Visual Sovereignty and the Making of NIIPA: Tracing an Archival History of the Native Indian/Inuit Photographers' Association (1985-2005/2006)

• Main Author: Szikora, Erin
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Visual Sovereignty; Self-Determination; Indigenous Photography; Hamilton; NIIPA; Indian; inuit
• Online Access: http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2959/; http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2959/7/Szikora_Erin_2020_MA_CADN_MRP%20%28006%29.pdf

The Native Indian/Inuit Photographers' Association (NIIPA, 1985-2005/2006) was a national, non-profit artist-run centre in Hamilton, Ontario, that sought to develop a community of Indigenous photographers and to promote a positive and contemporary image of Indigenous peoples through the production of a newsletter and the facilitation of annual conferences, workshops and both in-house and travelling exhibitions. This major research paper is a culmination of a year-long archival investigation of NIIPA that chronicles the organization’s history from its paternal roots in Hamilton’s Photographers’ Union to its closure in 2005/2006. Drawing on extant archival materials housed in the Toronto Reference Library and the libraries of OCAD University, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Royal Ontario Museum, and focusing on four of NIIPA’s main publications: Visions (1986), Silver Drum (1986), No Borders (1991), and Reminiscing (2000), the paper provides an overview of NIIPA’s two decades of activities and advocacy for Indigenous photography to demonstrate its pioneering role in Canadian photographic history as an agent of Indigenous self-determination and visual sovereignty, and to lay the groundwork for future considerations of the role NIIPA played in setting a precedent for Indigenous image-makers today.