Indigenous Literatures

INDIGENOUS LITERATURES

Each edition of the Blue Metropolis Festival includes an Indigenous Voices series, showcasing the richness of Indigenous literatures and their voices and inviting us to look at the world from different perspectives. These diverse voices contribute to a renewal of the literary landscape and speak of the beauty of life, of its grandeur and fragility. The Blue Metropolis Festival is pleased to provide an opportunity for them to be heard.
Learn more about our most recent events and some of the most memorable moments of our previous editions here.

RELIVE SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INDIGENOUS PROGRAMMING FROM THE PAST 3 YEARS

SPRING 2022

Ecology, sustainability, social inequalities, age and time wearing on—a few important subjects. And to address them, original short stories that combine imagination and intuitions, invention and the music of language. And just as many indispensible literary perspectives. Literature, here, gets the last word.
With Working Fictions, imagination takes on urgent explorations, and reality gets a little brighter. It becomes a bit more singular, a bit more puzzling, a bit more joyous, a bit more worrisome. Fodder for more stories, more listening.

AUTUMN 2021

LIFE… AS A SONG / LA VIE… COMME DANS LES CHANSONS

The 1960s, 1970s and 1980s literally revolutionized the musical landscapes of Canada and Quebec.
Now at the beginning of the 2020s, the Blue Metropolis Foundation, with the support of Canadian Heritage, has decided to pay tribute to them.
Ten anglophone and francophone poets delighted at the challenge of writing, as in a mirror, an original poem inspired by one of these timeless songs. Taking from their teenage memories, from their innermost worlds, or from their singular perspective, they offer their particular responses to the lyrics written by their elders.

The La vie… comme dans les chansons – Life… as a Song project celebrated them in three ways: a one-off poetry and song performance, podcasts, and video shorts.
Discover the podcasts, poems and videos here.

Maya Cousineau Mollen / Richard Séguin

LISTEN TO MAYA COUSINEAU MOLLEN’S PODCAST

SUJETS PERMIS, SUJETS INTERDITS. LES ÉCRIVAINS PEUVENT-ILS PARLER DE TOUT ?

On dit parfois de l’œuvre d’un.e écrivain.e qu’elle n’aborde au fond qu’un seul sujet. C’est là, sans doute, un autre nom donné à ce qui constitue son univers. Il est des sujets, dit-on aussi, qui ne peuvent être abordés qu’en toute connaissance de cause.  Où un écrivain trouve-t-il ses sujets ? Comment et pourquoi s’en emparent-il ? En quoi est-il crédible pour les traiter? Qu’est-ce que l’univers d’un.e écrivain.e ? Est-il en train de rétrécir face à la multiplication d’injonctions morales, éthiques, politiques, voire idéologiques, susceptibles d’instrumentaliser l’œuvre littéraire ? 

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Participants : Nicholas Dawson, Monique LaRue, Stéphane Martelly, Jean Sioui

Animateur : Guillaume Asselin

Langues : français

Rencontre littéraire organisée par l’Académie des lettres du Québec, en partenariat avec BanQ, le Festival littéraire international Metropolis bleu et le Salon du livre de Montréal, et présentée dans le cadre de la vitrine de Metropolis bleu au Salon du livre de Montréal 2021.

2021

RICHARD VAN CAMP

2019

TERESE MARIE MAILHOT

2018

LEE MARACLE

2017

DAVID TREUER

2016

THOMAS KING

2015

MARIE ANNHARTE BAKER

AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN INDIGENOUS STUDIES

The Blue Metropolis Awards for Excellence in Indigenous Studies are an initiative of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival and the McConnell Foundation. They are part of an expansive social innovation program dedicated to the promotion and bolstering of Indigenous values and cultures. The program includes the First Peoples Literary Prize, a prize awarded annually to an Indigenous author of international renown, an Indigenous storytelling series for children and parents alike, professional meetups focused on the publishing of Indigenous works, and the Awards for Excellence.

The Awards, an important part of this programming, recognize two students, one anglophone and one francophone, studying or holding a degree in Indigenous Studies, Indigenous Literatures, or anthropology with a link to Indigenous Studies. The student candidates presented here have been recruited by seasoned professors at participating universities, and each candidate for the awards presents their strong vision for a better, further inclusive, and further responsible world. 

2021 WINNERS

BIANCA LAUNIÈRE

Université de Montréal
Work mentioned:
Je suis une maudite sauvagesse
de An Antane Kapesh

BIOGRAPHY

Bianca Launière est une Innue de Mashteuiatsh, au Lac-Saint-Jean. Elle a grandi sur le territoire non cédé de Kanien’kehá:ka (aujourd’hui Montréal), puis elle a déménagé à Saguenay et obtenu un baccalauréat en psychologie à l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Elle a ensuite entrepris, à partir de son territoire de Mashteuiatsh, des études à distance afin d’obtenir un DÉSS en récits et médias autochtones de l’Université de Montréal.

SPENCER ISAAC

University of New Brunswick
Work mentioned:
This place 150 Years Retold
Collective work

BIOGRAPHY

Spencer Isaac is from Listuguj First Nation, a Mi’gmaq community within Gesgepewa’gi (7th district in Mi’gma’gi) and is the third born of four brothers. He is currently a guest within Wolastoqey territory, and is grateful for their hospitality.

Isaac holds a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Allison University (2018) and is completing the 10-month B.Ed. program at the University of New Brunswick in 2021. His passion is education and he hopes to make meaningful change for Wabanaki learners. He aspires to earn his Master’s degree in education within the next five years. 

TO LEARN MORE

POETIC FIBRES

A culmination of a year-long, Blue Metropolis-supported collaboration between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) fibres arts project  Gaude et Garance and Indigenous poet and essayist Tara McGowan-Ross, the Poetic Fibres project presents a meeting place of emerging artistic, ethical, and decolonial processes. Presented as part of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival’s NEXT programming, this interdisciplinary literary event features a reading of a series of poems written by McGowan-Ross in response to the work of Gaude et Garance and a live performance of the processes Gaude et Garance artists Armen Keuchguerian and Alexandrine Capolla Beauregard employ in making their naturally dyed, locally sourced, handmade alpaca yarns and wool pieces. Exploring textures of land and the landed, of the natural and the naturalized, of slowness and slowing down, this event is presented in conjunction with an online exhibition of the poetic and process documentation works created by the artists, which took place last fall during the Salon de livre de Montréal 2021.

OUR EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

NEPTUNE

Neptune calls on history, science, reading and technology, to seek out the greatest inventions of all time. The project is funded by Canadian Heritage and runs within the second-language curriculum of participating schools. This year, French immersion students at L’École de la Seigneurie in Blainville, and students in Anglais intensif at Allion Elementary School in LaSalle, climbed aboard Neptune’s shuttle to unleash their imagination, to invent and innovate. With the help of cartoonist Laurence Dea Dionne and multimedia artist Tara McGowan-Ross, our young participants came up with inventions to make life better and, ultimately, to save the world!

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QUEBEC ROOTS

Thanks to the financial support of the Ministry of Education and higher learning, Quebec Roots has given a voice to anglophone Quebec schoolchildren since 2005 and encouraged them to speak out on issues as serious as bullying, homophobia, and more recently, eco-anxiety and the distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program is designed, first and foremost, to promote an interest in writing. It is aligned with the school curriculum in order to develop cross-disciplinary skills. The ultimate goal is to keep kids in school. It also fosters intercultural understanding through its exhibitions, by introducing texts and photographs produced by young Anglo-Quebecers to the general public.

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THE SECRET IS IN THE SAUCE

In the pursuit of the finer recipes there is in the Quebec English-speaking communities, Monique Polak, author, blogger, moderator and journalist, has crisscrossed Quebec with photographer Monique Dykstra to meet with 20 anglophone seniors. The seniors share family recipes, talk about their lives, feast days, and explain how traditional know-how and culture are passed down through the generations. The 21 recipes are available here: https://bluemetropolis.org/educational-project/secret-sauce/

to learn more