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. 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 have preserved. We commit to listening to them and to amplifying their voices.
We also want to express our gratitude to the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather.
In 2023, the Festival opens with a joik, the vocal expression of the Sámi people, through which they sing the land and inhabit the world. Imazighen, Andean peoples, Inuit, Inga, Anishinaabeg, Mapuche, Yup’ik, Oglala Lakota… The presence of these artists in the Festival’s program celebrates the abundance of their artistic practices. We are on the move.
