INDIGENOUS, INGENIOUS, iNDIGITAL

Weekend Edition | Samantha Summers

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Now nineteen years old, the imagineNATIVE Festival is best known for its wide variety of Indigenous films from across the world, engaging with Indigenous artists both here on Turtle Island and abroad. However, films are not the only medium represented at imagineNATIVE. As I discovered in the iNdigital Space, this festival also provides a platform for Indigenous virtual reality (VR), game, and media artists beyond film and from around the world.

The iNdigital Space is a carefully curated and interactive exhibit which is free to visit, located on the ground floor of the TIFF Bell Lightbox at 350 King Street West, Toronto. The Space is headed by Meagan Byrne, the Digital + Interactive Coordinator for imagineNATIVE. A game designer by trade and founder of Achimostawinan Games, Byrne joined the imagineNATIVE team in April 2018 with a vision to expand the space allotted to game and digital artists at the festival. This year’s iNdigital Space, the first-ever, is a prototype of her vision: to see the best of VR, gaming, and interactive digital art by Indigenous artists from around the world brought together in one space. “Let’s keep supporting our new wave of Indigenous creators,” Byrne says. The best way to do that? By providing spaces dedicated to Indigenous creators and creations, and by making it clear that these creators are priorities at imagineNATIVE and within the Canadian media scene more broadly.

A visitor in the iNdigital Space playing Abenaki creator Ashlee Bird's One Small Step.
Photo courtesy of Samantha Summers.

Byrne’s commitment to the idea that screen-based media goes way beyond the box office is attested to with every piece in the iNdigital Space. Helpful and friendly volunteers pointed me toward experience after experience, each unique and profound. While the website Fafswagvogue.com (by Tanu Gago, a Samoan artist based in Aetearoa) had me coordinate and then judge a vogue battle, it also allowed me to engage with the artists represented (all real vogue dancers) and learn about their stories. ~2700 was designed by Métis artist Travis Mercredi as a tribute to the approximately 2700 missing and murdered Indigenous people in Canada. This experience had me walking through a large field, passing by 2700 white tombstones. It was a sombre and important reminder of a major human rights crisis. In Biidaaban: First Light, on the other hand, Anishinaabe artist Lisa Jackson allows visitors to experience a Toronto in which nature has reclaimed much of our modern infrastructure, and Indigenous languages - Wendat, Kanien’kehá:ka, and Anishinaabemowin - provide a path forward through reconciliation.


These are just a few among the many incredible experiences awaiting you at the iNdigital Space, an exhibit that is equal parts fun, thought-provoking, and awe-inspiring. These experiences can be capped off with a laser-cutting demonstration provided by the Maker Bean Cafe in the iNdigital Makerspace. See cookies and coasters laser-cut with the Festival logo and Festival pins 3D-printed before your very eyes, all free to visitors of the Space.

Aided by imagineNATIVE staff, a visitor to the iNdigital Space experiences Ngarluma artist Tyson Mowarin's VR simulation, Thalu: Dreamtime is Now. Photo courtesy of Samantha Summers.

When we sit down to talk, Byrne emphasizes the importance of spaces like this. Speaking as a Métis creator, she is familiar with the kind of pain, anger, and conflict Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island face, and she is familiar with the power of art to explore and confront those experiences. She speaks to the challenges of Indigenous creators, who she says are often forced to ask themselves, “Do I belong? Where do I belong?” Here in this incredible exhibition during this very special festival, Byrne creates a space in which Indigenous artists and their art not only belong, but thrive.

Sugar cookies are marked with the imagineNATIVE logo and slogan ("Original. Indigenous.") by representatives from the Maker Bean Cafe. Photo courtesy of Samantha Summers.

The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival closes on Sunday, October 21.

The author would like to acknowledge and thank the staff, volunteers, and attendees of the iNdigital Space for their cooperation and for the use of their images.