​First Nations artists from British Columbia, Canada

The film Let Them Speak! Comments from British Columbia, Canada (2020), a film production by the Weltkulturen Museum, was created on the occasion of the Frankfurt Book Fair, with Canada as the guest of honor. It presents three perspectives from First Nations artists from British Columbia on the museum’s historical collection.

Selected objects from British Columbia are commented on by the visual artist Tom Hunt, Kwakwaka’wakw; the weaver Meghann O’Brien, Haida/Kwakwaka’wakw; and the rap musician Christie Lee Charles, Musqueam. The narrators in the film give the historical objects a new and vivid expression. Contemporary Indigenous viewpoints reflect the timelessness of historical collections and highlight their relevance for present-day artistic production.

All of this becomes newly accessible to the Frankfurt public, and the dialogue between Frankfurt and internationally recognized Canadian First Nations artists continues. The film was directed by First Nations filmmaker Diana Hellson, Siksika Nation. The Americas curator of the Weltkulturen Museum, Mona Suhrbier, and the ethnologist Markus Lindner (Goethe University Frankfurt) developed and academically supervised the project. 

Diana Hellson during filming on Vancouver Island, 2020. The film production, created under COVID-19 safety protocols, was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada. 

Here you can access the film.