Looking out from windows across three sites in the CCA building, an installation by interdisciplinary performing artist Ange Loft prompts visitors to consider Indigenous context in and around the city of Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal through a series of interconnected activities. Combining art-based research, archeological and historical maps, and oral narratives, the installation engages with the land upon which the city has been built, specifically the layered histories beneath the ground.

The indoor and outdoor installation can be experienced from the windows at the CCA’s entrance, in the rotunda across from the Study Room, and in the Founder’s Salon of Shaughnessy House.

Loft was commissioned by the CCA to create this work as the inaugural Research Fellow linked to the institution’s Living Land Acknowledgment project. The creation of a biennial fellowship for Indigenous researchers working on land restitution in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal will keep this process alive. The biennial fellowship will run for three iterations, with two more to follow in 2023 and 2025.

To learn more about this topic, sign up for our workshop with Ange Loft.

Ange Loft is an interdisciplinary performing artist from Kahnawà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka Territory, working in Tsi Tkarón:to (Toronto). She is an ardent collaborator, consultant, and facilitator working in arts-based research, wearable sculpture, theatrical co-creation, and Haudenosaunee history. She is a vocalist with music collective Yamantaka//Sonic Titan and inaugural Indigenous Artist in Residence at Centaur Theatre.

Collaborators: Eruoma Awashish, Alaska B, Joe Deome, Barbara Diabo, CCA Land Acknowledgement Working Group, Hannah Claus, Katsi’tsahèn:te Cross-Delisle, Katsitsanoron Dumoulin-Bush, Sedalia Fazio, Iehente Foote, and Sarah Shin.

The CCA gratefully acknowledges the support of the ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, and National Bank.