Community Leaders
Keisha PaulMartin is a student at Vezina Secondary School in Attawapiskat, Ontario and a research assistant for the Reimagining Attawapiskat project. Keisha has been working with Reimainging Attawapiskat since its inception in 2015.
The importance of Reimagining Attawapiskat, for Keisha, is in youth engagement and in seeing the youth of Attawapiskat connect with ideas of culture and engaging in the production of important and empowering work. Allowing youth to express themselves in their own words and their own ways is vital to the ideals of this project.
The image gallery is also important. It is not filled with photos taken by a fancy photographer with no knowledge of this place, nor are they the images people are used to seeing in the media. They are images taken by people from Attawapiskat, images taken by people who have a connection to this place and the spaces they are capturing. The images are of places where people find meaning, places people enjoy being especially at certain times of day or times of year. They provide context; they provide a different story to the one we normally think of when we imagine Attawapiskat.
Keisha hopes that this website will be seen by people all over the world. That people will see it and enjoy it, and they it will bring a better understanding of what it is like in Attawapiskat. She hopes that this project will encourage people to see that Attawapisakt it is so much more than what is seen and heard about in the media.
Keisha PaulMartin
Community Research Assistant & Youth Leader
My name is Jack Linklater Jr. I’m a Muskego Cree, a hunter and trapper.
I live in Attawapiskat, Ontario along the shores of the James Bay Coast in the Mushkehgowuk territory lands.
Being part of the Reimagining Attawapiskat project has brought back much hope and the desire to my mind and spirit of raising cultural identity.
It’s important for you to understand where we come from, to show you our way of living in an isolated community. To show you that there is so much to do and so much more beauty than what you see in the media. There are always many other stories behind the pictures you see.
I hope Reimagining Attawapiskat will reach many eyes and ears across the world to help people see that Attawapiskat and other Native communities are strong and thriving.
Jack Linklater Jr.
Youth Leader
Academic & Artist Collaborators
Mandy Alves
Art Teacher
Mandy Alves is the Visual Art and Media Studies teacher, previously at Vezina Secondary School in Attawapiskat, Ontario. She has been working within the field of education and collaboratively with Indigenous youth for more than 10 years in New Zealand, Peru, as well as Canada. The driving force behind Mandy’s commitment to establishing and supporting the ReImagining Attawapiskat project is the knowledge that within our current society, change must come with understanding and that education is at the forefront of that understanding. Allowing an accessible platform where the youth of Attawapiskat can address the nation in their own words and their own way is the first step in educating and creating understanding. It is their voices that will propel change and it is through initiatives such as this that their voices will be heard.
As an idealist and an artist she believes in the gifts and the power that is within each of us. It is with constant awe and gratitude that she sees the youth in this community create and disseminate these meaningful messages and begin to spark the difficult and necessary conversations that must take place.
Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe
Project Director
Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe grew up on Coast Salish territory in British Columbia, BC, and now lives in Honolulu, HI. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa where she focuses on environmental sustainability. She has published in journals including Citizenship Studies and Studies in Social Justice. Her book Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada's Chemical Valley (2016) with UBC Press won the Charles Taylor Book Award (2017) and examines policy responses to the impact of pollution on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation's environmental health. Alongside Dr. Jennifer Lawrence (Virginia Tech), she is the Co-Editor of Biopolitical Disaster. At the intersections of environmental justice and citizen engagement, her teaching and research interests emphasize political ecology, participatory policy making and deliberative dialogue. As a collaborative researcher and filmmaker, she worked with Indigenous communities on sustainability-themed films including Indian Givers and To Fish as Formerly. In addition to collaborating with artists from Attawapiskat on Reimagining Attawapiskat, she is a Project Co-Director for the Seascape Indigenous Storytelling Studio, with research partners from the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia and coastal Indigenous communities.
For more information and to contact Sarah, see:
(w) www.sarahmariewiebe.com (t) 808-369-4295 (e) swiebe*at*hawaii.edu
Erynne M. Gilpin is a Michif (Saulteaux-Cree Métis) PhD candidate with the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria. Her Master's project was with the Tsartlip Garden Project in Indigenous efforts of food sovereignty and land-based education pedagogies. Today, her Doctoral work focuses on Indigenous wellness, leadership and body-governance; specifically birth-work. She aspires to continue her relationships with community relations in the South through comparative North-South conversations and collaborations. Erynne also works with youth mural projects, visual arts and dance, music and as an Indigenous Doula. She aspires to contribute to ongoing dialogues between political spheres of Indigenous Governance, and research in Community-led health leadership. For Erynne, research is not divorced from community, family and identity and therefore must be led by Indigenous research methodologies and appropriate community protocol. The advancement in these knowledges and awareness will demonstrate how women-centred leadership has the capacity not only to infuse cultural and spiritual realms with political meaning, but also to connect political governance models with gendered healing and wellness traditions. Her roles and responsibilities for the Reimagining Attawapiskat Project is to ensure that outside research is safe and aligned with community protocols, cultural safety and language.
Erynne Gilpin
Indigenous Governance Phd Candidate, Research Assistant
Peruzzo is an image maker based between Brazil and Canada.
His work engages with themes of critical consciousness based on relationships to self, others, spirit and land.
Born in Araguari, MG, Brazil. Raised in Uberlândia MG, Brazil.
Mixed Afro-Indigenous-European ancestry.
// www.przvida.com \\
K. Peruzzo
Production Consultant & Research Assistant
Johan Hallberg-Campbell was born in the Highlands of Scotland and has been living and working in Canada since 2007. He is a Graduate of The Glasgow School of Art, specializing in the medium of photography and film.
As an award-winning freelance photographer, he has been commissioned for numerous publications and institutions worldwide, shooting assignments globally. Hallberg-Campbell’s work has been published and exhibited internationally, his diverse projects have been shown as installations, gallery exhibitions and screenings.
He has curated 45 photographic exhibitions in galleries such as VII Gallery (New York) and Pikto Gallery (Toronto), showcasing the works of local, national and international photographers. Johan is the co-photo editor at Raw View magazine. His work explores what it means to belong to a community and have traditions rooted in heritage. He continues to develop his book-length project Coastal, a project photographing the Canadian coastline for which he was awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant in 2014.
Clients include National Geographic, The New York Times, the Canadian Red Cross, The Walrus, Canadian Art, The Big Issue, Scots Magazine, Report on Business, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Magazine, Toronto Tourism, The Grid, Sports Net, Harbourfront Centre, House of Anansi, BMW, Ernest Journal, Anglers Journal, Bettery Magazine, DIE ZIET, Root, the Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian and enRoute.
Johan Hallberg-Campbell
Production Director
Laurence Butet-Roch, a member of the Boreal Collective, is a freelance writer, photo editor and photographer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work examines the intersection between place, memory and identity. This led her to interrogate the relation between economic prosperity and the cultural, physical and psychological well being of communities. These themes are particularly salient when it comes to Canadian First Nations, who continue to fight for a true nation-to-nation relationship while establishing the strength of their heritage.
Mindful of the evolving media ecology, Laurence pursued a Master of Digital Media at Ryerson University, focusing on how to create immersive experiences that tell Indigenous stories in a manner respectful of traditions and protocols.
She was commended twice by the Magenta Flash Forward Award, in 2016 and 2015, received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Ryerson Gold Medal and the Ryerson’s Board of Governors Award for her research combining Indigenous storytelling practices and experiential media, and was presented with the Montreal Mois de la Photo Emerging Photographer Award in 2010. Laurence holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of British Columbia (2007) and a B.F.A from the School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa (2010). Upon graduation, she was a full-time photo editor for Polka Magazine before choosing to work independently. She continues to contribute to Polka Magazine, as well as The New York Times Lens Blog, TIME Lightbox, The New Yorker Photo Booth, The British Journal of Photography and others.
Laurence Butet-Roch
Research Assistant
Cate White grew up in Calgary, Alberta and has been pursuing her undergraduate degree in Political Science at the University of Victoria since 2012. With interests in feminist theory and decolonization, she is currently developing a year-long honours project that interrogates the colonial and patriarchal legal narratives surrounding sexualized violence in Canada with a focus on how counter-narratives can be developed through creative forms of resistance. Cate has always been passionate about community engagement and had the opportunity to complete a policy student co-op at the BC Ministry of Community, Sport, and Cultural Development as well as work with the University of Victoria Institute for Studies and Innovation in University Community Engagement on an alumni digital storytelling project. Cate has also been able to combine her interests in women’s issues and community engagement as a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Victoria with their Go Girls! program that mentors school-aged girls about healthy bodies and healthy minds. Cate is excited to be a part of the Re-imagining Attawapiskat project and to learn from and with both the research team and the community about creative processes of decolonization.
