And a current runs through me … 

Curated by: Jillian Groening and Mahlet Cuff

​“Carrying moccasins, or wearing moccasins, is an incredible responsibility because you’re not only carrying yourself when you step forward into creation, but you’re carrying all the stories that took place and that led into the moccasins being what they are.”

-Dr. Niigaan Sinclair in Moccasin Stories

This collection of films by Métis, Cree, and Anishinaabe women and gender non-conforming artists weaves a variety of stories together. With a focus on documentary and experimental film, each work stands on its own as a way to touch on the complexities within each of the artist’s identities. Whether passing down stories from generation to generation or with kin, these transmissions are laden with the hardships of facing the realities of intergenerational trauma while moving through the violences of colonialism with the foundation of being grounded in their selfhood. 

IKWÉ by Caroline Monnet and Noisisim by Sonya Ballantyne both highlight the stories of elders as a way to understand one’s lineage and the embodied experience of inheritance. By articulating how layers of intergenerational knowledge might course down family lines, the viewer is invited into sensory worlds where mothers and grandmothers hold the potentiality of thoughts and intimate contemplation. In Noisisim, time is first addressed through a line drawing by Daphne Odjig. Tracing the eyes of who she then realises to be her grandmother, the narrator delves into the ways in which an image might hold history while simultaneously emulating presence. Through this line of inquiry, the viewer is asked to question their relationship to the temporality of media in relation to the body. What are the ways in which our beings persist beyond the containers of the body?

Maiden Indian and Moccasin Stories are both films that create space for reclamation. Created by The Ephemerals, a collective that includes Jenny Western, Nikki Little, and Jaimie Isaac, Maiden Indian investigates and interrogates perceptions of Indigenous identity through material culture. Using humour as a critical lens through which to trouble the appropriation of Indigenous patterns and pieces into mall and music festival culture, Maiden Indiandocuments a creative act of sovereignty.

Moccasin Stories by Charlene Moore approaches the transmission of culture through materiality via documentary By talking to Indigenous women about their relationship to sewing moccasins, they are able to trace their roots and learn from one another. The film begins with Dr. Niigaan Sinclair discussing the power of transgenerational inheritance. As he speaks, the camera pans across the tight-stitched leather shanks and fur ruffs donning rows of moccasins. The narrative progresses to inquire as to whether the footsteps we leave are gentle or deep and if deep, whether our ancestors might trip. The film approaches the footprint as a connector through which knowledge and intention moves rapidly between the earth, the body, and currents of time.
 

Caribou in the Archive by Jennifer Dysart features archival footage of Violet, a Cree woman, hunting caribou in the 1990s woven together with NFB archival film footage of northern Manitoba from the 1950s. Putting a face to the many women who lived and hunted across Turtle Island, the film is able to make visible a relationship to the land that is not often given autonomy. Métis Femme Bodies by Chanelle Lajoie acts as a counter-archive, thoughtfully tracing how the bodies of Métis women, femmes, and gender non-conforming people hold complicated histories. In Caribou in the Archive, the autonomy of the Cree woman is questioned yet the participants of Métis Femme Bodies have control over their narrative and their truth. They are able to see themselves because of Lajoie’s ability to truly see them. 

Each film in “And a current runs through me…” is a gift which resonates beyond the parameters of the screen. From the crooks of the body to the seams of a moccasin, this series addresses the ceaseless transtemporal echoes which continue through generations. 


- Essay by Jillian Groening and Mahlet Cuff