Promoting and Protecting the Arts and Expressions of Indigenous Peoples: A Compendium of Experiences and Actions
This publication gathers first-hand experiences and perspectives on promoting and protecting the arts, cultural expressions, and artistic practices of Indigenous Peoples. The experiences and insights shared here articulate both the real-life encounters and challenges with misappropriation of arts, cultural expressions, and artistic practices, as well as some of the tools and solutions being advanced to address these challenges. The writings contained in this compendium reflect contributors’ personal experiences and reflections, often drawing from lifetimes of expertise working in their particular areas of artistic and cultural practice.
It is this individual and personal connection to cultural and artistic practices and to experiences of misappropriation and misuse that is of particular value. Given that many Indigenous art forms are deeply connected to different forms of cultural knowledge, spirituality, medicine, legal orders, and family and community history, it is impossible (and undesirable) to separate personal lived experience from our work of examining misuse and misappropriation.
Publisher: Department of Canadian Heritage
Date: 2021