Shannon Leddy (Métis, UBC) and Biz Nijdam (UBC) in collaboration with Asta Mønsted (Kalaallit, University of Copenhagen), Tim Frandy (Sámi, UBC), and Frederik Byrn Køhlert (Edinburgh Napier University) received a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant to carry out their project, “Visual Storytelling in the Indigenous North.” Here’s the team’s latest on their work:
Can you tell us a little bit about your research interests and how they led to this project?
Shannon Leddy and Biz Nijdam have been co-leading arts-based research through comic art as part of the Turtle Island Cluster.
This work focuses on narratives of trauma and survivorship, which are essential in the work of truth and reconciliation, but they come at the expense of celebrating Indigenous sovereignty, survivance and self-determination. Our new project seeks to uplift Indigenous voices and Indigenous stories of resilience, resurgence, renewal, revival, and resistance.
What are the main goals of your project?
Our overarching goal is to develop a network and lay the methodological foundation for the application for a SSHRC Partnership Grant that uses popular media to engage in global discourses of truth, reconciliation, and survivance. Our project draws upon the co-creative and arts-based methodologies of the SSHRC Partnership Grant “Visual Storytelling and Graphic Art in Genocide and Human Rights Education” but develops new, Indigenous-focused and -centered approaches to the work of visual storytelling that foster Indigenous sovereignty, agency, and self-determination and that emphasize survivance in current and ongoing challenges resulting from colonization. Moving beyond a preoccupation with the past, our project focuses on the present by using arts-based methods to tell First Nation, Métis, Inuit, and Sámi stories of resilience, resurgence, renewal, revival, and resistance that transcend colonial geopolitics and build our collective capacity to advance reconciliation.
Five core objectives guide us in achieving this goal: 1) Advance international reconciliation efforts by serving the interests and strategic efforts of our Indigenous partners whil providing evidence-based frameworks to help Indigenous and settler participants/audiences grapple with their shared history through new-media formats; 2) Design arts-based approaches to/through Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies in order to facilitate multimedia storytelling in the Indigenous North; document our processes through film and digital media; 3) Share narratives on the impact of colonization and the work of Indigenous peoples who grapple with difficult histories, thrive in complex presents and prepare for a self-determined future by amplifying the voices of the people, land, and communities of the Kalaallit and Sápmi peoples; 4) Grow our partnership network by advancing relationships with international Indigenous and settler partners invested in the global work of truth and reconciliation, and develop networks of scholars, public media partners, publishers, and educators in all six national research sites; 5) Train and mentor emerging Indigenous scholars, artists, community leaders, knowledge keepers to navigate research, exhibition, publication, and public scholarship in various contexts, thus mobilizing knowledge in the service of our Indigenous partners.
What are some of the broader implications of your research?
This project develops teaching materials and visual storytelling on global Indigenous experience.
Since colonial oppression is a global phenomenon, it is essential to share these stories across geopolitical and colonial lines to bring forth Indigenous worldviews and knowledges, foster trans-Indigenous dialogue, and provide crucial perspectives on how we might imagine and navigate our shared futures. The project explores overarching themes that connect Kalaallit and Sámi histories to the work of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. For example, coercive reproductive control in Greenland parallels similar efforts in Canada, and Greenlander displacement mirrors the Sixties Scoop and the Canadian government’s High Arctic Relocation Program. Likewise, food insecurity and community, familial, cultural, and linguistic disruption among the Canadian and Greenlandic Inuit are essentially the same due to their kinship ties and shared territories across the Circumpolar Region. Finally, Sámi stories of the residential school systems of Finland, Norway, and Sweden also mirror the experiences of survivors in the Canadian Indian Residential School System. Unlike conventional approaches to these stories, however, our project highlights narratives of resilience, resurgence, renewal, revival, and resistance in the face of these hardships.
The first initiative of this project is well underway. From March 8th to 13th, the leadership team accompanied six Indigenous cartoonists and three Indigenous game designers to the 2026 Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse, Yukon to document the event, create AWG-inspired media, and build meaningful relationships. Preliminary planning has begun for carrying out the project’s goals in Greenland and Finland next year.
What were some of the challenges you faced in your research, and how did you overcome them?
The colonial institution and colonial research practices continue to pose challenges to our research, which we strive to overcome together.
