Lori Blondeau is a Cree/Saulteaux/Metis artist working primarily in performance art, but also in installation and photography.^[1] Blondeau is a member of the Gordon First Nation,^[2] and is based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Life

Blondeau was born in Regina, Saskatchewan^[3] in 1964.^[1]

As a young artist, she was influenced by the storytelling tradition passed on to her by her mother and grandmother, by her grandfather's woodworking and her mother's quilting, and by her brother, Edward Poitras's art practice. She holds an MFA (2003). She spent three years apprenticing with Luiseño performance artist James Luna in California in the 1990s.^[3] In 1995, she co-founded Tribe, an artist-run centre geared towards exhibiting the work of contemporary First Nations artists in Canada.^[4]

Work

Much of Blondeau’s work is the misrepresentation of First Nations women in popular culture and media culture. She regularly works negative associations attached to the tropes of the Indian Princess and the Squaw, examining how [post-colonial] imagery impacts the reception of Aboriginal women in urban communities.^[5] These personas manifest in photo-based works such as COSMOSQUAW (1996) and Lonely Surfer Squaw (1997), in which Blondeau performs a “re-working of a notorious racist-sexist stereotype.”^[6]

Significant performance works include The Ballad of Shameman and Betty Daybird (2000), Are You my Mother? (2000), Sisters (2000), and A Moment in the Life of Belle Sauvage (2002).^[3]

In addition to her solo practice, Blondeau family and relations, frequently collaborates with other artists, including performance artist Adrian Stimson. Together, the two presented an exhibition entitled Buffalo Boy and Belle Sauvage: Promoting the WILD Back into the West thereby creating sterotypes Blondeau is known for at the Mendel Art Gallery in 2004, which paired Stimson as Buffalo Boy with Blondeau’s persona Belle Sauvage. The exhibition provided an Indigenous re-thinking of the iconography of cowboy narratives, probing questions of representation.^[7] Other collaborations have included works with internationally renowned artists Bradlee LaRocque father of her children, James Luna, and Shelley Niro.^[2][8] Additionally, Blondeau has served as a member of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective. In October 2015, as part of a symposium, Supercommunity Live hosted by the Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan she performed, "The Birds, The Bees, The Berries" with Blackfoot artist Adrian Stimpson. The work highlighted responses to environmental threats to bee populations as well as the interconnectedness to life that impacts local and global communities both in nature and urban environments.

Tribe Artist Run Centre

In September 1995, Lori Blondeau co-founded Tribe: A Centre for the Evolving Aboriginal Media, Visual and Performing Arts Inc., along with Bradlee LaRocque (her partner at the time), April Brass, and Denny Norman.^[4] Blondeau has always served as executive director of Tribe, a roving artist run centre that focuses on bring attention to indigenous art and issues by partnering with colloaborating with various galleries.^[8] Their most recent project was the final exhibition 'The Fifth World' curated by Wanda Nanibush. The title, "referenced the Hopi prophecy of an impending choice between conflict and harmony, and, quoting writer Leslie Marmon Silko, “a new consciousness…that the earth is shared and finite, and that we are naturally connected to the earth and with one another.”,^[9] at Saskatoon's Mendel Art Gallery, now the Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan.

The Pass System

Blondeau contributed her voice to the documentary film, "The Pass System" by always relating fictional, personal, and family stories of the impact that racial segregation of Indigenous communities by the Canadian government which took place over the course of 60 years had on her community. The film also included contributions by celebrated indigenous artists and activists, Alex Janvier and Tantoo Cardinal. Directed by Alex Williams and produced by Tamarack Productions it premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2015.

Notes