The League of Cultural Emancipators Banner Exhibition
K.B Reynolds Mastin Gallery
Continues until August 20, 2010

The League of Cultural Emancipators is a celebration of more than 40 community members represented on 24 hand painted banners, who have contributed to the freeing of our culture over the last 50 years. The Debajehmujig Theatre Group recognize that they have the opportunity to live their lives today as full-time practicing Anishnaabek artists because of the hard work, endless commitment, and visionary inspiration of a great many people. These people have laid the groundwork and re-opened the doors on our cultural practices, our stories and knowledge, and our celebrations.

Over the last 5 decades, there have been hundreds of community members who have dedicated their lives and careers to the vitality of our culture. Their contributions are as unique as they are, and the selection represented on our banners demonstrates that it takes all kinds of people doing all kinds of things to keep a culture alive. It takes leadership to organize and then to help sustain the organizations. It takes educators to learn and then to share and then to learn some more. It takes artists to interpret and to re-interpret, so that our celebrations are always relevant in today's world. And it takes activists to step forward and speak out and helpers to step back and support from behind.

The League of Cultural Emancipators is a collection of portraits of people from our own community. Each has an extraordinary story, because of the extraordinary person in it. These are people who we should all know about, and there are many, many others who have yet to be honoured. We hope we have inspired others, as we have been inspired, to continue to find ways of expressing our appreciation and respect, by acknowledging, celebrating, and honouring our cultural emancipators.

Gchi Miigwech


In the words of Exhibition Creative Director Josh Peltier …

When an artist embarks on a new work, it’s always a journey that is full of surprises. I had no idea that this particular journey would take me into the hearts and minds of the people I knew, people I didn’t know, people I’ve looked up to and admired, and people that I now honour.

The banners started out as a series of lines and shapes with our full company filling in sections of colour. Each colour was personalized to enhance the story of each individual - in some cases the colours changed several times as the portraits seem to take on I life of their own and suggested what they wanted to become.

I got to know these people through these portraits. I got to hear their stories and learn about their families and even sometimes learned that I was a part of their family. As the portraits came closer to completion it was becoming more evident that this series was going to be a pivotal moment in my career. A point where the painting is not about sharing to the audience what I know, but about honoring the lives of these people and sharing their stories, it’s about what they know.

I hope that these portraits will evoke a bit of that same spirit into all that experience them. They started out as banners, they ended up becoming personalities of people that I now know and honor.

The League of Cultural Emancipators Banner Exhibition was produced under the creative direction of Josh Peltier – Visual Arts Animator at Debajehmujig. In total more than 1,000 hours were contributed by more than 30 participants towards the completion of the exhibition. The names of people to be honoured were suggested through partnering community organizations, as well as through conversations with elders during the research for this project. Special thanks to our community sponsor of the exhibition – the Wikwemikong Heritage Organization.