The history of Indigenous Peoples performing cultural dances and practices for international and colonial audiences is an important aspect of Indigenous art generally, and performance art specifically. The Indigenous performers known as ‘Indians’ faced the conundrum of maintaining traditional cultural practices by performing them on stage while also having that performance fulfill the desires of a colonial imaginary. In Sovereign Acts, the artists contend with the legacy of colonial representations. Drawing on the depiction of the imaginary Indian – the ahistorical, pre-contact ‘primitivism’ in popular and mass culture – they recover and construct new ways of performing the complexity of Indigenous cultures for a contemporary art audience. Their work returns to the multi-levelled history of ‘Performing Indian’ to recuperate the erased and objectified performer as an ancestor, an artist, and an Indigenous subject.

Artists: Rebecca Belmore, Lor Blondeau, Demian DinéYahzi, Martine Guttierez, Robert Houle, James Luna, Alan Michelson, Kent Monkman, Shelley Niro, Cara Romero, Jeff Thomas, and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie