Paul Seesequasis—Turning the Lens: Indigenous Archive Project

23 March 2023 – 27 August 2023

About the Exhibition

Curated By

Arin Fay with Felicia Gay

Organized & Circulated By

Nelson Museum, Archives & Gallery

Galleries

Sim Gallery

Turning the Lens: Indigenous Archive Project is many things at once. It’s a photography/history exhibition, a naming project, and a social media campaign. This exhibition allows visitors to think about the many ways we record shared histories as public memory. Why are certain stories valued by different people, groups or organizations?

This exhibition features images of Indigenous peoples from the 1950s-1960s taken by photojournalist Rosemary Gilliat Eaton. At each location that this exhibition is shown, Paul adds local images and stories to the project.

Turning the Lens celebrates the everyday life and ongoing resilience in Canadian Indigenous communities.

About the Artist

Paul Seesequasis is a Plains Cree writer, journalist and cultural activist based in Saskatoon. He collects archival images of everyday life among First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities from the 1920s through the 1970s. By sharing these images on social media and collecting information from Indigenous communities, Paul identifies the people, places, events and stories connected to each image. These details have often been left out of gallery, museum, and archive records.

Works in the Exhibition

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