Innu Artists

Mary Ann Penashue – Innu artist from
Sheshatshiu, Labrador

Mary Ann Penashue with her painting Ceremonial Walk Out. 2023. Photo courtesy of Anthony Germain and CBC.

Artist statement:

My name is Mary Ann Penashue. I am a mother and grandmother and I live in Sheshatshiu, Labrador. I was born on Birch Island, near Goose Bay in 1964 and I spent much of my youth at Mud Lake. I was raised by my grandparents, Michel and Mary Pasteen. During the fall months, my grandparents and I lived away from the community in nutshimit (the country) where we hunted, fished and trapped. I learned a lot from them. One of my favourite childhood memories is being tucked into my bed on spruce boughs in my grandparent’s Innu tent, watching them drum and dance by the light of the fire. The ritual is our Innu way of giving thanks to the creator for the gifts of the land and animals.

I started drawing at a very young age. I always enjoyed looking at different types of paintings. Other people’s art would give me ideas for my own work. If I saw art that I liked, I would discuss it with someone who was also interested in art.

I started painting around 1995 when I was in my 30s. I began by painting faces on canvas with oil because it was challenging. At this point, my husband and I had our fourth child, but I continued to paint despite the responsibilities of raising a family. As the years went by and my children got bigger, I got better at painting. Sometimes I would get a job, but I was never happy with it. I love to paint. This is who I am. My art and painting are my passion.

Many of my paintings are about our Elders who are living and who have passed away. I enjoy painting them as well as children because they bring me peace of mind. My paintings are also about what we do on the land, in nutshimit, where my people are able to live in a healthy way both physically and mentally, with no worries, just feeling free and with lots of energy to work. My paintings inspire pride in Innu people, they bring happiness to families.

My work is also about showing the outside world my Innu culture. In that way I am a host inviting people in to see my culture.  My paintings reveal the close connection between Innu generations, between Innu people and our land, between our people and the spirits. We are all connected.

Sometimes I paint from photographs, often old ones.  They speak to me. The faces of the people inspire me, call to me and I am compelled to put them on canvas.  I paint them in a way that captures their spirit. Those faces tell a story, they remind me of who I am, where I come from.  They express this to my grandchildren, to all the people who see my paintings.  Through my art I am telling our stories. I love to work with black and white photographs.  It allows me to bring those photos alive through my choice of colours.

One of the paintings on this website is about a family that went to the country to hunt and live freely. The Elder is making snowshoe frames for the winter. The grandson likes to help his grandfather, and to learn from him. The grandmother has a pipe in her mouth and waits for her cooking pot to boil. There are two rabbits in the pot. The daughter is washing the laundry. She is happy that they are camping by the lake. The son-in-law has gone out to search for game because everybody is busy at the camp. He thinks that maybe, if he is lucky, he’ll see animals. Everybody is so quiet that the caribou walks towards the camp. The caribou doesn’t hear a sound. The son-in-law has his bow and arrow with him and takes aim at the caribou and kills it. The elderly woman is happy because she needs the caribou skin to lace her family’s snowshoes.

Bio:

In 2007 Mary Ann was named “Emerging Artist of the Year” by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council. In 2011, she was accepted into the Ottawa School of Art Fine Art Diploma program graduating in 2016, and in 2015 she was awarded the Lillian Raport Memorial Scholarship, in recognition of artistic achievement and expression of life through visual arts. Mary Ann has been commissioned by several organizations throughout Labrador and Quebec to paint images of Innu culture. She has illustrated a children’s book Nutaui’s Cap, and provided images for other publications, including book covers. Through her paintings, she has immortalized the faces of over 500 Elders. She is celebrated for her unique and exciting combination of modern technique and colour to portray traditional Innu culture.

Mary Ann Penashue’s work has been exhibited throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Ontario. She has been showcased at the Northern Lights Show in Ottawa. In 2023, she was a participating artist in the Bonavista Biennale. She has had two exhibits at the Christina Parker Gallery in St. John’s. Her work is found in the collections of The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, the Provincial Art Bank Collection, BMO St. John’s, IDLP (Innu Development Limited Partnership), the Sheshatshiu School, the Innu Nation, Mushuau and Sheshatshiu Band Council offices, as well as many private collections in Canada, the USA and the UK.

Christine Poker, filmmaker

Artist statement:

I am an Innu filmmaker from Natuashish, Labrador, also a mother, grandmother, artist, writer and addictions counselor. I started making films in the late 1990s. I first learned filmmaking during an Innu Nation research project looking at the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine. We were gathering voices and stories of elders about this development, and how we should fight for our rights. I was successful in getting this job because of my passion for working with our Innu elders. I was trained by Métis filmmaker Marjorie Beaucage. I learned how to use the camera, about research, interviewing and also editing. That’s when I fell in love with filmmaking.

Christine Poker learning to use a camera with the late Manteshkueu (Mary Georgette) Mistenapeo and Marjorie Beaucage. Davis Inlet. 1995. Photo courtesy of the Innu Nation

I was also mentored by Nigel Markham when we worked on My People’s Journey, which tells the story of how the Mushuau Innu were settled in Davis Inlet, and went from living in a world of animal spirits to a world of video games. I also worked as a director on a couple of NFB documentaries, and with a German filmmaker Sarah Sandring on two films she made about the Mushuau Innu. I learned hands-on, through experience, on the job.

Then I decided to start making my own films. As of 2024 I have made or been part of making 11 films. I filmed an expedition during which Innu youth walked from Natuashish to Hopedale along the Labrador coast to remember their friend James Poker who was lost on the ice and died. I am still doing the editing work on that one. It is challenging to shoot in a remote community like Davis Inlet or Natuashish and in nutshimit (on the land) and we have to be creative and figure out how we will do things including special effects, like moving in and out of a dream scene.

I’ve made 6 Innu atanukana (legends) films. I produced, wrote and directed these films with all-Innu crews. I put my community to work. My films provide jobs and skills training, like camera work, sound, drone piloting, set and costume design, translation, narration, editing and acting—all the actors are from my community. The young people are helping and learning the whole time. Everyone learns about the story and about how to tell it on film, about the land and the animals and how to respect and honour them. I teach the actors how to try to get into character. Even those who are not directly involved in the filming help by providing feedback, encouragement and direction. That motivates me too.

The Elders are very important in my filmmaking. They are there to guide me, to give me information about the old ways, about religion, about things that a lot of people have no memory of anymore. It is important I involve the Elders so that we can speak the old Innu-aimun. The words themselves are important as well because the language being used is old, old Innu. We are all learning the old language from them. Despite many new changes to the Innu language following settlement, the legends have kept the centuries-old language of Innu people living on the land. For example, the Katshituask (mammoth) in one legend hints at how very old these legends are since mammoths have not existed on this continent for thousands of years.

Christine takes a shot. Photo courtesy of Christine Poker

Many of the elders who are in the films, as well as those who were part of the writing and directing process have died. But through the films, their descendants, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are still able to learn the Innu legends as they were told in the deep past and through the actual voices of their ancestors.

The atanukana films are about stories I heard as a child sleeping in a tent, as the wind rippled the tent’s canvas and the fire crackled in the stove. Today children don’t often get the chance to hear these stories. We need to find ways to preserve them, and I find filmmaking lends itself well to our oral tradition, while being visual at the same time. We try to do everything exactly right.

These legends are very important for passing on Innu teachings about how to be in this world. The stories are about the animals, flesh-eating beings and humble heroes. Legends hold lessons. They teach about our world in ancient times, about our ways, our beliefs and values, about respect for each other, the animals, the land, all of the natural world. They show us how we should behave, how the animals have supported our way of life in nutshimit in the past and to this day. The legend films are my gift to my people.

All my films are shot in areas that well known to our community members there. This is a benefit because it reminds us of the tangible and important connection between Innu people of the past and present, the land, and the animals. It reminds all of us of our responsibility to the land that surrounds us every day, and not taking that connection for granted. For example, we will be filming in an area near the community, and people say, “how come I’ve never seen it? Maybe I’ve seen it, but I wasn’t paying attention.” After they see it on the film, they remember how beautiful the land is and they feel so grateful to live in Nitassinan.

Every time we complete one scene, and every day we finish a shot and get to assess it, and if there is something that is not as good as it could be, then we re-film. And when people see the clips, everybody asks when we are going to finish because they are excited to see it completed. That motivates me. That keeps me going, even during challenges I have worked with a lot of people over the years, and the crew I work with, the people from my community, we all have skills and roles in these in these projects.

I am working on 2 feature films now. One is the Innu legend of Tshakapesh. It’s important for Innu children to know this legend, to have an Innu hero to look up to. Tshakapesh is the story of a boy who lost both his parents when they were attacked by a katshituask (mammoth). Tshakapesh escapes and is rescued by his sister. He is always described as short, but he has immense strength. At birth he is already the size of a young boy and able to speak. He is a little mischievous, brave, and compassionate, as well as intelligent and a good hunter. Growing up with his sister, he has a number of adventures that test his intelligence (the encounter with a giant fish and the laughing strangers in the forest), adventures that show his kindness (rescuing the sisters from their cannibal mother, always looking out for his older sister), that describe Innu knowledge of the land and the animals (what good fat looks like, the importance of beavers), that hint at his spiritual powers (turning the tent into a rock, the ability to make a tree grow), that demonstrate his extreme strength (fighting off the cannibal mother, the giants, and the Katshituask), that explain the changes in animals over time (why animals are smaller today than in the deep past, why elephants have such long ears), that describe how night and day came to be (when Tshakapesh trapped the sun), and which detail the story of how Tshakapesh became the man in the moon. It is an epic story.

The other feature film I am working on is a personal story, based on my own life, of a little girl who lived through the settlement of the Mushuau Innu to Davis Inlet. It is about all the dramatic changes it brought to the lives of her family and people, going from a nomadic way of life on the land to being settled in a permanent village with a foreign school, church and government agencies. The film is also about the girl’s healing journey, or recovering who she is, and the beauty, strength and humour of the Innu culture. It is a film of struggle and triumph, of challenges and living between hope and despair. It will show a truer picture of my people, beyond all the film and media stories that focus only on the despair and trauma of our communities. These are there and painful, the result of colonization—decades of efforts to destroy our culture and way of life. But there is another story revealed through my feisty character, a story of endurance, resistance, clinging to a world of spirits, keepers of the land, beauty, love and so much laughter. There is a recurring dream in my film and there is a love story.

Watch Christine Poker’s Legend of Kaianuet: https://vimeo.com/760295682