From October 14th to 26th, Canadian artist Alex McKay will be artist in residence in Keynes College at the University of Kent, where he will be constructing a UK edition of his 1999 artwork, ‘Treaty Canoe’. To find out more about the original Treaty Canoe itself, please visit www.treatycanoe.ca/?p=1
This event will mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, often described as Canada’s ‘Magna Carta’. Among other things, the Royal Proclamation cemented, in principle, certain rights among North America’s first peoples—rights to land and resources, to the maintenance of belief and knowledge systems, and self governance. Despite centuries of broken treaties, that principle inheres to this day. ‘Treaty Canoe’ affirms the importance of this document, while inviting audiences to consider the nature of and obligations behind the treaty relationship.
Using dip pen and ink, treaties will be performatively transcribed by students and volunteers. Most, having never read a treaty, in a de-colonial gesture, will undertake a close reading of one of a variety of treaties between settler-colonial powers (many under the authority of the British Crown) and First Peoples in Canada, the USA, and New Zealand, and then poignantly sign the contracts in the stead of their original faithful negotiators. Participants will be asked to consider what Britain’s obligations, as ‘underwriter’ of the original treaties, might be in the present day; will learn a little both about Indigenous peoples and their place in international law, and about Britain’s role in the recognition of Indigenous Rights; and will learn about the roles the Indigenous peoples play in the environmental movement, in relation to human rights issues, and more.
There will be several events before and during Alex McKay’s stay at which volunteers will be able to participate in the above transcription process and contribute to the artwork – please do come along!
Further details about these and related events can be found here. For the first of them, we are holding a ‘drop-in’ session on the 7th October from 10am-2pm to the Learning Lab of the Beaney Institute in Canterbury. As part of the global ‘Idle No More Day of Action’ members of the public will be invited to learn about First Nations and Native American communities today and the legacy of treaties. They will also be invited to read, discuss, and transcribe a portion of a treaty to be used in the artwork— so come along and participate in creating the skin for Treaty Canoe II! Details of other drop-in events and talks related to Indigenous issues can be found here.
This project is co-sponsored by the Ontario Arts Council, the Kent Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the Centre for American Studies and School of English at the University of Kent and, and the Department of History and American Studies at Christ Church Canterbury University.