Projects

NO I.D. required considers how Indigenous two spirit artists are presenting the future within the context of their present and their past while revealing ways of thinking about what is to be. NO I.D. required brought together Indigenous artist from Canada to explore visual media stories within the context of two spirit diaspora.

NO I.D. required is an exploration of two spirit and the colonization of Indigenous two spirit. We look to extend the post-colonial explorations of identities and move towards exploring no identification required. It was in 1990 at the Third Annual Native American Gay and Lesbian gathering in Winnipeg, Manitoba, homeland of the Metis and Treaty One Territory, that the term Two Spirit was agreed to as the best way to describe their community using and adopting a colonized language, English. The term “Two (2) Spirit” acts as a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons as an entry point for understanding queer Indigenous culture. Prior to contact, Indigenous peoples did not have a gender identity assignment. The identity of Two Spirit has a traditional social and ceremonial role within an Indigenous community, it is masculine, feminine, spiritual, and societal. The colonized language seems to push it to only gender and doesn’t incorporate all the layers of an identity that encompasses all those things and more. The roles within the Indigenous communities have been lost to colonization, however, as we come out from under the colonizers, Indigenous Two Spirit are taking back their roles and space within the community. 

For the Indigenous who live, have lived, and are yet to live in two-spirit, this exhibition can provide both reflections and maps to unique cultures that thrive within the Indigenous landscapes. The work will stimulate viewers to reflect upon their own personal and public stories. These encounters and struggles are shaped by Indigenous legends, realities as well as a co-mingling of both fact and fiction.

NO I.D. required consists of exhibition with installation, an artist talk and in person presentation during the exhibition along with text on each artists’ stories, shared through social media. For the Indigenous who live, have lived, and are yet to live in two-spirit, this exhibition can provide both reflections and maps to unique cultures that thrive within the Indigenous landscapes. The work will stimulate viewers to reflect upon their own personal and public stories. These encounters and struggles are shaped by Indigenous legends, realities as well as a co-mingling of both fact and fiction.

Barron’s selected artists exposes personal and social histories that have contributed to two-spirit identity. Jason Baerg’s realist, new media portrait of his young urbanite life deliberately obscures his face and explores movement through land.  Baerg’s “The Apology” reflects a time in our generation when, in the moment, in those 12 minutes, we were all one. 

Short’s work “Wake Up!” explores their connection to Metis and questions engaging in the shared culture and history of Metis men. How can one explore identity when the history is of men? Short uses the film to create herself as Riel and adopts the identity of man. Will the transition be a guide or a hinderance to learning and adopting Metis culture? Where are the women? 

Lajoie’s Métis Femme Bodies is an exploration into the experiences of what has become a repressed identity in both Indigenous and femme forms. Lajoie is a Queer Métis multi-disciplinary artist honoring, engaging, and amplifying the voices of their Indigiqueer communities through storytelling in the forms of printmaking, photography, and moving-image on Treaty 1 Territory, the lands of their ancestors.