Independent journalist Mary Annette Pember reports on the efforts of the Onaman Collective, a group of Native artists in Canada who are taking a stand on social, legal, environmental and other issues:Photos by Lisa MacIntosh from yesterday's mural project in Toronto. #WhenOneFallsManyRise pic.twitter.com/AtBUS6SzuL
— Onaman Collective (@OnamanCollectiv) April 30, 2017
“Oh yeah, I did some of those doodles and people freaked out,” said Isaac Murdoch in a typical display of understatement. His doodles, as he calls them, have become synonymous with indigenous resistance to corporate environmental degradation. His distinct images, simple yet elegant, are known all over the globe and are universally recognized as the language of resistance most famously used by water protectors at the camps near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Murdoch is from the Serpent River First Nation Band of Ojibway in Ontario, Canada, where he still lives and works as a community organizer and storyteller. Murdoch is one-third of the Onaman Collective, a group of three First Nations artists including Christi Belcourt, Michif, from Manitow Sakahihan, and Erin Konsmo, Métis/Cree from Onoway/Lac St. Anne, Alberta. Their mission, according to their website, is the creation of grassroots social change. But make no mistake, their art is nothing short of guerrilla artistic revolution designed to create both reaction and a sense of empowered unity among indigenous folks that they can, indeed, change the world.Read More on the Story:
Mary Annettte Pember: Onaman Collective Puts Art Into Resistance (Indian Country Media Network 5/1)
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