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The Indian Act is the default legislation governing reserves. Its provisions set out a rigid and paternalistic land use planning regime that makes it difficult for First Nations to exercise their inherent right to self-determination. While the Indian Act was the only legislation governing land use decisions on reserves for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, First Nations led-advocacy has facilitated fundamental changes to the reserve system by delivering legislative alternatives to the Indian Act regime. These alternative regimes were strengthened further in 2018 through Bill C-86, which made it easier for First Nations to control revenue derived from reserves and create or add to existing reserves. This paper considers the effect of these changes on urban reserves, that is, reserves that are adjacent to urban population centres. While the reserve system remains an imperfect settler institution, I argue that the contemporary system provides a viable means for First Nations with urban reserves to develop their land in a manner that is consistent with their right to self-determination and economic interests. Upon discussing the laws and potential benefits of developing on urban reserves under the contemporary system, I conduct a case study on Senakw to highlight how the current regime can facilitate economically advantageous developments for First Nations. I conclude with a discussion on the generalizability of the Senakw model to other urban reserves in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous curatorship has become an increasingly visible presence in the public sphere as part of the long process of North American Native people's efforts to regain control over the representations and uses of their cultures in Western societies. Even though scholars consider this profession fundamental to Native American struggles for sovereignty, many do not have a clear understanding of what it involves. In the context of scarce scholarship on Indigenous curatorship, this qualitative study relies on interview and textual data to articulate Indigenous curators' understandings of their work of preserving and promoting Indigenous knowledge. It emphasizes the uniqueness of Indigenous curatorship by mapping out this profession's specific roles and responsibilities within the broader arena of museum curatorship. The study identifies two main directions Indigenous curators take in their work, namely activism and engagement of the public. Activism consists in Indigenous curators' efforts to critique oppressive knowledge structures, raise awareness of controversial topics of public interest related to Indigeneity, and support Native artists and tribal communities. Engagement of the public refers to Indigenous curators' strategies of involving source communities in the design of exhibits and diverse audiences in the interpretation of exhibitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects upon Indigenous curatorial practice since 1986. Topics discussed include the work of the curator Jimmie Durham, founding director of the International Indian Treaty Council, who often worked in conjunction with the curator Jean Fisher, the politics of exhibition design and the boycott of the 1988 exhibition "The Spirit Sings," which was held in conjunction with the Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta.

Lee-Ann Martin describes how Indigenous artists, curators and activists in Canada have transformed long-held institutional discourses and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses representations of borders in contemporary Native American art. Particular focus is given to the meanings of these artworks in the context of border-rights conflicts between Native nations and the governments of the U.S. and Canada. According to the author, the visual and philosophical complexity of artworks dealing with borders has increased as border-rights conflicts have intensified following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Emphasis is given to the artwork "Third Bank of the River" by Alan Michelson, which has been installed at the U.S. port of entry in Massena, New York. Other topics include photographer Zig Jackson, sculptor Bob Haozous, and sculptor and performance artist James Luna.

This article reports that in the year 1833, author Catharine Parr Traill said that ghosts or spirits had banished from Canada. Over a hundred years later, Canadian poet and critic Earle Birney echoed her sentiments by stating that it was only by Canadians luck of ghosts they were haunted. Nonetheless, despite or perhaps because of Birney's suggestion that Canadians are haunted by a lack of spectres, contemporary Canadian authors, artists, and filmmakers are obsessed with ghosts and haunting. A host of writers and artist have taken pains to map the intricacies of haunting.

This article presents information related to translation in the First Nations art in Canada. Insofar as First Nations artists acknowledge and work within a culturally specific identity, cultural boundaries are at issue. Where translation is proffered, boundaries marking cultural difference are implied, but so is the idea that they can be overcome. Canada was notoriously late to recognize the significance of the cultural expressions of its aboriginal populations and this division of labor had maintained the separation between art and ethnography, even while much of the latter had been acknowledged to be the former by artists and decideurs in other parts of the world where a Euro-American aesthetic held sway.

The article discusses the highlights of the conference "Ahzhekewada [Let Us Look Back] - Revisioning the Indians of Canada Pavilion held at OCAD University in Toronto, Ontario, on October 14-15, 2011. The conference included presentations by curators, artists, critics and scholars from around the world. They discussed a variety of issues including Aboriginal perspectives on critical and aesthetic theory, digital media and Web-based art, art history and cosmopolitanism and internationalism.