Beyond Secret Path: 6 Indigenous artists making powerful work about reconciliation

The Secret Path premiered on CBC Sunday, the true story of Chanie Wenjack. Fifty years ago, Chanie who wasjust 12 years old ran away from residential school. He was determined to reunite with his family, but home was Ogoki Post, Ont., some 600kilometres away. He died on the journey.

Maybe you'd never heard Chanie's story before. To quote Jesse Wente, who wrote about Secret Path for CBC Arts last week, the film is "not the first work of art to approach the legacy of residential schools." But thanks to Gord Downie's star power, "it is the one likely to reach the most people."

I hope what this piece really does is make the path to Indigenous artists less obscure.- Jesse Wente on Secret Path

Still, Secret Path is just one step on the journey. If an art project like this one can help Canadians work together en masse to understand, and heal from, our history then it'salso an opportunity to learn about the many artists who've been exploring Indigenous issues for years, issues that includethe damaging legacy of residential schools.

So, where to start?

For the answer, we're turning to last night's CBC Arts panel discussion about the film.

"I could list dozens and dozens (of artists)," said Wente during the talk. He joined filmmaker Tasha Hubbard and National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation director Ry Moran for an hour-long conversation following The Secret Path.

"The reality is these stories have been in our art for decades," Wente said.

"I hope what this piece really does is make the path to Indigenous artists less obscure, so people can find it from our own voices as well, and realize we have been saying this for a very long time."

Added Hubbard, whose own short film7 Minutesrecently screened at Toronto's imagineNATIVE filmfestival: "There's beautiful work out there and it needs to be seen, it needs to be engaged with. And if someone engages with and doesn't understand all the complexities of the foundation around colonialism, around the long history this country has with that before it was even a countrythen go to education. Learn that history."

Learning about Indigenous artists is one way to start.

These were the standard-bearers mentioned during Sunday's panel. Experience their art and hear their stories. We've rounded up articles, video and radio interviews from around the network so you can get to know them better.

Tanya Tagaq

She's a Juno winner, and in 2014 she took home the Polaris Music Prize. If you follow Canadian music, Tanya Tagaq requires no introduction, and the Inuk musician released her latest studio albumRetributionjust days ago. Over the last decade she's created music with artists from a diverse spectrum of genres punk (F--cked Up), classical (Kronos Quartet), however you'd describe what Bjrk does (Bjrk) and she'sdeveloped a totally unique style of throat singing rooted in Inuit tradition.

From around CBC:

• First play: Tanya Tagaq, Retribution (CBC Music)
• Feature interview about new album Retribution,Tanya Tagaq's act of protest(CBC Music)
• Q&A:Tanya Tagaq and F--ked Up on their musical convergence and the meaning of punk (CBC Music)
• Audio:Tanya Tagaq seeks Retribution with new album (CBC Radio: Unreserved)
• Video:Tanya Tagaq and Mike Haliechuk's surprising musical collaboration (CBC Radio: q)

Alanis Obomsawin

If it's information you're seeking, documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin has been investigating Canada's discrimination against Indigenous people for 40 years. Her latest feature, We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this September, and the film follows activist Cindy Blackstock, who spent nine years fighting for the rights of Indigenous families. In January of this year,the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the federal governmentfailed to provide proper healthcare to Indigenous children living on reserves. Thedoc follows Blackstock's legal battle, revealing the links between our history of residential schools and the injustice that persists today.

From around CBC:

• Audio: Alanis Obomsawin documents Cindy Blackstock's fight for equality for Aboriginal children (CBC Radio: Day 6)
• Alanis Obomsawin passes knowledge to aspiring filmmakers (CBC News)
• Alanis Obomsawin, Abenaki activist (CBC Digital Archives)
• Filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin: behind Mohawk lines (CBC Digital Archives)
• Video: Alanis Obomsawin asks: Were First Nation treaties a scam? (CBC Radio: q)
• Alanis Obomsawin on her history-making premiere at TIFF 2014 (CBC News)

A Tribe Called Red

When A Tribe Called Red blended elements of house music, hip-hop, dubstep and traditional Indigenous drumming, they created "powwow step" a genre that's all their own. And while every album from this Ottawa DJ collective brings the beats, they also bring their politics, confronting the broader issues of colonialism and racism along with current events. Their latest record, We Are the Halluci Nation, arrived last month andincludes spoken-word tracks inspired by Chanie Wenjack's story.

From around CBC:

• First Play: A Tribe Called Red, We Are the Halluci Nation (CBC Music)
• Interview about new album, We Are the Halluci Nation (CBC Music)
• Audio: Exploring the link between education and reconciliation (CBC Radio: Unreserved)
• Audio:A Tribe Called Red's Ian Campeau shares how success in music has given him a voice on cultural issues (CBC Radio: Candy Palmater)
• Audio:A Tribe Called Red's Deejay NDN takes racist, misogynistic music off his playlist (CBC Radio: Unreserved)
• Hear A Tribe Called Red's collaboration with Tanya Tagaq (CBC Music)
• A Tribe Called Red collaborates with Black Bear Singers, releases short doc (CBC News)
• A Tribe Called Red DJ: standing for national anthem 'doesn't make any sense' (CBC News)

Article 11

This Toronto-based theatre company is on a mission to build "a contemporary Indigenous theatrical canon," and to do it, they're nurturing a new generation of Indigenous artists. In April, they premiered Reckoning, a play that recounts the experience of three residential-school survivors.

From around CBC:

• New play from Article 11explores the long road to reconciliation (CBC Arts)
• Audio:Truth and Reconciliation Commission: how the arts shape our view of history(CBC Radio: q)

Kent Monkman

A visual and performance artist, Monkman always confronts Canada's ugly colonial history with a sense of wit whether he's taking back the land by painting enormous, 19th Century-style landscapes or performing as his drag queen alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.

His work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

From around CBC:

• Audio: Wachtel on the Arts interview: Kent Monkman (CBC Radio: Ideas)
• What will Canada look like in 150 years? Kent Monkman among Indigenous artists tackling that question through VR (CBC News)
• Video: How moving to the rural Ontario influenced Kent Monkman's art (CBC Arts)
• Kent Monkman's new film documents ignorance and prejudice throughout art history (CBC Arts)

Joseph Boyden

Indigenous culture informs much of Boyden's work, whether we're talking his award-winning novels (Three Day Road, Through Black Spruce) or ballet(the Royal Winnipeg Ballet commissioned the Ontario author to create a ballet about residential schoolsin 2014). His latest book is a novella called Wenjack; as the title implies, it's a retelling of Chanie Wenjack's story, much like Secret Path. A long-time friend of Gord Downie's, Boyden's said that they two considered collaborating before ultimately pursuing their own separate projects.

From around CBC:

• Panel discussion: Does art offer the best path to heal historical wrongs? (CBC Radio: Cross Country Checkup)
• Audio:'I want the reader to be Chanie': Joseph Boyden tells Chanie Wenjack's story (CBC Radio: q)
• Joseph Boyden pens Heritage Minute to illustrate horrors of residential schools (CBC News)
• Meet the journalist who inspired Gord Downie and Joseph Boyden to write about Chanie Wenjack
• Audio: Author Joseph Boyden on identity, listening to his characters' voices and making room for laughs (CBC Radio: The Candy Palmater Show)
• More on Joseph Boyden at CBC Books

Watch the CBC Arts panel discussion about The Secret Path (begins at the one-hour mark):

Read more about Secret Path on CBC Arts.