Indigenous epistemologies intrinsically connect us as peoples to the land. As the place where our ancestors reside; where spirit beings exist; and where living plants, animals and humans interact, land is entwined with territory, kinship and identity, and holds a myriad of cultural, social and political ideologies that have shaped our relationship to it.

The creation of Canada's first National Park in Banff imposed boundaries and displaced the original people of this territory. The artists in this land is lonely for us delve into their relationship with this specific region, through self-affirming practices rooted in culture and tradition that counter the ongoing legacies of colonial violence and imposition of oppressive structures. Works by Jaime Black, Meaghan Musseau, and Anne Riley, reflect recent bodies of work produced on Banff Centre’s campus. Each encourages site-specific discourse around this place and ask how cultural traditions can be reclaimed upon a land from which Indigenous peoples have historically been dispossessed.

Does the land cry for us? Does it feel the presence of our absence? Does it cry like so many of our mothers missing their stolen children? Does it long for our footsteps, our laughter, our song, and the careful ways we hunt and harvest?