Portrait of Lori Blondeau, 2021

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Lori Blondeau is a 2021 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Rhayne Vermette.

A production of the Canada Council for the Arts. A presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.

The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."

For more information, visit: https://en.ggarts.ca

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Transcript:

Lori’s Narration:
I grew up being told stories, and I’m still being told stories. Now, I tell stories. That’s
something the colonizer couldn’t take away from us—that we still have our stories.

Sound of the background interview then fades up and in ….
Lori: “really quite huge rock art pieces that our people put down. That is our history…

Lori Narration continues:
Family is really important. Our family history, and especially my mother’s family,
because I really believe I come from a matriarch.
My parents were activists. My father worked for the friendship centres until he retired. My mother worked for the Native Women’s Association. She was part of the group of Native women that fought for Bill C-31 to be reinstated. Ultimately, those are the people who really influenced me.

Sound of the background interview then fades up and in ….
Lori: “This is the rock that I’ve had for a really long time. When I do my Sisters piece, this is the
rock that is constant, that I use to crush the berries. The original dress that I wore…”

Lori Narration continues:
It’s interesting, thinking of time. Then I started thinking of my own birth stories of having four
children, and how that totally changed my life.

Sound of the background interview then fades up and in ….
Lori: “This is the lounging jacket that I made for the actual performance. The dress was
used for the photoshoot…”

Lori Narration continues:
There is no concept of time when somebody passes, or when somebody is born.

Sound of the background interview then fades up and in ….
Lori: “My youngest daughter, she was two years old when I did it. So thank god she’s a bit
older than COSMOSQUAW!”
Lori Narration continues:
Just want to show you the shoes. These are the shoes that James actually gave to me. That’s one thing I really learned from him: taking an object and just changing it.
The late James Luna said to me, “Performance art is a medium for us Indigenous people that doesn’t compromise our culture. It makes me excited that I can make work that questions these ideas of rule, of law, of sovereignty… whose sovereignty? I want to feel what it was like to crush berries on two stones. My ancestors, that’s how they would do it. I think maybe this is what James Luna was talking about.


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