They question non-Native definitions of their identity and assert their right to represent themselves. They speak with sophisticated, informed and powerful voices. Artists in the exhibition include Richard Agecoutay, Bob Boyer, Dennis Bruce, S. Ruth Cuthand, Ray Keighley, Ann McLean, Janice M. Morin, Shelia Orr, Edward Poitras, Sherry Farrell Racette, Celina Ritter, Kathleen Wasacase-Janzen and Jerry Whitehead. Through their works these artists consider and question relationships between historical and contemporary Native and non-Native cultures. Searching for harmony and balance between cultures, stereotypes are reassessed, self-perspectives and redefinitions are put forward, and new understandings are achieved.
Some artists reaffirm the Native world view.
Others consider the effect that the Eurocentric world view has had on Native people. In her series of drawings entitled Misuse is Abuse S. Ruth Cuthand explores the relationship between the Indian and the white liberal and forces us to think about these stereotypes. She characterizes her work as the process of deconstruction and reconstruction. Celina Ritter addresses her experiences of assimilation and genocide from a personal perspective in The Indoctrination of Natives in Residential Schools . Her recollections as a child growing up in a residential school dramatize that, for Ritter, education meant dislocation from her family and her culture.