Spoken Word Artist
I didn’t get a response for the longest time from Leanne Simpson. After the first e-mail, I sent another follow up one. I didn’t hear anything and started to get a little disappointed. I finally got a message from her secretary saying Leanne Simpson was really busy at the moment, so while she couldn’t do a live interview over skype or phone, she would be happy to answer some questions over e-mail.
This is what she said:
How does the Indian Act affect you?
“I am a member of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg and our territory is on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The processes of colonialism and now settler colonialism have dispossessed my people from most of our land base. This has been accomplished through a fraudulent treaty process, legislations such as the Indian Act and land claims policies, the criminalization of dissent, residential schools and day schools, encroachment, environmental damage, and disease. The Indian Act has had devastating impacts on my family – it has destroyed our political system and system of governance and it decides who belongs to our communities. Early versions of it made our ceremonies illegal. It is a mechanism of controlling Indigenous peoples.”
How would you change the Indian Act if you could?
“It is not just the Indian Act that needs to change. We need to change the fundamental way Canada relates to Indigenous nations. In our original diplomatic relationships with settlers we expected our sovereignty, self determination and freedom as nations to be respected. We expected a land base. We expected to partner with other governments over shared lands.”
How do you use art to share your story?
“I write primarily for Indigenous audiences. I work in the field of Indigenous resurgence as an academic and activist so I’m mostly concerned with rebuilding Indigenous nations from the inside out. I used live performance, recordings, video, short stories, poetry, blogs and academic work to connect to my audience.”
For more on Leanne Simpson click here
On the poetry in voice website, Leanne Simpson explains how her poem I am Graffiti came about:
"I was watching the closing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and I felt angry, not reconciled. While some incredible work came out of the TRC and some survivors found solace in it, the Canadian government was not honourable and forthcoming in the TRC process, and it felt manipulative to me. If felt like this was a process to neutralize Indigenous anger without talking about returning land, sharing power, and decolonizing Canada. Canada tried to assimilate Indigenous peoples, mistakes were made, it didn’t work. I am still here. I am graffiti."