Co-Curated with Diana Frost, former president of CIF Reconciliation Society, the exhibition Niitsitapi Pi’kssíí (Blackfoot Fancy Beings) features artworks that depict animals, or fancy beings, significant to Blackfoot culture by two contemporary Blackfoot artists, Ryan Jason Allen Willert and Kalum Teke Dan. Blackfoot teachings about these animals are a large part of the exhibition, which would not have been possible if not for the generous support of Blackfoot Elder Camille (Pablo) Russell.

 

To develop an understanding of balance and harmony in nature and the cycles of renewal that affect seasons of life, it is essential to observe the natural world and its animal cohabitants. This fact is well-known in Blackfoot culture. According to Blackfoot author Betty Bastien, the knowledge of the Siksikaitsitapi (or the Blackfoot Nation) is organized according to thousands of years of observation and participatory relationship with the natural world (1). This knowledge highlights a reciprocal relationship with the land and the creatures that occupy it; four-legged fur-bearing beings, birds, fish, and humans alike share a kinship with the land, the sky, and all the environments we inhabit. With this in mind this exhibition features a small selection of animals, each with a unique significance, story, and teachings.

 

Through several consultations with the artists and elder Camille (Pablo) Russell, this exhibition and its educational content have been developed to include accounts from Blackfoot knowledge as well as basic information about each of the animals, including physical descriptions, habitats, diets, and more. Niitsitapi Pi’kssíí (Blackfoot Fancy Beings) emphasizes how Blackfoot language, storytelling, and knowledge-sharing have intrinsic value when it comes to understanding the natural world.

 

Bastien explains in her book Blackfoot Ways of Knowing: The Worldview of the Siksikaitsitapi that what is understood as “research, knowledge, and truth” in Blackfoot culture is profoundly different from Eurocentric thought. It goes beyond trying to come up with rational explanations as an attempt to reduce the mysteries of nature to a finite set of rules and laws that grant order to the cosmos. Instead, Bastien says, “Niitsitapi epistemologies [the branches of philosophy concerned with knowledge] are founded upon generating and creating knowledge premised on the goal of existing in harmony with the natural world” (2). Audiences are invited to reflect on this approach to understanding nature, and to consider the value of building more harmonious relationships with our animal kin.

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This exhibition was curated by Ashley Slemming with the support of co-curator Diana Frost, who is also the founder of the Indigenous social enterprise Colouring it Forward which includes a not-for-profit organization called CIF Reconciliation Society and a business called Colouring It Forward Inc.

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1 Betty Bastien, “I: Context,” in Blackfoot Ways of Knowing: The Worldview of the Siksikaitsitapi

(Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004), 39.

2 Ibid.

Niitsitapi Pi’kssíí (Blackfoot Fancy Beings) toured until the end of August 2024 as part of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition(TREX)Program and visited 

approximately thirty different venues within Alberta.