EXPLORING THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIGENOUS ART WITH ARTIST JESSE CAMPBELL
We have two missions at Yellow Pad Sessions. The first is to promote ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE. The second mission is to mentor emerging cultural workers and give them opportunities to explore artistic fields that they are passionate about. We are especially proud to present Jacqueline Siffer, our writer and content producer with our very first podcast.
Hi. I’m Jacqueline Siffer and I'm so proud to present Yellow Pad Sessions' first podcast. On this episode, I speak with Jesse Campbell, a mural painter of Métis, Cree, Scottish, and English ancestry. Listen in as Jesse and I explore the importance of Indigenous art, youth mentorship, and his mural works, such as the Victoria Unity Wall. You can check out his work at www.campbellvisualarts.com or @jesc_art on Instagram.
“When it comes to my own heritage and just being very Metis and Cree, and understanding that there’s this own part of me, from the land, from this territory, elsewhere that was silenced for so long and told to be quiet for so long...it is important for me to be: I am a Metis and Cree artist, this is what they look like, this is what they do, and we’re still here and we’re still doing our thing.”
“In creating a lot of work, it is really important for me to take part, in having this heritage and having the art from this ancestry be forefront and being able to be seen on the streets, being able to be appreciated and interpreted, and being visible; being visible on the land that you come from, being visible in a “we’re still here” kind of thing. Being visible in that you’re taking up space, you’re reclaiming that space from this other sort of beast that just wants to take, just wants to take from the land, just wants to sell you things, just wants you to engage in this overall process that you kinda subject to and no capacity to say no to, this capitalistic, Canadiana kind of state.”
