Indigenous Art in Canada | National Geographic

If you want to travel through indigenous country, experience the art. Whether it's a painting, whether it's a sculpture, whether it's a song, every piece is the embodiment of a story. The art is the land, and the land is the art. This is how we share our stories.

I think about my grandfather and father. But everything they had, they had to make. Well, that's who we are, right? We do it every day. We're just connected to the land because that's how our ancestors were, and that's where we came from. It's because we've been making this work for, you know, thousands of years. You experience our heritage. You experience our culture. You're experiencing how we look at life.

In Quebec, there's 55 communities, 11 nations, all with distinct practices, languages, and relationship to the land. So to be indigenous is not one thing. I just wanted to connect back. So I'll beat things that my grandmother would tell me. I beat a lot of, you know, sacred teachings into those sculptures, legends. Yeah, there's a lot of stories in there.

I think about the younger generation and we don't want to lose our culture or identity. Stories need to be told, and if one can pick it up, then the culture lives. That's traveling. Experiencing the people, experiencing the stories, experiencing the land. Connecting.