Jisgang Nika Collison presented at the Indigenous Arts in Transition Seminar on Tuesday, October 23, at 6 pm. Her talk was entitled “Gina Suuda Tl’l Xasii ~ Came To Tell Something: Documenting Convergence, Divergence, and Co-existence through Haida Art and Narrative.”
Interactions with Indigenous Peoples have long been documented by Euro-Americans using written narratives and imagery fabricated from and for colonial purpose. These imaginings dominate and soften the popular understanding of history. By privileging Indigenous records of interactions with Euro-Americans through art and oral narratives—in this case that of the Haida—history is not challenged nor changed, it is revealed.
Jisgang Nika Collison belongs to the Kaay’ahl Laanas clan of the Haida Nation and is the executive director and curator of the Haida Gwaii Museum at Kay Llnagaay. Deeply committed to reconciliation, Collison works with her Nation seeking reparation and relationships with museums on a global scale. She is the editor of Gina Suuda Tl’l Xasii ~ Came To Tell Something: Art & Artist in Haida Society (2014); and Athlii Gwaii: Upholding Haida Law at Lyell Island (2018); and is co-editor, with Scott Steedman, of That Which Makes Us Haida—The Haida Language (2011). Collison is a Distinguished Indigenous Fellow at the University of British Columbia Green College. In 2017, she received the international Michael M. Ames Award for Innovative Museum Anthropology from the Council for Museums Anthropology for her work in repatriation and Indigenous scholarship.
