On Friday, March 3, the York University School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD) 's newest program, Creative Technologies, will co-host Jackson 2bears+Dustin Brass: Art, Tech, Education and Listening to the Land at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) with Carleton University.
The lecture series focuses on land-based education, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the power of art in social change with Indigenous artist educators Jackson 2bears and Dustin Brass.
2bears is a Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk) multimedia installation/performance artist and cultural theorist from Six Nations and Tyendinaga. Since 1999, he has exhibited his work extensively across Canada in public galleries, museums and artist-run centres and internationally in festivals and group exhibitions. Now as a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts Research & Technology at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta (Treaty 7, Blackfoot Territory), he continues his research in video arts, digital media, and extended media.
Brass is a lecturer and placement coordinator for Indigenous education at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina. He advocates for Land-based education – a curriculum connecting to the region's Indigenous culture. Outside the University, Brass worked with Indigenous Peoples' Health Research Centre on a suicide-prevention health research project that uses the arts to gather stories about participants and help them develop coping strategies.
The event is part of a larger ongoing joint creative work, research, and consultation effort between York University and First Nations artists and organizations in the Markham region to support new land-based art and technology education modules through partnered creative research projects.
2bears+Dustin Brass: Art, Tech, Education and Listening to the Land is supported by the York University Academic Innovation Fund and the Research Centre for Music, Sound, and Society in Canada at Carleton University.