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Kakegamic, Roy
Survivor Survivant
1982 1982

“Survivor” (1982) is an original acrylic landscape painting on paper by Roy Kakegamic depicting a figure walking from right to left through a cityscape marked by four silhouettes of a skyscraper in the background. The title “Survivor” speaks to the resilience of urban Indigenous peoples and the grounded normativity (Glen Coulthard) of place- or land-based ways of knowing. In Kakegamic’s image, the figure is explicitly connected to the land (whose legs are an extension of the land soil). The figure carries a large medicine bundle over their shoulder with a red sun, tipi and big drum inside the bundle while singing or speaking (emphasised by the vibratory lines coming from their mouth). Behind the figure is another sun or red sphere. A relationship to Oji-Cree ways of knowing through the remembrance and practice of carrying ceremonies, while being rooted in the land wherever one is destined, is a poignant example of what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson refers to as resurgence through artistic practice.

Kakegamic, Roy
Sandy Lake First Nations ON 1961 Sandy Lake First Nations ON 1961
Survivor Survivant
1982 1982
Acrylic on paper Acrylique sur papier
58.2 x 77.4 cm
Gift of David Clare, 2019 Don de David Clare, 2019
62-014.03

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