Jeff Thomas
Global Indigenous Networks: GardenShip and State
As co-curator of the landmark initiative, GardenShip and State (2020-24), Jeff Thomas’s shared work with Patrick Mahon asked: How we can work together and create together as a global community to restore the planet—while respecting differences and seeking to repair divisions and address injustices brought about by colonialism? GardenShip and State was an artistic research project conceived at the intersection of environmental critique, decolonial theory, and artistic practice. The project examined urgent issues confronting us today and the measures states and non-state actors can, or should, take to resolve them. These challenges are of global concern because local actions and global effects are intertwined, as evidenced by the destructiveness of the environmental crisis on humans and other than humans experiencing the effects of colonialism. At its core, GardenShip and State argued that decolonial critique is an intercultural, dialogical approach that seeks to redress social and ecological imbalances and their effects in the present, not least in terms of how different communities understand and interact with their local environments. The conversation between Jeff Thomas and Patrick Mahon will focus on GardenShip and States’s emphasis on the Two-Row Treaty of 1613 between the Haudenosaunee and the Dutch, which is considered a living document today. It was a central feature of their collaborative initiative that resulted in an exhibition involving 20 artists, as well as a conference, Community projects, and a book.
Biography
Tribal affiliation: Onondaga of the Six Nations of the Grand River
Year and location of birth: Buffalo, New York, 1956
Jeff Thomas (b. 1956, Buffalo, New York) is an urban-based Iroquois, self-taught photo-based story teller, writer, public speaker, and curator, living in Ottawa, Ontario, and has works in major collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe. In 1998, he was awarded the Canada Council's Duke and Duchess of York Award in Photography, Royal Canadian Academy of Art (2008), The Karsh Award in photography (2008), the REVAL Indigenous Art Award (2017), and the Canada Council Governor General Award in the Visual and Digital Arts (2019).
Jeff's most recent solo exhibitions, I REFUSE TO BE INVISIBLE, Kenderdine Art Gallery| College Art Galleries, University of Saskatchewan, Stories My Father Couldn't Tell Me, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario, and Where Are You From? Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto). Thomas has also been in many group shows, including In Our Hands, Native Photography 1890 – Now,” Minnesota Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989, Art Gallery of Ontario, Land/Slide: Possible Futures, Markham, Ontario, SAKAHÀN, National Gallery of Canada, UNMASKING: Arthur Renwick, Adrian Stimson, Jeff Thomas, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France.