Episode 10: Lenore Keeshig Interviews Chris Creighton-Kelly - a podcast by The Insurgent Architects House for Creative Writing

This interview of Chris Creighton-Kelly by Lenore Keeshig was recorded during a TIA House symposium called Wisdom Council in September 2019. Wisdom Council recognized the imperfect knowledge transmission methods of the colonial system, and particularly the ways it has tended to fragment non-Western knowledges and privilege the textual over the oral. Using a combination of traditional and contemporary practices, it brought together a small council of mostly BIPOC senior practitioners in the contemporary arts to sit in council over three days to discuss such topics as what our communities need now; memory and forgetting; care of elders in racialized communities; stories of the past, present and future; stories in cyclical time; community formations they’ve experienced; community formations they remember; how they understand the work that needs to be done; and practices and strategies that might be of use or interest in the present moment. This interview was recorded as part of the
gathering’s work.Lenore Keeshig is a citizen of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation on the Saugeen Bruce Peninsula, and resides on Neyaashiinigmiing (home to the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation). Lenore is a storyteller, poet, award-winning author, naturalist, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Her long-awaited first collection of poetry Running on the March Wind was published in 2015. Currently, she works delivering programs that teach about the natural and cultural history of the peninsula and the Great Lakes and helps area visitors to better understand their connections to the land and water.
Chris Creighton-Kelly is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and cultural critic who was born in the UK of South Asian/British heritage. His artworks have been presented across Canada and in India, Europe, and the USA. Chris is persistently interested in questions of absence in the art discourses of the Western world: whose worldview is unquestioned; who has power; who does not? Chris also works as a consultant to many of Canada’s art organizations, institutions and agencies. He is currently co-director of Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires.References:
4:58 Racial Minority Writers’ Committee5:54 Explorations Section of CCA**
7:28 The Racial Equity Committee (UNESCO)**11:59 Multiculturalism Committee (CCA)
10:00 Establishment of a Native Arts Committee (CCA)**10:08 Committee For Racial Equality in the Arts (REACT)**
10:52 Margot Kane12:53 Alanis Obomsawin
14:15 Tom Hill**14:28 Carol Geddes
14:31 Alootook Iepellie17:45 “Race and the Body Politic” Residency (Banff Centre)**
19:09 Louise Profeit-LeBlanc19:13 “Caring, Knowing, Sharing” (CKS) in the Canada Council
19:41 Steve Loft22:33 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
24:46 MAD Arts Movement—: https://canadacouncil.ca/glossary/mad-arts&this https://canadianart.ca/features/cripping-arts-time/
26:34 Primary Colours (w/ France Trepanier)30:32 Lillian Allen
31:45 Robert Lepage (Kanata)33:05 Heather Robertson: “Why don’t you write about me?”
34:03 Rudy Wiebe (Almighty Voice): “Perhaps it is that Native people can’t write”36:56 Daniel David Moses, Tomson Highway, Drew Hayden Taylor, (Committee to Reestablish the Trickster—see Moses’ piece about CRET in the American Indian Quarterly, “The Trickster's Laugh: My Meeting with Tomson and Lenore”: www.jstor.org/stable/4139046?seq=1).
38:26 Land: Landed (with France Trepanier)TIA House recognizes the generous support of the Canada Research Chairs program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. We also appreciate the support of the Faculty of Arts and the Department of English at the University of Calgary, where our offices are housed, as well as the guidance of Marc Stoeckle at the Taylor Family Digital Library. TIA House is run by Larissa Lai, Rebecca Geleyn, Joshua Whitehead, Mahmoud Ababneh, and Paul Meunier.
Our intro/outro music is “Monarch of the Streets” by Loyalty Freak Music.

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