The Unsettling Conservation Collective is an Indigenous-led group of contemporary artists embarking on a year of land-based research and creation. Our project highlights how conservation has been, and in some cases continues to be, a tool for Indigenous dispossession.
We want to bring truth before reconciliation.
The Unsettling Conservation Collective believes environmental conservation needs a narrative shift.
To make progress amidst the climate crisis, we must deconstruct the power imbalances that have brought us here. Art can liberate us to repair relationships and imagine new ones.
We will create unique artwork and document our community-engaged processes. The artwork will showcase Indigenous Land and Water relations, governance, and the colonial forces that attempt to disrupt them.
Our artwork and mini-documentaries will be transformed into interactive exhibits on the IPCA Knowledge Basket. This digital platform promotes respect and appreciation for Indigenous relationships to Land and Waters and the abundance that these relationships give rise to.
We hope the our work will speak to heads as well as hearts. We aim to inspire respect for Indigenous-led conservation and promote the establishment of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) and acts of inter-tribal sovereignty, such as the Buffalo Treaty, across what is colonially known as North America.
The Collective's members include Adrian Stimson, Glenn Gear, Melaw Nakehk'o, Michelle Wilson, and Sheri Nault. Learn more about the artists and our work below:
FOLLOW OUR JOURNEY ON INSTAGRAM: @UNSETTLING_CONSERVATION
Adrian Stimson
Stimson, an interdisciplinary artist from the Blackfoot Confederacy, will collaborate with Waterton Lakes National Park to explore the aural and written histories of Blackfoot bison conservation. This will include examining the historic Pablo-Allard herd and contemporary reintroduction projects led by the Iinii Initiative.
Image caption: Adrian Stimson, Maanipokaa’iini. 2022. installation view at Remai Modern.
Learn more about Adrian’s work here
Follow Adrian on Instagram: @adrian_stimson
Glenn Gear
Splitting his time on the land between Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Nunatsiavut, and Torngat Mountains National Park, Gear will work with his relations to research sealskin tanning techniques and culturally specific sewing traditions. Gear's research-creation will highlight the Inuit relationship to seals, including monitoring, hunting, and cultural use as acts of Indigenous ecosystem management, which have been practiced since time immemorial.
Image caption: Glenn Gear, Ivaluk Ullugiallu. 2023. This immersive installation explores the connection and displacement of caribou's path in Labrador.
Learn more about Glenn’s work here
Follow Glenn on Instagram: @glenngear
Melaw Nakehk'o
Nakehk'o plans to go back to her ancestral homeland in Thaidene Nëné, which is a comanaged Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) located in the Northwest Territories. She will work with hides and video alongside Stephanie Poole, who is a prominent member of the Łutsël K’é women’s hide camp and sewing group. Together, they aim to create a beaded story-telling map that will convey family narratives related to specific places within Thaidene Nëné.
Image Caption: Melaw Nakehk'o, K'i Tah Amongst the Birch. 2020. Still from 10 minute video
Learn more about Melaw’s works here
Follow Melaw on Instagram: @melaw_nakehko
Michelle Wilson
Wilson is collaborating with Chloe Dragon Smith and Robert Grandjambe, the last full-time trappers in Wood Buffalo National Park. Together, they aim to create community-engaged work that focuses on archival records documenting the government's slaughter of bison in the park during the 20th century. This work's purpose is to highlight the connection between cultural genocide and conservation. In addition to this, Dragon Smith and Grandjambe will share their personal stories of survivance on the Land despite these systems of dispossession.
Image caption: Michelle Wilson, Forced Migration. 2021. An interactive textile map memorializing bison killed, captured, or bred under colonialism.
Learn more about Michelle’s works here
Follow Michelle on Instagram @michellemargaretwilson
Sheri Osden Nault
Nault will center their research on the recent return of bison and transfer of lands near the Batoche National Historic Site to the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan. Utilizing archives, Métis kitchen-table style community visits, and land-based research, Nault will delve into Métis’ histories and relationships to this land and to the more-than-human beings that reside on it. With deep ancestral and familial roots at Batoche, they will develop a responsive monument on the land, coordinating their work with Back to Batoche, a huge Métis festival and celebration of Michif culture.
Image caption: Sheri Osden Nault, maachi kashkihtow. 2023 installation of 7:06 minute video.
Learn more about Sheri’s work here
Follow Sheri on Instagram @so_nault
The Unsettling Conservation Collective is supported in part by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
