Redressing Riel
Documentary Film (in process… on hold because of Covid)
In 2016, Dylan Robinson began working with the Canadian Opera Company, the National Arts Centre, the Canadian Music Centre, and the Nisga’a Lisims Government to repair the misuse of a Nisga’a lim’ooy̓ (dirge/lament song) used in the opera Louis Riel (1967) by Canadian composer Harry Somers and librettist Mavor Moore. Following consultation with Nisga’a Lisims Council of Elders, a request was made to have the song removed from the aria and all other locations. This request led the Canadian Opera Company to work with the executors to the estates of Moore and Somers to replace the song with a new aria. In early 2020, a new aria was premiered by Métis composer Ian Cusson that will stand in place the limx’ooy in future productions. However, countless instances of the lim’ooy̓ still exist in print, scores, and recordings that should not be publicly accessible to sing.
Redressing Riel is a documentary film that follows the redress process, and the outstanding work to be done. The documentary will consist of interviews with participants and stakeholders involved in various parts of the redress process. The documentary offers a compelling beginning-to-end perspective on thoughtful, community oriented, and Indigenous centered practices of repatriation in the context of a major, multi-institutional, national arts production.
Our Stories Upon The Land (working title)
Curated by Dylan Robinson and Candice Hopkins
Website: Link Forthcoming
This website is a database that centralizes previously disparate information on Indigenous public art situated in outdoor space across Indigenous lands the settler states of Canada and the USA occupy. Along with a research team that has included graduate research assistants and postdoctoral fellows over 600 works have been documented including sculpture, screen-based work, sound art, murals, performance-based work and community-based social arts practices. The website includes a map of the artworks’ locations, essays, interviews, and details about the works. Many of the works include photo documentation, and photo-documentation is ongoing for those works that do not yet have images.
Indigenous Curatorial Fellow: New Public Art Project
Simon Fraser University
From 2020-2023 I am curating a new Indigenous public artwork to be located at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby mountain campus. More information forthcoming!
Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts
Co-curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson
International Tour, organized by Independent Curators International
2019 locations: Agnes Etherington Arts Centre, Queen’s Univeristy; Gund Gallery, Kenyon College, Ohio
2020 locations: Kitchner Waterloo Gallery; Belkin Gallery, UBC
2021 locations: Kamloops Art Gallery; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff
How might a score be a call and tool for decolonization? Soundings features twelve newly commissioned art scores (taking the form of video, objects, graphic notation, and written instructions) by Indigenous artists and their collaborators. At different moments during the exhibition these scores are activated by musicians, dancers, performers and members of the public to gradually fill the exhibition and surrounding public spaces with sound and action. Soundings turns up the volume on voices that don’t always have the stage allowing their actions to reverberate through gallery walls and within visitors’ bodies. Each of the scores is realized in different ways—by professional musicians, audience members, students, dancers, actors and local Indigenous community members. At each location of the tour, new events and new scores will be added that relate to the specific Indigenous territory and people whose land the exhibition takes place on.
To order the publication: Link Forthcoming