Indigenous Art Practices: Activity Planning

The eagle flies the highest in the sky, and in a coast salish story people would seek guidance from the eagle to gain knowledge of faraway places. This representational eagle wing relief was created to bring the knowledge to students as they seek guidance in their studies. -- Marissa Nahanee

On this page

Series facilitator videos

Design templates

Activity planning and reflecting template, with a structure and some guiding questions to help you think about your activity planning. 

Activity idea template, with a structure and some guiding questions to help you think about your activity design. 

You may also wish to review the following short article by Sara Florence Davidson in the June 2020 edition of BCTF’s Teacher for some guidance on choosing Indigenous resources to use in your class (on pages 22 and 23).

The Art of Education has a blog post with activity example about how to recognize and avoid cultural appropriation in the art classroom. It also provides an activity template, which has questions to deepen the learning on a topic / art style.

Art resources

Questions to Consider when reviewing art resources (Developed by Sara Florence Davidson, © 2023, Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0) 

  • Who developed the resource?  
    • Has the resource been developed by Indigenous peoples?  
    • Has the resource been developed in collaboration with Indigenous peoples?  
    • Has the resource been supported or endorsed in some way by Indigenous peoples? 
  • What is the purpose of the resource?  
    • Is the resource intended to support the creation or replication of art or is it intended to support a deeper understanding of art?  
    • Is the resource intended for use by non-Indigenous peoples and/or Indigenous peoples outside the Nation?  
    • Is the resource intended to support teaching in K-12 classrooms? 
  • What are the contents of the resource?  
    • Does the resource contain ceremonial knowledge (e.g., references to clans, crests, supernatural beings, songs or dances used for particular ceremonies)? 
  • What protocols and/or permissions are connected to the resource?  
    • Are there particular conditions placed upon use of the resource (e.g., times of year, gender or age protocols)?  
    • Has permission been given to replicate the art, sing the songs, or dance the dances contained in the resource?  
    • If permission has been given, who has given permission? Are they a member of the Nation where the resource originated? 
  • What other information has been included about the resource?  
    • Has information about the artist(s) been included? Has information about the artist’s Nation been included?  

Project seeds

As you explore the materials and resources related to Indigenous arts, here are some project seed ideas that might inform your thinking about learning activities around the art. Use this list simply as a jumping off point to encourage your own imagination and creativity about how engaging with Indigenous art might foster your students’ learning. 

Art and nature 

Some of the Bill Reid Gallery Videos (see the Salish Weave Collection on the Visual Art page) discuss connections between art and nature.  Study across pieces to see these links. Consider patterns and designs found in nature, and note where you see these same patterns in the artwork. Consider what the connections might be to topics in science. Have students produce their own art related to nature – not necessarily using Indigenous nation-specific techniques, just inspired by nature in their own way. 

Art and resistance or subversion  

Art can invite us to rethink relationships, or lack of relationships with each other, with more-than-human beings, and the land and how we represent these visually in our cultures. Consider how such an exploration supports connections to social studies as well as art. lessLIE’s Cultural ConunDRUM piece (see the Artists Reflection section of the Visual Art page) could be a starting place and could be connected to other pop-cultural links. Other artists to consider are Brian Jungen and Andy Everson. Study the original and the artist’s take. What message(s) are being sent? Students can create their own subversive art, not necessarily using Indigenous techniques, but their own forms of messaging and subversion. 

Art and music 

Art can be inspired by music or represent music. lessLIE’s Bill Reid Gallery Video (see the Artists Reflection section of the Visual Art page), is a good place to start when thinking about this idea. Artists can create connections with pattern, colour and form between the art and music. Students could create their own images based on music, but not necessarily using Coast Salish techniques. 

Art and story 

Stories can be represented in art. Art can be a story. Art can be a mnemonic for history/story. lessLIE talks about these toward the end of his conversation with Ashley and Courtney – after image 5 communiTIES. Aaron Nelson Moody also connects his art to a powerful story about his grandfather. Visual references in Indigenous art often connect to family histories, important deeds of distant ancestors, and/or well-known ideas or Beings in oral histories, such as Raven, Coyote, Eagle or Owl. There are references to this in each of the video interviews Ashley and Courtney did with artists lessLIE, Maynard Johnny Jr. and Dylan Thomas.  

Cultural genocide and resurgence 

Destruction and forced dormancy of culture through acts, such as the potlatch ban, residential schools, missionization, and the reserve system continue to impact Indigenous societies and art now. Artists may engage in learning by studying the work of their ancestors in order to rebuild, recreate, and advance their art today. In Ashley and Courtney’s video with Dylan Thomas, there is a segment where he discusses returning to pre-contact art and trying to build from there. Chapter 4 of the book Potlatch as Pedagogy (Davidson & Davidson, 2018) has a similar story of Robert Davidson (a Haida artist) working with his community to resurrect the practice of carving and raising totem poles. Connections can be made between this theme and social studies and art, but also possibly to science. Jennifer Grenz, an ecologist at UBC, discusses a similar process in relation to Indigenous ecology – reviving past practices but adapted to current context. Land that once grew Gary Oaks may not be able to do so anymore due to changes in the soil itself. Restoration requires a process of honouring the story of the land from past and present and future. This video [3:01 minutes] talks about the importance of totem poles returning to the earth in Bowen Park.

Art, trade routes and material culture 

In his conversation with Ashley and Courtney, Dylan Thomas discusses artistic choices in relation to materials available either in the artist’s location or via trade routes. Likewise, many modern artists are inspired by the objects in their world, such as Brian Jungen’s use of discarded plastic patio chairs to create sculptures of dinosaurs, or Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson's creation of “plastic woman” inspired by plastics washed up on the shores of Gwaii Hanaas National Park Reserve. Students might learn about the materials used in particular pieces, the trade-routes that enabled them, and the role that art played in trade as a means of building a more vibrant understanding of the complexity and inter-relations of Indigenous nations across what is now known as North America. Alternately, for modern artists, they might explore how materials are moved world-wide to create everything from t-shirts to plastic chairs (for example, this podcast series follows the path of a t-shirt through the global economy), the paths they take and where they end up when we are done with them. An exploration such as this, and a consideration of our own relationships to the items we use and consume every day can connect to both social studies and art.  

Poetry, art and visual puns 

In his converation with Ashley and Courtney, lessLIE discusses both his interest in creative writing and poetry and his use of visual puns in both his art and poetry. He follows the tradition of e.e. cummings, bpNichol and other concrete poets who made poetry visible. He mentions that coastal art can have two images within one image that are contradictory to one another – a visual pun. Likewise, he uses capitalization and other visual techniques with words as mediators to craft meaning. Leslie, becomes lesLIE or less lie. Students could study the visual puns within both his poetry and his art unpacking the idea of what it means to make poetry visible and for pictures to embody stories, meaning, and contradictions. They could apply these same observations to other poets/artists and/or create their own visual puns with poetry and visual art. For older students, an interview with Haida carver and painter, Robert Davidson, includes a discussion about poetry and his art that will take these links in a different direction than visual puns. 

Patterns and art 

Art often reflects patterns in nature and culture. Art can use patterns symbolically, to represent rhythm, to be decorative, or as an exploration of shape and form. Dylan Thomas’ work can be an accessible entry point into the role of pattern and art as he talks explicitly about the connections of his work to geometry and mathematics in his conversation with Ashley and Courtney: 

  • He has studied M.C. Escher (and has been influenced by him). Escher did lots of wood cut prints. Salish art style is informed by relief word carving - a natural connection. 
  • He also studied Islamic tile art and mentions how they were amazing mathematicians and created complex tessellations. 
  • He learned about the importance of various geometric structures in nature: e.g. radial geometry is the most space efficient form for flower petals. 
  • Multi-axis symmetry and rotation is much more common in Coast Salish art (based on the circular and spinning notion of the spindle whorl) than in Northwest Coast artwork, where reflection symmetry is very common.  
  • Geometric shapes and use of negative/positive space differ in each tradition 
    • Coast Salish: oval, trigon, crescents 
    • Northwest Coast: ovoid, u-forms, tri-neg 

Patterns and music and dance 

Music has patterns within it, perhaps the simplest is that of chorus and refrain, but some patterns are quite complex, such as those in fugues. The same is true with dance, which often involves common movements or forms combined in a particular pattern (e.g. line dancing; square dancing), or where dancers together create a pattern – think of giant marching bands making images on a field. Creating visual patterns from music or musical patterns inspired by the visual world can be an interesting way to explore the relationship between patterns, music and meaning. Some interesting examples of music for exploring patterns include Why by Supaman, Indomitable by DJ Shub, Performance for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous women with music by Tribe Called Red and a live performance by Piqsiq. 

Patterns and story 

Stories have patterns to them. People who study stories will classify them based on those patterns. Oral story telling in particular tends to include patterns of repetition and refrain, much as we see in song, that helps the story teller and the listener keep their place within the story. Exploring patterns in stories is another way to learn them and make sense of them. How might one represent the pattern in a story mathematically? Through a visual image? Through song? How do the patterns seen in stories connect those stories to one another? Consider listening to Q’um Q’um Xiiem (Jo-ann Archibald) tell the story of Lady Louse as a starting place. 

Salish Weave Box Sets: Art and Storytelling project

Activities to help generate discussion in a classroom or group setting have been developed to accompany the conversations held with artists.

For the latest events and initiatives, see News from the Indigenous Curriculum Resource Centre.