Sovereign expression: how creativity, research and digital media impact Indigenous healing.
This week! Discover the wisdom of transforming lived experiences and healing through creative expression.
Boozhoo News River Readers,
Every week, we hand-pick the most important stories in Indigenous innovation, research, and culture.
Stay connected to what matters - and invite others to join the conversation - forward this email to a friend!
This week’s stories include:
A documentary aims to spur conversations about the way Lethbridge and cities across Canada regard their unhoused populations.
An article explores how a collaborative development project is addressing some historical complexities between Indigenous people and Catholics with a vision of reestablishing community along the Spokane River.
A story about the launch of a new Computer Science program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) that empowers Indigenous creativity and leadership.
Feature
Red Dress Day Special Feature: Honouring MMIWG2S+ through Story, Research, and Action
The big picture: On May 5, the University of Manitoba (UM) will join a national movement to honour Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ Peoples (MMIWG2S+), and to call the campus community into reflection, learning, and action. Cambria Harris will be the keynote speaker at an event hosted by the Centre for Human Rights Research (CHRR) and Indigenous Engagement and Communications (IEC). She will share her family’s story and her continued advocacy through the #SearchTheLandfills movement.
Why it matters: Dr. Pauline Tennent, Manager of the CHRR, one of the event organizers, says “We want to create a healing space for Indigenous participants while honouring the depth of Indigenous cultural traditions for all.”
Art, Harris explains, has played a central role in her healing journey. Whether through painting, digital design or sewing, Harris sees creative expression as a way to process grief, spark awareness and mobilize resistance. “Art helped me find myself again. For me, every piece—whether it’s painted on canvas, wood, or worn as a ribbon skirt—is a form of resistance. It’s a way of reclaiming space and responding to colonial violence.”
Key points:
A special highlight of the event is the collaborative community artwork led by Professor Sherry Farrell Racette. Rooted in beadwork from the 2024 National Day of Action for MMIWG2S+, the evolving piece invites participants into a shared act of remembrance and resistance—one that celebrates the resilience and creativity of Indigenous women and gender-diverse individuals.
Professor Adele Perry, Director of the CHRR and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a recent recipient of a SSHRC-funded project that examines how institutions are responding to the crisis of MMIWG2S+, grounded in years of academic collaboration and community advocacy, often led by Indigenous women.
“Research… supports the social movements pushing for change. Indigenous women and gender-diverse people have brought this issue to the forefront of public and political discourse.” Perry explains. UM, as a public research university, has a responsibility to turn this knowledge into meaningful pathways toward justice.
What they’re saying: “I want to speak from lived experience, so that students at University of Manitoba can better understand what many of their Indigenous peers are facing every single day as a result of systemic injustice,” says Harris. Harris also calls on universities to turn awareness into action.
“We need more faculty members translating MMIWG2S+ research into tangible supports—like legal clinics. Becoming an informed ally is just the beginning. What matters is what you do next.”
What’s next: The Centre for Human Rights research is thrilled to announce Sandra DeLaronde as this year’s Visiting Community Researcher. This year, Sandra will be leading a new project at the CHRR titled "Calling for Justice and Re-imagining Governance: The Rematriation of Indigenous Women’s Human Rights and the Obligation of All Governments" with Dr. Adele Perry. The project is being funded by the 2025 Knowledge Synthesis Grant Competition the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (in partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)) which focused on the theme "Envisioning Governance Systems that Work".
Learn more: Morgan's Warriors, an Indigenous women-led, outreach group founded by Melissa Robinson and Elle Harris to honour Morgan Harris's memory. Rooted in love and a profound commitment to her legacy, this volunteer group aims to address the unmet needs Morgan experienced while living on the streets of Winnipeg.
Curated Articles:
Indigenous Humor and Resistance Shines at The Photography Show
The most striking works on view at this New York fair channel political urgency into personal explorations, embracing sincere introspection. At the booth of Toronto’s Stephen Bulger Gallery, a focused solo survey traces over four decades of work by multimedia artist Shelley Niro (Bay of Quinte Mohawk, Turtle Clan), whose practice is deeply rooted in her Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) heritage. Niro’s work shifts fluidly between sharp cultural critique and intimate reflection, often laced with irreverence. “I think just making art as an Indigenous woman is political,” Niro told me at the fair. “It doesn’t matter what you do [or] what you put out there. I could be making paintings of wooden spoons and people would see it as political.”
‘#Skoden’ doc shows ‘kind and gentle’ side of unhoused Indigenous man who became a meme
Pernell Bad Arm never asked to become a meme. But in the early 2010s, a photo of the First Nations man — clad in a windbreaker with his fists up in a fighter’s stance, his gaze slightly vacant — spread across the internet. Damien Eagle Bear says he felt compelled to reframe the image of Bad Arm that had gone viral. His film “#Skoden,” premiering Tuesday at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto, aims to humanize the man behind the meme. “I’m trying to change how people perceive him and to really tell the story of southern Alberta and the city of Lethbridge and its treatment of Indigenous people and people on the streets,” says Eagle Bear. “There are many people like Purnell on the streets who live very similar lives, who are (similarly viewed) as being a violent person, but underneath all that, they’re just a kind, caring person.” Bad Arm hopes the film spurs conversations about the way Lethbridge and cities across Canada regard their unhoused populations.
The launch of the new Computer Science program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) marks a transformative and timely step in the college’s mission to empower Indigenous creativity and leadership. The Computer Science program encompasses Certificate, Associate of Science, and Bachelor of Science degrees. The new department has been designed to use computational tools as a form of empowerment through means of expanding creative expression, fostering innovative applications in digital art, interactive media, and the studio arts including printmaking, sculpture, and more. By blending technical knowledge with artistic exploration, students develop creative works across multiple disciplines, unlocking the potential of digital tools, crafting new methods of artistic production with code, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible in art. This approach honors Indigenous storytelling and contemporary cultural expression, ensuring that technology serves as a means of creative and cultural enrichment.
Two-thirds of Canadians have experimented with generative AI, but most don’t understand its impacts
When ChatGPT entered the public imagination in 2022, Canadians were curious, hopeful, anxious and had plenty of questions. Just three years later, our new report, The State of Generative AI Use in Canada 2025, finds that two-thirds of Canadians have already experimented with generative AI (GenAI) tools. Canadians are being ushered into a new era of AI-powered productivity, creativity and communication. But they are forging ahead without the digital literacy needed to navigate AI technologies and their impacts effectively, safely and critically. Only 38 per cent of respondents indicated they felt confident using these tools effectively. Even fewer — 36 per cent — told us they were familiar with the rules and ethics around GenAI. These numbers should concern all of us.
$33M riverfront development moves ahead in west Spokane
The Salish School of Spokane and Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington are partnering to develop a $33 million project on the Spokane River that will provide a new home for Salish language studies and affordable housing. Chris Parkin, principal and business manager at the Salish School of Spokane, says the collaborative project is currently in the design phase. The collaboration between the Salish School of Spokane and Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington is addressing some historical complexities between Indigenous people and Catholics while at the same time heralding a long-held vision of reestablishing a Salish community on the Spokane River. "We don't want to be somebody's charity case," Parkin says. "The dream is to have a permanent home for our Salish language and culture that we're working hard to bring back after that history of colonization and genocide."
As Hudson's Bay heads to court seeking permission to auction off 1,700 pieces of art and more than 2,700 artifacts, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs is requesting a halt to the sale of items that may belong to or be linked with First Nations people. A letter by Grand Chief Kyra Wilson to the monitor for Hudson's Bay, which is operating under court protection from creditors under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, said there is "deep concern" over the potential auction of artifacts from its collection. "Given the nature and scope of HBC's long-standing relationship with First Nations, it is likely, if not certain, that many of the artifacts slated for auction are of profound cultural, spiritual, and historical significance to First Nations people," Wilson said in the letter on Tuesday.
