“Métis Sensuality: Touch, Balance, and Pain in Indigenous Contemporary Creative Practice” at Uncommon Senses V

The Extended Field of Indigenous Traditional and Contemporary Art - David Garneau (Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada)

Métis Sensuality is a panel consisting of three artists struggling to make art that expresses the complexity of contemporary, urban, Indigenous lived experience inflected by Métis specificity. According to Plains Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, individuals are inseparable from the collective. People are also bound to their territory and all its inhabitants. Appreciation, use, and understanding of the senses are similarly non-hierarchical, distributed across the body, among bodies, and in relation with the environment. Animation and sentience are similarly understood to be distributed throughout all things and relations. Indigenous creative production, then, is not confined to an object but exists only in the moment of its activation as relation.
The panel’s three Métis artist-researchers—David Garneau, Professor, Visual Arts, University of Regina (painting, performance, curation); Holly Aubichon (painting and tattooing) and Sara McCreary (textiles and fashion), MFA candidates at the University of Regina—will discuss our research, creation, and reception methodologies. We will describe how our practices are shaped by Plains Indigenous knowing, being, and doing, especially the senses, including equilibrioception, and other sensualities.

Wahkohtowin senses: ways of knowing as attunement to cultural sensory recognition - Holly Aubichon (Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada)

In many Indigenous ontologies, selfhood is inherently relational: an individual's identity is inseparable from their relationships with the land, kinship, and community. These relations, considered older and wiser than humans, are believed to be gifts - teachings to guide us forward – with reciprocity. Indigenous people believe that meaning is not solely determined by human sentience, but emerges through connections with non-human sentient beings as kin, guided by practices such as tobacco teachings, ceremony and rituals. These practices invite all relations – human and non-human – to contribute to an individual’s life journey and purpose, which in turn supports the collective body.

Referencing my particular Indigenous identity, Cree/Metis, I have experienced both cultural sensory information and non-cultural sensories through my family’s new experiences growing up urban. I explore these personal, internalized sensory narratives, through: intuition, imagination, and creation of painting and tattoo markings. These personal sensory narratives have helped me develop a collective sensory awareness while myself and chosen kin members navigate the urban Indigenous experience.
Keywords: Indigenous, art, sensory narratives, chosen kin

Sounding Métis Futurisms in Fashion - Sara McCreary (Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada)

Métis identity, adaptation, relatability, and the role of cultural evolution are central to my artistic process. The creative research, production, and reception of wearable textile sculptures and objects are tactile processes relating to craftsmanship and resourcefulness. My practice naturally engages the senses; touch plays a central role, from the textures of materials to the labour-intensive acts of cutting, stitching, and assembling. The soundscapes of my family visiting, cooking, and making music are auditory moments where most memories about my culture are stored. I am integrating this into my work as a form of auditory relationality.

My work displays representations of Métis culture. I re-imagine traditional material culture, such as the Hudson Bay blanket capote, into contemporary garments and objects. Modern materials, patterns, and colour schemes serve as visual narratives and tools that connect traditions to contemporary Métis culture. Designs are tailored and adapted to prolong the life cycle of each piece, akin to how my ancestors would have made them. I know this because they left their stitched artifacts behind for us to read and learn from them.
Keywords: Métis, touch, textiles, soundscapes

“Métis Sensuality: Touch, Balance, and Pain in Indigenous Contemporary Creative Practice” at Uncommon Senses V (video recording of the session)

•  David Garneau (Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada)

The Extended Field of Indigenous Traditional and Contemporary Art

•  Holly Aubichon (Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada)

Wahkohtowin senses: ways of knowing as attunement to cultural sensory recognition

•  Sara McCreary (Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada)

Sounding Métis Futurisms in Fashion

“Sensitive Material I: The Production of Tangible Cultural Heritage” at Uncommon Senses V (video recording of the session)

•  Audrey Colonel-Coquet (Université Grenoble Alpes/LARHRA, France)

The Smell of Leather, From the Material to Fragrances, in the Light of History: The Example of Russia Leather

•  Ningxiang Sun (School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, UK)

Give Me a Pottery Factory and I Will Split the World

•  Sowparnika Balaswaminathan (Religions & Cultures, Concordia University, Canada)

Sensory Labor and Sensible Aesthetic Communities: Traditional Hindu Sculptors and Claims-making in Contemporary India