Reel Artists: National Film Board of Canada portrayals of contemporary Aboriginal and Inuit artists and their art
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2005
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Abstract
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) promotes itself as an educative force in Canada. The NFB's mandate to bring Canada to Canadians motivated a 'teaching' agenda inherent in its films. Beginning in the 1950s, the NFB began to produce films about contemporary Aboriginal artists. In so doing, it provided Canadians with one of the few sources for information about Canadian Aboriginal art until the 1980s when a number of publications and exhibitions began to emerge. The NFB films were meant to 'instruct' ordinary Canadians about Indigenous peoples and their culture. This dissertation investigates how the NFB constructed representations of Aboriginal art and artists by visually unpacking documentary films created between 1955 and 1988. By interpreting the visual language in the films, this interdisciplinary study analyzes how the NFB framed contemporary Aboriginal art and presented it to viewers. Theoretical and pragmatic applications of post-structural semiotics support the discussion of the representations. The medium of documentary film, with its supposed associations to realism, truth claims, and didactic lessons, complicate the analysis further. This study considers the underlying, but ever- present issues of colonialist power and here the work of Foucault provides guidance. A Canadian cultural imagination has contextualized noted NFB representations of Indigenous artists and their art. Yet, while the discourse of Aboriginal representations in art and literature enjoys greater scholarly attention today, little consideration has been given to how NFB productions contributed to this matter. Finally, this study includes a discussion of the implications of the analysis, including the significance of critically assessing how the NFB has represented Aboriginals to other Canadians through this series of documentary films. Because of the authoritative and educative voice of the NFB, as well as the stereotypical constructions found in the noted NFB films regarding Indigenous artists and their art, Canadian understandings of Indigenous artistic achievements remain skewed and heavily influenced by these films. Discussions surrounding contemporary Indigenous artists popularized in the NFB documentaries continue to reference the compromising racist framings embedded in the films. Furthermore, educators continue to unquestioningly trust these documentaries as educational source materials concerning contemporary Canadian Indigenous art.
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Bibliography: p. 214-241
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Robertson, C. L. (2005). Reel Artists: National Film Board of Canada portrayals of contemporary Aboriginal and Inuit artists and their art (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/17096