatched it away: I speak like you I think like you I create like you The scrambled ballad, about my word.Two ways I talk Both ways I say, Your way is more powerful.So gently I offer my hand and ask, Let me find my talk So i can teach you about me.

Frank’s Song – Rita Joe

Someday my dear I'm going awayThe other place my home is thereI'll be around where lovers they playIn your dreams I love you every daySomeday my dear I'm going awayNot meaning to but Niskam* sayThen so true it happens that wayHe went away and now I am so blue.Chorus:So true are words of loveWe take them all, not knowing when they will endSo true of what we sayWe build it in our heart, for now it is so good.Someday my dear I'll be seeing youThe words I say they are so trueSomeday my dear, the stars they will shineTogether then, our love will show for all the timeSomeday my dear together we'll roamThe loving land where lovers goSomeday my dear our dreams they will flyWhen love is true, the dreams we share they do not die.~ Rita Joe, January 30, 1997Copyright © 2000 Rita Joe

Art is Expression

Who we are

How we live

What we experience

How we own experience

What we feel

Our Life is Art!

Aboriginal Dance

A dancer gets to collaborate with another indiginous group about their dancing.

Kaledioscope

Film – Expression in a more modern context

Our Lives in Our Hands (You Tube Film)

Outcomes

5.1 Explore cultural pride and inner cultural conflicts as elements of Mi’kmaw contemporary culture and community as expressed through First Nations literature, arts, filmmaking, and other venues5.2 Explore universal themes in First Nations literature through short pieces of literature5.3 Recommend representations that most strongly represent their understandings of Mi’kmaw culture based on investigations into contemporary First Nations artistic expressions

Assignment: Mi’Kmaq Art

1. How did the art you see show you the pride the participants had in their culture. Make sure you use an example from visual art, the film, dance, and written forms of art.

2. Using the two poems we read in class as well as the collection of oral traditions you have in your binder what themes do we see in Mi’Kmaw writing?

3. An alien has landed in our parking lot and you have to show them Mi’Kmaw culture. What do you tell them about culture? What do you show them?