by Staff Editors
(September 18, 2024 – Montréal, QC) The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) have announced a brand-new exhibition, Alanis Obomsawin: The Children Have to Hear Another Story, which will be open to the public from September 26, 2024, to January 26, 2025, in the MAC’s temporary space at Place Ville Marie. The exhibition is dedicated to the work of the Abenaki documentary filmmaker, activist, and singer Alanis Obomsawin, one of the most acclaimed Indigenous film directors in the world. It will be accompanied by an exclusive mural by artist Caroline Monnet: Wàbigon.
After having enjoyed great success in Berlin, Vancouver, and Toronto, The Children Have to Hear Another Story will highlight the work of Obomsawin in the heart of Montreal. Decade by decade, this retrospective provides an exhaustive panorama of her cinematographic, visual, and musical work. The exhibition looks at the motivations of the artist, who distinguished herself from a very young age with her strength and courage. The 1960s followed, a period during which she became known to the public as an artist and activist for Indigenous rights, and the subsequent decades were just as significant, showing the evolution of her trajectory and thinking.
“All my life, I have been mainly interested in education, because it is through education that we develop, that we learn hatred or love.” – Alanis Obomsawin
The exhibition presents 13 of the 64 films Obomsawin made at the NFB, including her first, Christmas at Moose Factory (1971), which depicts a Cree community through the drawings and voices of its children; Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993), which was filmed behind the barricades during the Oka crisis; and We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice(2016), which follows a court case First Nations representatives filed against the federal government. These films are accompanied by archival documents shedding new light on their creative process, children’s drawings from Moose Factory, and masks, engravings, and monotypes by the artist.
Alongside the exhibition, the MAC will unveil an exclusive mural by Caroline Monnet: Wàbigon, which means “a flower blooms” in Anishinaabemowin and which pays homage to the major influence of Alanis Obomsawin. Caroline Monnet, an artist of Anishinaabe and French origin, created a monumental photographic portrait of eight Indigenous women and a child in an enchanted forest. Pictured are Acho Dene Koe First Nation chef and artist Swaneige Bertrand with her daughter Aja-Eyal Ferron; the artist’s sister, Émilie Monnet, an interdisciplinary performer; Caroline Monnet herself; the Guinean-Wendat dancer and choreographer Aïcha Bastien N’Diaye; Eeyou (Cree) writer and artist Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau; Atikamekw visual artist Catherine Boivin; Inuk singer-songwriter Elisapie Isaac; and Innu soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais.
Organized by Richard Hill and Hila Peleg, Alanis Obomsawin: The Children Have to Hear Another Story is made possible through a partnership between Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, and Vancouver Art Gallery in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada and with the generous support of CBC/Radio-Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts. This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada. The exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is curated by Lesley Johnstone, with Marjolaine Labelle, and has been made possible by the Government of Québec.
SOURCE: The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC). Photo of Alanis Obomsawin at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival by Ralph Lucas for Northernstars.ca
