the Mobile Decolonial Do Tank (MDDT)

(2023 - in progress)

Turtle Island: M’Chigeeng First Nation; Siksika Nation; First Nations reserve of the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke
Canada: Calgary; Montréal; Ottawa
France: La Rochelle; Brouage; Poitiers; Paris, Brest
Senegal: Dakar

(The content of this page is in progress)

The intent of MDDT is twofold. As a collective, we work with International cultural institutions and municipalities to facilitate access to their collections of Indigenous cultural belongings to Indigenous creators, communities, and Indigenous cultural institutions. We offer expertise to these international institutions by connecting them with indigenous experts and knowledge keepers from Indigenous communities of origin to ensure firsthand interpretation.

In addition to this consulting activity, MDDT initiates international commissions of contemporary Indigenous arts, supports the production of artworks, events and exhibitions to disseminate contemporary Indigenous cultures from Turtle Island. We also facilitate Indigenous participation in interdisciplinary decolonial actions abroad.

Following the success of  Les Rencontres décoloniales  (La Rochelle France, January 2023) or phase 1, a 10-day visit organized by Catherine Sicot, and hosted by Le Intermondes - humanités océanes, the participants, which included artists Barry Ace M'Chigeeng Odawa), Adrian Stimson (Siksika, Blackfoot), and curators Lori Beavis (Michi Saagiig-Anishinaabe/ Irish-Welsh), Georgiana Uhlyarik (Canadian) and Catherine Sicot formed the MDDT. 

In 2024, Elegoa Cultural Productions in partnership with daphne and in collaboration with MDDT’s co-founders received the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Innovation Funds (250 000 cad) to support a pilot project in La Rochelle and in Canada, to further and expand upon the work started by the visit in 2023. THe funding is also intended for the collective to research, develop a business plan, and investigate a governance model. In 2024, Michelle McGeough (Cree Métis/Irish), a daphne board member, joined the MDDT to co-direct the pilot project with Catherine Sicot, the director of Elegoa Cultural Productions.

Pilot project activities:

June 24 - July 5, 2024: TURTLE ISLAND / CANADA
La Rochelle Museums’ directors/curators visited three Indigenous Nations and museums in Canada:

Elise Patole Edoumba (Museum d’histoire naturelle) and Mélanie Moreau, (Musée du Nouveau Monde), visited Kahnawake (Quebec), M’Chigeeng First Nation (Manitoulin Island, Ontario) and Siksika Nation (Alberta). THey were accompanied by Catherine Sicot and MDDT guest collaborator Bastien Gagnon-Lafrance. The tour was developed with Barry Ace (M’Chigeeng), Adrian Stimson (Siksika), MDDT collaborator Alica Ibarra (Kahnawake) and Catherine Sicot. The itinerary included hosted visits to First Nations communities, Indigenous Cultural Centres and museums in Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary – Click here to see detailed program itinerary and curators participating  (PDF)

Additional funders: L’Ambassade de France à Ottawa, Le consulat de France à Montréal, Le Consulat de France à Vancouver

August 25 – October 4th, 2024 and winter 2025: NATES / LA ROCHELLE / BROUAGE / POITIERS / PARIS
MDDT in residence in France at Intermondes - humanités océanes (La Rochelle), Poitiers, Brouage, Paris and Brest and in Senegal (Dakar):  
research/workshops/production/ public programs and symposium

Additional Funders: Intermondes – humanités océanes (La Rochelle) and Art-Rights-Truth
Partners : Les Musées de La Rochelle et Traversées Africaines (La Rochelle)

Artists, film director and curators Barry Ace, Adrian Stimson, Olive Martin & Patrick Bernier, Catherine Pelletier, Laurence Guérault and Catherine Sicot will be in residence. Click here for their biography.

PROGRAMME LA ROCHELLE:

- Barry Ace and Nantes-based collaborators Olive Martin and Patrick Bernier, will collaborate on the creation of a beaded/woven work. The artwork entitled bskaabwidmawaa (to bring something back), evokes a trans-Atlantic wampum belt conceived in the spirit of repatriation. During the last week of Auguest in Nantes, they will work on borad of La Deparleuse, a barge developed by Olive and Patrick to explore the paths of colonisations from the ocean to French cities following river system. They will then continue the work for 2 weeks at Intermondes – Humanités Océanes with public viewings and conversations. In addition to this, Barry will lead a 2-day workshop inspired by the UN declaration on the right of Indigenous People and the Truth and Reconciliation report. The workshop will invite collaboration form participants (students, lawyers, business entrepreneurs, city/department counselors). This project receives the additional support of Art- Rights -Truth. Laurence Guérault, French filmmaker based in La Rochelle, will document the artits' collaborative process along with other MDDT projects in development in La Rochelle in September 2024

Barry Ace will lead a beading workshop on Septemner 12 and 13 where 46 participants will explore the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Artists' talks and open studio on September 14

- Adrian Stimson will start developing a performance entitled Buffalo Boy Discovers the Old World in collaboration with La Rochelle partners including Le Centre chorégrapique Les Milles Plateaux and Le Musée Maritime de La Rochelle

- Catherine Pelletier, French documentary maker born in La Rochelle, will start researching  for a documentary focusing on current memories of La Rochelle's inhabitants of the 1927 colonial exhibition.

- Catherine Sicot will assume the curatorial support of these residencies and co-lead X2027 and a 2-day symposium for professionals programed in collaboration with Elise Patole-Edoumba (Director/Conservatrice, Les Musés de La Rochelle) and  Salimata Diop, Franco-Senegalese independent curator based in La Rochelle, current artistic director of the Biennale de l’art contemporain africain  (Dakar, Senegal, fall 2024) on the following topic:

X2027: why and how should we revisit the colonial exhibition in La Rochelle on the occasion of its centennial?

X 2027 is the working title of a decolonial expo project that will mark the centennial of La Rochelle Exposition coloniale (1927). This independent project has been initiated with Danielle Olgiati - Trocmé, International Mediator, Director of Traversées Africaines (Based in La Rochelle). Partners include:  Les Musées de La Rochelle, and Intermondes – humanités océanes.

September 24 and 25, 2024: POITIERS

Barry Ace, Adrian Stimson and Catherine Sicot meet in Poitiers with researchers/professors of Indigenous studies from Poitiers Université and with cultural local partners.

September 26 and 27, 2024: PARIS
Barry Ace and Catherine Sicot will take part in a symposium organized by Paris Nanterre Université:
Diaspolinks.Native lines : First Nations and the (Un)-weaving of history

November 7 to 21, 2024: DAKAR
MDDT participates in la Biennale de l’art contemporain africain in Dakar (Sénégal) under the Artistic direction of  Salimata Diop - More info to come

February / March 2025: LA ROCHELLE / BROUAGE / BREST
Michelle McGeough will initiate We are the Otipemisiwak, a performance project and an exhibition research on the Métis descendants of the 17th century French Filles du Roi (women sent by the King of France to New France to support colonization, all of whom departed from La Rochelle) in collaboration with Lori Beavis.

The project is supported by the city of Brouage, in collaboration with Intermondes – humanités océanes. Brouages is located 40 km south of La Rochelle and is the birthplace of Samuel de Champlain.

Michelle Mc Geough also participates in symposium Les images et les mots au-delà des frontières : Perspectives artistiques chicanxs et autochtones sur la souveraineté intellectuelle at L’Université de Brest.

PHOTOS credits:

*1 - Top of the image: On exhibit at the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation (OCF), a creation inspired by James Redsky's sacred scrolls, realized in 2010 by Mikinaak (Crystal) Migwans, Curatorial Assistant at the OCF, with the authorization of James Redsky's grandson. Bottom of the image, in the display case: Bandolier bag donated to the OCF by a family from Southern Ontario who had owned the piece since the early 1900's. Oeuvres conserved and on view at the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, M'Chigeeng Nation, Manitoulin Island. Photo by Catherine Sicot.

*2 - View from the ferry leaving Manitoulin Island (Georgian Bay, Ontario). Photo by Catherine Sicot.

*3 - Joanne Schmidt, Curator, Indigenous Studies & World Cultures presenting Indigenous heritage in the vaults of the Glembow Museum (Calgary) to Mélanie Moreau, Directrice et conservatrices, Musée du Nouveau Monde (La Rochelle), and Elise Patole-Edoumba, Directrice des museées de La Rochelle et Conservatrice du Museum d'histoire naturelle. Photo by Catherine Sicot.

*4 - Siksika Badlands near Bassano Dam, east end of the Nation, during July 2024 road trip on Siksika territory led by Adrian Stimson (left), with Bastien Gagnon Lafrance, Elise Patole Edoumba and Mélanie Moreau and Catherine Sicot. Photo by Catherine Sicot.

*5 - Gordon Yellow Fly Memorial Arbour during the Siksika Nation Fair 2024. Photo by Catherine Sicot.

*6- Entrance St Kateri Cemetery, Nation Kanien’kéha:ka de Kahnawà:ke. Photo by Catherine Sicot.

* 7- Photo of the official Haudenosaunee passport shown by host/knowledge keeper of the Kahnawake Tourisme Office. Photo by Catherine Sicot.

*9 - Mélanie Moreau and Elise Patole-Edouba entering main exhibition hall at the Canadian Museum of History (Ottawa). Photo by Catherine Sicot.

*10 - Display iat the Canadian Museum of History (Ottawa). Photo by Catherine Sicot.