A land acknowledgement is one step on the long road to reconciliation. We learn, we engage in conversation, and we encourage our collaborators to take thoughtful action to address the erasure of First Peoples, their languages and their histories.
We, the Festival TransAmériques team, acknowledge that we are on unceded Indigenous territory that is not the object of any treaty. Known as “Tio’tià:ke” in Kanien’kéha and “Mooniyang” in Anishinaabemowin, Montreal has long been a historic meeting place between First Nations, including the Kanien’kehá:ka, the Wendat, the Abenaki and the Anishinaabeg. This city is home to a large and diverse Indigenous population and to people from all over the world.
These lands already carried their own stories, performances and rituals before colonization. We are grateful for the vitality of the art forms inherited from these ageless practices. Indigenous stories and perspectives are essential to the making of the present, and the future depends on the living and situated knowledge that Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island have preserved. Abenaki, Anishinaabeg, Cree, Innu, Inuit, Kanien’kehá:ka, Oji-Cree, Wendat, Yup’ik ̶ Bundjalung and Ngāpuhi from Oceania and Inga from Colombia. The presence of these artists and knowledge keepers in the Festival’s program celebrates the abundance of their artistic and cultural practices. We commit to listening to them and to amplifying their voices.
We express our gratitude to the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather.
