Indigenous Arts & Stories - Videos

My name is Joseph Tisiga, and I won first place for my painting With Friends in 2011.

It’s always nice winning something. I was excited for the travel and to be a part of something that looks at First Nations narrative, and art, and creation. So it was really exciting, it was great.

When I was making the painting that I made, I kind of went through a process of considering what my mother’s narrative was and what the universal experience of children going through residential school, and the adoption system. So I think learned a lot about empathy while making that painting.

I would say winning the Challenge was definitely a good experience in getting some exposure, you know, opening up some different avenues in the media that I really hadn’t been exposed to before.

Getting to meet the other winners was really nice as well. It’s always great to see young, creative minds doing their thing. Obviously young people are overlooked, I think, in culture by and large, not just First Nations, but general culture. So seeing what kind of stuff people are interested in, what kind of narratives are going on, I think that’s an important component of the Challenge, having just that platform to speak from.