BC History Digitization Program

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the UBC Museum of Anthropology.

Introduction by Karen Duffek

Presentation by John Wynne and Tyler Peterson: The Anspayaxw Project

Chair:  Tyler Peterson

Panelists: Patricia Shaw, Barbara Harris, Louise Wilson, Cynthia Jensen-Fisk, Loretta Todd, Larry Grant, John Wynne.

In recent decades there has been a flurry of language documentation, maintenance, and revitalization initiatives. In this session we engage in the ongoing discussion of the ways these initiatives can be developed and directed. Using the Anspayaxw project as a starting point, this entails touching on issues surrounding language community involvement, the linguist-speaker research relationship, community-led language activities, and the sustainability of long-term projects. We will also extend this discussion by asking: What are the ethical and creative boundaries of what we might call a ‘traditional’ language documentation and/or maintenance project?

About the Participants:

Karen Duffek is the Curator of Contemporary Visual Arts and Pacific Northwest at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Among her recent exhibitions are Peter Morin’s Museum (co-developed with Peter Morin, Satellite Gallery, 2011) and Border Zones: New Art across Cultures (MOA, 2010), which featured the work of 12 international artists, including Anspayaxw by John Wynne.

Larry Grant is a Musqueam elder, and the current Elder-In-Residence for the First Nations House of Learning. Born and raised in Musqueam traditional territory by a traditional henqeminem speaking Musqueam family, Larry worked for 4 decades as a tradesman before enrolling in the First Nations Languages Program. His time in the program revived his memory of the embedded value that the henqeminem language has to self-identity, kinship, culture, territory, and history prior to European contact. Larry is presently assisting in the revitalization of henqeminem and co-teaching the introductory henqeminem course.

Barbara Harris is a Gitksan elder from Kispiox, BC. Over the past decade she has dedicated considerable time and effort to Gitksan language maintenance and revitalization. She also works closely with linguists at the UBC department of linguistics, and has made substantial contributions to deepening our understanding of the finer points of the Gitksan language. She is one of 6 Gitxsan speakers featured in John Wynne’s Anspyaxw installation.

Cynthia Jensen-Fisk  Cindyhl wa’y ii Laax Lo’ophl wa’m Gitx’san’y. Gisk’haast wil naa t’ahl’y ii wilps Geel wil saa witxw’y ii Ansbayaxw wil saa witxw’y. My name is Cindy and Laax Lo’op is my Gitx’san name. My clan is Fireweed. I am from the house of Geel, from the village of Ansbayaxw. I started the Doreen Jensen Memorial Gitx’san Language Class in 2009 in memory of my mother. She believed that both the language and the culture of the Gitx’san were “Just sleeping”. She worked her entire life to re-awaken them. It is my honour to carry on the traditions of my ancestors and follow in my mother’s footsteps of paving the way to ensuring that our language and culture never dies.

Tyler Peterson is a linguist and Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona who works on Gitksan. His research interests focus on how understudied languages such as Gitksan can enrich our empirical and theoretical understanding of how meaning is embodied by language. This work is balanced with a strong interest in endangered language documentation, maintenance and revitalization.

Patricia A. Shaw is the founding Chair (1996-present) of the First Nations Languages Program at UBC. She has worked in close collaboration with several critically endangered language communities to record and analyze extant grammatical knowledge, to teach research skills and archiving methodologies, and to develop pedagogical materials for language revitalization.

Loretta Todd is a filmmaker known for powerful, visual storytelling. Her work has screened at Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival and MOMA. Her many honours and awards include a Rockefeller Fellowship to NYU. Todd created and produced Tansi! Nehiyawetan (APTN) – a children’s series that teaches Cree using storytelling, music videos, games and adventures. She also conceived and developed My Cree, a free language app available in the iTunes store.

Louise Wilson  Atdi anlakthl wa’ay, Anspayaxw wil sa’witx’wi.  Wilps Luushl wil xsilag’y, Lax Gibuu dihl Galdo’oo.  My name is Antdi anlakt, I am from Anspayxw.  I am from the House of Luus, Wolf clan from Galdo’oo.

John Wynne is an award-winning sound artist whose work includes site-specific installations, ‘composed documentaries’ for radio, projects with speakers of endangered languages and a body of work with heart and lung transplant recipients. He has a PhD from Goldsmiths College, University of London and is a Reader in Sound Arts at the University of the Arts London.

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The public symposium ‘On Endangered Languages: Indigeneity, Community, and Creative Practice’ took place at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia on Sept. 14^th, 2013. It was co-organized by Karen Duffek, Kate Hennessy, Tyler Peterson, and John Wynne.

Symposium Description:

As the multi-sensory installation Anspayaxw opens for exhibition in the Satellite Gallery in Vancouver, we bring artist John Wynne, linguist Tyler Peterson, anthropologist Kate Hennessy, Musqueam elder Larry Grant, and Gitxsan participants Louise Wilson and Barbara Harris into conversation with scholars and artists on the preservation of endangered languages, the interconnected role of digital media, and engagements with artistic practice.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith has described research as “probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary” – but as she also acknowledges, “at some points there is, there has to be, dialogue across the boundaries of oppositions.” Beyond the customary exploration of academic interests and language maintenance efforts, this symposium will problematize research and raise questions about the opportunities and consequences of language documentation for local communities and collaborating outsiders.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has drawn attention to the enduring significance of Indigenous languages. Against this backdrop we will explore some of the ways in which language documentation is being used by speakers to communicate identity, sovereignty, and contemporary representations of community. We will further examine the ethical and moral obligations created in the act of documentation, while questioning how research relationships and collaborations might raise awareness of the status of endangered languages. As documentary and archiving technologies rapidly change, we ask what role digital technology plays in the preservation––or conversely, the loss––of documentary media. What are appropriate uses and reuses of language documentation, and who, ultimately, are the beneficiaries of these documentary initiatives? In the context of Anspayaxw, are creative and artistic explorations of language documentation at odds with the goal of revitalization, or do they open up new possibilities for understanding the complex social and historical territory of ongoing colonial relationships?

Wynne’s Anspayaxw (2010) is a 12-channel sound and photography installation based on his collaborations with Tyler Peterson, artist/photographer Denise Hawrysio, and members of the Gitxsan community at Kispiox, British Columbia. Using innovative sound technology, the installation merges recordings of the endangered Gitxsanimaax language, oral histories, and songs with situational portraits of the participants and photographs of hand-made street signs on the reserve made by one of the participants in the 1970s. The work highlights the subjective nature of language documentation, interpretation, and creative expression. The complex relationships between linguistic researchers and language speakers are recognized and represented in image and sound, cut through by questions of power, ownership, and the desire to document, preserve, and revitalize endangered languages.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Duffek, K. (1983). A guide to buying contemporary northwest coast Indian arts. Vancouver, BC: UBC Museum of Anthropology.

McLennan, B., & Duffek, K. (2007). The transforming image: Painted arts of northwest coast first nations. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.

Duffek, K., Townsend-Gault, C., & George and Joanne MacDonald Collection of Northwest Coast Art. (2004). Bill Reid and beyond: Expanding on modern native art. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.

Duffek, K. (1985). Bill Reid: Beyond the essential form. UBC Press. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

First Nations Languages of British Columbia

Aboriginal Languages