Abstract

The goal of this project is to consider the works of Gerald McMaster (Cree), an artist, curator and catalogue essayist, and Gerald Vizenor (Anishnaabek), a fiction and non-fiction writer as well as literary theorist, as methods for understanding and responding to Aboriginal demands for sovereignty, especially as re-presented in artworks and arts discourse. Their perspectives have been influenced and contextualized by postmodernism, and reflect two dominant strands within that field of thought: one which retains its connection to modernism in its search for meaning, and the other which denies meaning or truth though connects with modernism's focus on individuality. Ultimately, however, my intent is to recognize McMaster and Vizenor as word warriors for First Nations communities, to consider their, ideas as methods which relate postmodern theories to Aboriginal demands for sovereignty to artworks, and through my own engagement to contribute to the further dissemination of their work.