Art & Law

"Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing tells another story of the mythical Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve, also the setting for Tomson Highway's award winning play The Rez Sisters. Wherein The Rez Sisters the focus was on seven 'Wasy' women and the game of bingo, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing features seven 'Wasy' men and the game of hockey. It is a fast-paced story of tragedy, comedy, and hope."

"In 'Healing through Art' Nadia Ferrara shows how art therapy has been used as a successful form of healing among Crees. The result of her work as an art therapist in communities in northern Quebec, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the nature of her patients' experiences. Ferrara examines how individual experience of trauma is perceived, defined, and narrated by Cree individuals and discusses the role that Cree culture and Cree definitions of self play in therapy.

"To many, the North is a familiar but inaccessible place. Yet images of the region are within easy reach, in magazine racks, on our coffee tables, and on television, computer, and movie screens. In Northern Exposures, Peter Geller uncovers the history behind these popular conceptions of the Canadian North.

"Based on a deposition signed by fourteen Chiefs of the Thompson River basin in the occasion of a visit to their lands by Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1910, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout is a ritualized retelling of how the Native Peoples of British Columbia lost their fishing, hunting and grazing rights, their lands, and finally their language without their agreement or consent, and without any treaties ever having been signed.

"First Stories: Volume II features Power of a Horse, Life Givers: Honouring Our Elders and Children, O Mother, Where Art Thou? and ati-wîhcasin (It's Getting Easier), four new short films from four emerging Saskatchewan filmmakers, Tessa Desnomie, Cory Generoux, Jainine Windolph and Paul John Swiderski." -- From container

Power of a Horse: "...is the moving account of filmmaker Cory Generoux dealing with the scars that racism left on his life - both as its recipient and perpetrator. This potent, short film reveals a simple and beautiful lesson that changed his life."

"In First Stories: Volume I, four Aboriginal filmmakers explore the realities of their lives in 21st century Canada. With humour and compassion, their films deal with a range of topics including Native culture/identity, Native traditions, Native art and street gangs. The release includes four five-minute documentaries: Patrick Ross, Nganawendaanan Nde'ing (I Keep Them in My Heart), My Indian Name and Apples & Indians." -- From container.

"Essential Song: Three Decades of Northern Cree Music, a study of subarctic Cree hunting songs, is the first detailed ethnomusicology of the nothern Cree of Quebec and Manitoba. The result of more than two decades spent in the Northern learning from the Cree, Lynn Whidden's account discusses the tradition of the hunting songs, their meanings and origins, and their importance tot he hunt. She examines women's songs, and traces the impact of social change - including the introduction of the hymns, gospel tunes, and country music - on the song traditions of these communities.

"From the Canadian Indian Act to Freud's Totem and Taboo to films such as Nanook of the North, all manner of cultural artefacts were used to create a distinction between savagery and civilization. In Defamiliarizing the Aboriginal , Julia V. Emberley examines the historical production of aboriginality in colonial cultural practices and its effects in shaping the everyday lives of indigenous women, youth, and children.

"Indigenous peoples around the world are seeking greater control over tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In Canada, issues concerning repatriation and trade of material culture, heritage site protection, treatment of ancestral remains, and control over intangible heritage are governed by a complex legal and policy environment. First Nations Cultural Heritage and Law is the first of two interdisciplinary volumes exploring First Nations perspectives on cultural heritage and issues of reform within and beyond Western law.

"First Stories: Volume III features the films Walking Alone, Two Spirited, His Guidance and Hooked Up: NDNs Online by emerging filmmakers Gerald Auger, Sharon A. Desjarlais, Duane Linklater and Jennifer Dysart. The First Stories program invited Aboriginal filmmakers to tell the stories that are important to them and their communities." -- From container