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Conduits 2025
Morning Keynote (11:30am - 12:30pm) presented by Dr. Shannon Leddy
Morning Keynote (11:30am - 12:30pm) presented by Dr. Shannon Leddy
Room K8652, Burnaby Campus
Indigenous Persistence and Art as Resistance
Indigenous Persistence and Art as Resistance
Abstract:
Since the first European ships arrived on the shores of Turtle Island, Indigenous peoples have been resisting the erosion of our populations, cultures, languages and our very humanity. Despite many recent advances towards Indigenous recognition and sovereignty around the world (such as UNDRIP and the many Truth Commissions that have been struck in former and current colonial nations), pockets of denial, racism, and cultured ignorance persist. In Canada, Settler resistance is often embodied by school curricula that erases or minimises Indigenous histories related to the impacts of colonization, and ignore the presence of contemporary Indigenous peoples. This failure to teach results in a failure to learn from our shared histories; it enables the perpetuation of colonial mythologies about Indigenous peoples rooted in deficit paradigms, as well as in the perpetuation of systemic and cultural oppression. It is, however, as Louis Riel suggested over a hundred years ago, the artists who are now leading the way in the Indigenous Persistence. In their acts of creative expression, moving with, through and beyond words, they challenge us to learn for ourselves, to take up their gentle pedagogy and walk with them as they show us how to find a better path together.
Dr. Shannon Leddy is a card-carrying member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia and an associate professor of art education at the University of British Columbia, whose practice focuses on using transformative pedagogies in decolonizing and Indigenizing teacher education. Her PhD research at Simon Fraser University focused on inviting pre-service teachers into dialogue with contemporary Indigenous art as a mechanism of decolonization in order to help them become adept at delivering Indigenous education without reproducing colonial stereotypes. Before arriving at UBC, Shannon taught high school Art, Social Studies, and English. She is the Co-Chair of the Institute for Environmental Learning, and a Research Fellow and Board Member at the Institute for Public Education/BC. Her book, Teaching where you are: weaving slow and Indigenous pedagogies, written with Dr. Lorrie Miller, is now available from the University of Toronto Press. She is also a mother and a Nehiyaw/Cree language learner as well as a Danish language learner.
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