Calculating Upon the Unforeseen curated by Clara Halpern for Nuit Blanche Toronto 2017

September 30, 2017 

7:00 pm - 7:00 am the following day

The treaty is in the body, 2017

The artist writes “I am most often engaged with Indigenous ideas and I am interested in the ways in which ideas are mobile. Even in the face of structures that attempt to contain, they can be activated and become uncontainable.”

The body is a way to know—a way to transmit knowledge. In her practice, Lukin Linklater works with dancers to transmit ideas, which, though invisible, our bodies respond to.

This project arose out of the artist’s research into treaty, catalyzed by Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike in Ottawa, a 44-day political action in 2012 and 2013. The artist recalls signs held at rallies during Idle No More: "We are all treaty people" and "Moosehide tanners against fascism". This video takes up Indigenous understandings of treaty relationships which are at the foundation of Canada. It calls for non-Indigenous audiences to consider their implication within treaty. The site of this project, the Toronto Labyrinth, offers a space for contemplating this embodied past, present and future.

Film Credits:
Performers - Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Sassa Linklater, Keisha Stone
Camera/Sound - Neven Lochhead