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The Arts Intel Report

The Children Have to Hear Another Story

Alanis Obomsawin at the Mariposa Rock Festival in 1970.

Apr 26 – Aug 7, 2023
750 Hornby St, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2H7, Canada

Alanis Obomsawim was born in 1932 near Lebanon, New Hampshire, during a difficult time for the Indigenous population. She grew up in the Odanak reserve, a few miles northeast of Montreal. Life there wasn’t easy. Her mother ran a boarding house, her father was a medicine maker, and the family lived in a cramped space along with an aunt, uncle, and their six children. When Obomsawim was nine, the family moved to Trois-Rivieres, where they were the only Native family. When she was 12, her father died of tuberculosis. Despite hardship, Obomsawim was undaunted. In the 1950s she started making the rounds as a singer and storyteller, and soon her music morphed into filmmaking. Never forgetting her roots, and working in all mediums, Obomsawim cried out against injustice. She is now 90, and the story of her life is the focus of this show. —Elena Clavarino

Photo courtesy of York University Libraries, Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections