ABSTRACT
In this chapter Foster and Evans argue that Indigenous artists have become key mediators between the representational conceits of the colonial past and a renewed and vigorous articulation of Indigenous intellectual sovereignty, through a form of retro-ethnography that critiques and subverts colonial representation of Indigenous people. They use several case studies such as Edward Curtis’s In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914) and its subsequent re-makes; Paul Kane’s painting “Boat Encampment” (1847) remobilized by the Métis Nation BC; and Stephen Foster’s Re-mediating Curtis (2013). The work of contemporary Indigenous digital media artists who are actively engaging ethnographic materials and pop-culture representations in their work utilizes strategies of remediation. These strategies form a methodological frame that is transformative and provides a vehicle for the artist and audience to exercise agency, reconstructing images of indigeneity by mediating past and modern representations of Indigenous people and culture. We argue that Indigenous artists have become key interlocutors between the representational conceits of the colonial past, and a renewed and vigorous articulation of Indigenous intellectual perspectives. In this chapter we examine these processes, focusing on the methodology of retro-ethnography used by these artists; this technique critiques and subverts colonial representations of Indigeneity and proactively re-establishes creative sovereignty.
