The word ‘rupture’ ebbs and flows out of my mind’s internal dialogue since the beginning of the course, “Public Art: Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures”. As defined by Merriam-Webster online dictionary, ‘rupture’ is: a breaking apart, tearing apart of tissue, a breach of peace, or to part by violence.

Created as part of Synonym Art Consultation’s 2016 Wall-to-Wall mural festival, Mending is a 60-foot-tall mural located at the gateway to Winnipeg’s North End on Main Street, next to Winnipeg Centre Vineyard Church.

I find the world of virtual reality quite interesting. About 5 years ago, while living in central BC, I attended a small exhibit that was making its way through different communities.

Artist Glenn Gear was a guest speaker for one of the classes in Dr. Nagam’s Indigenous Film and New Media course. I really enjoyed listening to him and seeing pictures of his work – both his pieces as he was working on them and his finished pieces.

Now that we have completed our Indigenous Film and New Media course, I am beginning to consider how my perspective of Indigenous and new media art has changed throughout the duration of this course.

In the Article, “A better dance and better prayers: systems, structures, and the future imaginary in aboriginal new media: Go Ahead, Call It a Vision Quest” looks at TimeTravellerTM’s game “Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace” created by Skawennati Tricia Fragnito…

In Lewis’s article “A better dance and better prayers: systems, structures, and the future imaginary in aboriginal new media: Skins, Storytellers, and Flying Heads” he talks about how one could influence Indigenous people and their cultures within video games …

Within the article “A better dance and better prayers: systems, structures, and the future imaginary in aboriginal new media: Structures and System I” this section is interesting in the aspect of the developing proses…

Within the article “A better dance and better prayers: systems, structures, and the future imaginary in aboriginal new media: Present in the Future” within this section Lewis talks about Anishinaabe scholar Grace Dillon…

Within the first section of Jason E Lewis’s article, “A better dance and better prayers: systems, structures, and the future imaginary in aboriginal new media: The Importance of a Future Imaginary,” he makes reference to the Film, “After the Dance” by Richard Hill,l where people live in a post-Ghost Dance world.

I enjoy museums. For me, they are like giant treasure chests and I am a time traveller as I walk through them. Some aspects are incredibly interesting, taking me to times and places beyond my current world.

Late fall of 2020, I had to make a decision around if I would go ahead and enroll in classes at UWinnipeg for what would be a fully remote graduate degree in cultural studies, a discipline very unfamiliar to me, as I studied as an urban planner. 

In reflecting on the themes of visual sovereignty, I was thinking about the ways that artists build space in their practice to protect their work, but more specifically, to protect their communities from exploitation.

After weeks of engagement with a diverse work of Indigenous new media, I keep coming back to our early conversations, where the works centred around Indigenous histories and digital challenges. 

I admit I was anxious about taking a course in Indigenous new media. Other than years of taking singing lessons in my youth and taking a photography class for my Bachelor’s degree, I am not that artistically inclined.

In Codetalkers Recounting Signals of Survival, artist, and musician Cheryl L’Hirondelle opens the article with her own experience of being immersed in the Cree language.

I was excited to see the game Never Alone featured when we discussed video games in class. I had played the game before when it first came in 2014 and unfortunately, because I was busy with school, I did not get far in the game.

For two of our classes, we were treated to a beginning beading class with Métis master beader Jennine Krauchi. I was wondering why Dr. Nagam was urging us to send our mailing addresses to her as soon as possible during the second day of class.

I am not extremely knowledgeable about Artificial Intelligence (AI) other than what is portrayed in popular movies like Ex Machina (2015) or what is discussed in mainstream science magazines.

I really loved the Belonging to Place episode “Mark making” – it tied in to and resonated with the ways that I think about public art. I especially loved Dr. Serena Keshavjee’s reflections on public art in Winnipeg, and how we interact with it.