Ogimaa Kwebnes,
Chief Lady Bird
Nancy King
This is what our communities deserve to return to.
We deserve to be close and feel happy and connected
to the land and the waters and each other.
Land Back will help us achieve this.
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UNTITLED Acrylic image, superimposed digitally on photograph, 25”x 18”
Biography
Chief Lady Bird is a First Nations (Potawatomi and Chippewa) artist from Rama First Nation with paternal ties to Moose Deer Point First Nation. She completed her BFA in Drawing and Painting with a minor in Indigenous Visual Culture at OCAD University and is currently based in Toronto.
Chief Lady Bird’s art is rooted in identity, and how it can function at political, emotional and spiritual levels. Politically we are in the era of Reconciliation, wherein the government is placing emphasis on dialogue through calls to action that strive to rid Canada of its dark past. At an emotional and spiritual level, we are in the era of Reclamation.
Chief Lady Bird’s work exists at the crux of her experience as an Indigenous woman, wherein national reconciliation and individual identity reclamation meet, resulting in imagery that empowers Indigenous peoples and pushes back against the inaccurate monolithic perception of Indigenous identity.
Statement
This piece is about food sovereignty and community. When I think about truth and reconciliation I feel disenchanted. I believe in a lot of the calls to action but I often question who it serves when they’re implemented - I get the sense a lot of gestures are insincere especially because there are so many young people who don’t have access to the land or even adequate housing in our communities; they don’t often have access to language programs nor do they have someone to teach them how to hunt or fish.
My brother, partner and two step sons are in this photo, during the pickerel run. During this time they speared many pickerel to provide food for our families for the year. They also gave away a lot to folks in the community - elders who can’t go out on their own, or people who love to eat fish who don’t have a way of getting out onto the water. We never sell the fish. We always gift it. Watching these skills be put to use to feed everyone warmed my heart.
There’s also some added context here- Tim and Doug learned how to mix pickerel eggs and sperm when they spear them so they can return it to the water and ensure that we aren’t taking without continuing their life cycle.
This piece is a love letter to the cold Spring nights under the stars, hauling fish from the river to the car, standing in the kitchen with my family laughing and cleaning fish for hours. This is what our communities deserve to return to. We deserve to be close and feel happy and connected to the land and the waters and each other. Land Back will help us achieve this.
Miigwech!