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Olympic Aboriginal Art Will Be the Real Deal
Olympic aboriginal art will be guaranteed authentic at the next Winter Games.Athletes won’t be the only ones in star roles when the 2010 Winter Games rolls into Vancouver. Thanks to an agreement between First Nations and the Vancouver Organizing Committee aboriginal artists will also shine.
Through the agreement, aboriginal art by authentic aboriginal artists will be sold with the Olympic brand.
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Participating First Nations are the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and Lil’wat. The four First Nations have joined together to create the Four Host First Nations Secretariat, a group focused on finding ways for First Nations to participate in the Games. The secretariat will receive half the royalties from the sale of Olympic aboriginal art.
The other half of the royalties will be used to fund aboriginal youth programs around the country. Thanks to the money raised by the First aboriginal artists over the course of the Winter Games, Canada’s aboriginal youth will be able to engage in skills development, art, culture and sports.
Why did aboriginal artists want to license their work and go Olympic? Aboriginal art is extremely popular with tourists. Unfortunately, there are people who take advantage of that fact. Some of the aboriginal art sold in Vancouver isn’t authentic. Believe it or not, some is actually made in China!
This deal ensures that the cultures of the First Nations are accurately represented in art sold during the Olympics. It also provides First Nations with an opportunity to participate in—and profit from—the Games.
Olympic aboriginal art will include commissioned art, scarves, clothing and more. Organizers have said the work won’t be souvenir-quality. Instead, the aboriginal art you’ll see under the Olympic brand is supposed to be collector-quality.
Whether or not the Olympic aboriginal art will all be high quality remains to be seen. The organizers have hired around 1,200 Inuit artists to hand-carve inuksuit (plural of inukshuk), which will be sold under the brand. That’s a lot of carving and some say it’s assembly-line production rather than real art.
Aboriginal artists from the four host First Nations were invited to submit their work last year to become the first artist to have his or her work licensed. One artist—Squamish aboriginal artist Xwa Lack Tun (Rick Harry)—was chosen from about 30 entrants.
Other aboriginal artists will join Xwa Lack Tun. The intent of the organizers is to represent all aboriginal cultures, including Inuit and Metis.
This isn’t the first time aboriginal art has played a role in the Olympics. Aaron Nelson-Moody, a Squamish artist, created the beautiful carved doors gracing B.C.-Canada Place at the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy.
