La réponse à la Loi sur les Indiens dans les insoumissions performatives de Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Teharihulen Michel Savard et Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui
Between the drafting of the Indian Act of Canada in 1876 and the beginning of the Idle no more movement in 2012, over a century of protest and motley oppression has passed, giving way to a vigorous speaking conveyed by all of the First Nations. It is in this perspective that this thesis is inspired by the contemporary performance practice developed by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (Salish), Teharihulen Michel Savard (Wendat) and Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui (Wendat), whose work allow to put up a various range of resistance strategies dedicated to cast off the colonial gaze. The provoking performances of those three native artists set up an aesthetic of violence that, considered here has an effective tool of resilience and identity affirmation, foil the coercive authority of The Indian Act. Centered on a interdisciplinary approach, this research address beforehand the historicity behind the symbolic construction of indianess, which was later disproved by native activists trough a variety of sociopolitical protest movements throughout the second half of the 19th century. The performative work of Yuxweluptun, of Teharihulen and of Picard-Sioui are subsequently subject to a detailed analysis regarding a reappropriation and subversion of the predominant codes, allowing them to defy the political, economic, media and symbolic powers of a eurocentrist society endorsing to this day a static view of the native reality. Beyond the form and content, the artist’s performative works under review reinterpret the immemorial traditions of the First Nations while bringing them to date, thus confirming the persistence of a cultural distinctiveness and refuting the annihilation will of the state and colonial powers.
Art autochtone Violence Aboriginal art The Indian Act Performance art Violence First Nations Neocolonialism