Each artist is their own memory keeper, where they encode, store and retrieve knowledge of the land, language, and cultural practices. Their artwork translates and transmits Indigenous knowledge for future generations. Memory keepers III | Nujimikwite’taqatijik III was a site-specific, experimental, collaborative visual art installation created by eight Indigenous artists from Halifax and across southern and northern Canada, led by GLAM Collective and presented at NSCAD’s University’s Treaty Space Gallery at the Port Campus. GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) is a collective of curator-artist-scholars who present innovative projects in public spaces by working through Indigenous, feminist, and anti-oppressive methodologies.

For this project, eight works by eight artists were produced in two one-week intensive visual arts residencies at Concordia University and NSCAD University in 2019, which culminated in the installation of Memory Keepers I | Gardiens des mémoires I at Nuit Blanche in Montreal, QC and Memory keepers II | Nujimikwite’taqatijik II at Art in the Open in Charlottetown, PEI. The artists featured in the third installation of the Memory Keepers series bring their diverse creative practices together to create experiential, interactive, digital and site-specific works. The participating artists were Carrie Allison, Sébastien Aubin, Darcie Bernhardt, Tom McLeod, Jerry Evans, Megan Kyak-Monteith, Caroline Monnet, and Jason Sikoak.

The installation was hosted by NSCAD University’s Treaty Space Gallery as part of Nocturne: Art at Night. Drawing on the fun and spontaneous spirit of Nocturne in creating this site-specific experimental art exhibition, Memory keepers III | Nujimikwite’taqatijik III took the theme of Scaffolding in both technological terms - drawing on digital and new media arts to create an exciting, interactive installation - but also to refer to the idea of Indigenous resurgence, situating Indigenous peoples within a long continuum of past, present and future on this land.

Playing with concepts of memory keeping, these artists encode, store and retrieve knowledge of the land, language, and cultural practices. Memory Keepers III | Nujimikwite’taqatijik III is a series of site specific,
experimental, collaborative media art installations created by eight Indigenous artists during two art incubators curated by GLAM Collective. Their artwork translates and transmits Indigenous knowledge for future generations.

ARTISTS

Carrie Allison is an Indigenous mixed-ancestor multidisciplinary visual artist based in Halifax.
Sebastien Aubin is a Montreal-based artist and graphic designer, and a proud member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba.
Darcie Bernhardt is an emerging Inuvialuit painter and curator, recent NSCAD graduate and current Assistant Curator at the MSVU Art Gallery.
Jerry Evans is a master Mi’kmaq print maker, tattoo artist and powwow dancer from Ktaqamkuk (Newfoundland).
Megan Kyak-Monteith is an Inuk painter from Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), Nunavut, currently based in Halifax.
Tom McLeod is a Gwich’in and Inuvialuit emerging installation and new media artist with professional experience in the film industry
Caroline Monnet is an established Algonquin-French contemporary artist and filmmaker known for her work in sculpture, installation and film
Jason Sikoak is a graphic artist from Nunatsiavut studying Studio Arts at Concordia University.

Nujimikwite’ta qatijik 3
Mi’kmaw translation by Diane Mitchell

Nujitasked
with, responsible to do..., designated to do...

-mikwite’-
the morpheme for “remember”

-taqatijik
«they» (in Mi’kmaw there are singular, dual and plural endings for many verbs).