63rd Edward MacDowell Medalist Alanis Obomsawin (courtesy MacDowell, photo by Scott Sevens)
Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin is this year's recipient of a major American honour, the Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded annually to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to their field.
Obomsawin, 90, said she was honoured to be included in "such a magnificent group" of previous recipients, which includes Georgia O’Keeffe, John Updike and Toni Morrison.
Obomsawin, whose survey exhibition, The Children Have to Hear Another Story, is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery until Aug. 7, has chronicled issues related to Indigenous life since 1971.
Her documentaries include Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, about the 1990 Mohawk uprising in the villages of Kanehsatake and Oka, Que., and Incident at Restigouche, a behind-the-scenes look at Quebec police raids on a Mi’kmaq reserve.
Author Jesse Wente, board chair of the Canada Council of the Arts, will introduce Obomsawin at a celebration on July 23 at MacDowell, a non-profit group that has operated a longtime residency in Peterborough, New Hampshire. MacDowell has awarded the medal annually since 1960.
Obomsawin, who was born in New Hampshire and grew up in Odanak, an Abenaki community east of Montreal, has 56 films to her credit and continues to work.
She had a 2008 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and a Grande Officière of the Ordre national du Québec.
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Source: MacDowell