[PHOTO] Lori Blondeau, Asiniy Iskwew, at Devonian Square, Ryerson University

Cree/Métis/Salteaux artist Lori Blondeau's Asiniy Iskwew, part of the Scotiabank Contact Festival, is on display in Devonian Square in the heart of Ryerson University's downtown campus.

Asiniy Iskwew (2016)—whose Cree words translate to “Rock Woman”—continues the artist’s interest in rocks connected to Indigenous traditions, such as petroforms (large stones or boulders outlining anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, or geometric forms), and rock art (paintings on or carvings into rock surfaces). In this series of photographs, Blondeau celebrates and gives homage to Plains Indigenous rock formations, significant ancient sites created for sacred and rite-of-passage ceremonies, and for recording battles and histories. She draws from oral histories of Mistaseni—a 400-tonne sacred boulder marking an important Indigenous gathering place that the Saskatchewan government dynamited in 1966 to make room for a man-made lake. Capturing performative interventions in the landscape, the images depict the artist standing statuesquely atop glacial boulders, draped in blood-red velvet cloth. Strong and solemn, her figure reflects the resilience of Indigenous cultures.

Situated in Devonian Square, a meeting place with a man-made pond in the centre of Ryerson’s campus, the photographs are seamlessly adhered to the contemporary site’s two-billion-year-old boulders imported from the Canadian Shield. The location resonates with its complex connections to the ancient sites of Blondeau’s research, as the Square serves as a gathering area, but one that is artificially constructed for an urban environment. This divergence points to issues of displacement and environmental preservation, offering a potent reminder of Toronto’s pre-colonial history and the controversial treaties that renounced Indigenous rights to ancestral lands. Here, Blondeau occupies the site—as if summoning its spirits—and proclaims (her) Indigenous history and irrefutable connection to the land.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Crooked Timber responds to The Intercept's release of data regarding Russian interference with American elections.
  
• Dangerous Minds reports on how Melanie Gaydos overcame a rare genetic disorder to become a model.


• Dead Things seems unduly happy that it does see as if Tyrannosaurus rex had feathers. (I like the idea.)


• The Dragon's Gaze reports on our ability to detect the effects of a planet-shattering Nicoll-Dyson beam.


• The Frailest Thing considers being a parent in the digital age.


• Language Hat notes the African writing systems of nsibidi and bamum.


• Marginal Revolution notes that Trump-supporting states are moving to green energy quite quickly.


• Window on Eurasia notes how Russian guarantees of traditional rights to the peoples of the Russian North do not take their current identities into account.

[NEWS] Ten links, from human evolution through cultural diversity to the Toronto Islands

• The Atlantic's Ed Yong notes the discovery of dated Homo sapiens fossils 300k years old in Morocco. (!)


• The Atlantic reports on Twitter-driven science that has highlighted the remarkable visual acuity of the spider.


• The Economist notes that multilingual societies can encounter more difficulties prospering than unilingual ones.


• Torontoist notes a Thunder Bay park devoted to the idea of First Nations reconciliation.


• The Inter Press Service reports on how gardens grown under solar tents in Bolivia can improve nutrition in poor highland villages.


• The Toronto Star's Christopher Hume trolls Rob Ford's supporters over the new, well-designed, Etobicoke Civic Centre.Metro Toronto calculates just how many avocado toasts would go into a mortgage in the GTA.


• MacLean's hosts a collection of twenty photos from gritty Niagara Falls, New York.


• The National Post shows remarkable, heartbreaking photos from the flooded Toronto Islands.


• Edward Keenan argues that the Toronto Islands' flooding should help prompt a local discussion on climate change.