Public Studio & Nyle Miigizi Johnston: This Place, Neyaashiinigmiing

This Place, Neyaashiinigmiing weaves a set of narratives about genetically modified fish, nuclear power and private hunting islands, against the backdrop of the Bruce Peninsula’s unforgettable landscape. In an immersive installation of video, sound and drawings, the work examines the ongoing court case between the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) and the Canadian Government contemplating how exploitative threads from Canada's colonial history continue today and have deep environmental and social impacts. Canadian Senator Justice Murray Sinclair has famously argued, regarding Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation initiatives, that “reconciliation is a verb, it is something you do.” As today’s corporate and state apparatuses feel ever-more opaque and insurmountable, we are increasingly reminded that any such conciliatory “doing” will only be possible through solidarity across cultural and class divides, between Indigenous and settler Canadians. Public Studio in collaboration with Nyle Miigizi Johnston, an artist, muralist, storyteller from Neyaashiinigmiing, as well as other members of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON), artists Ange Loft, Miles Rufelds and composer Dave Wall have created This Place, Neyaashiinigmiing, sketching imaginative and poetic associations between the political, ecological, and legal narratives that play out across Indigenous and settler history. Together, our stories weave contrasting tales of past and present, creation and colonization, dispossession and perseverance.