February 28, 2023

AMPD’s Creative Technologies hosts Indigenous ways of knowing lectures with Indigenous artist educators at the Royal Ontario Museum

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.