As Indigenous dwellers in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, how do we maintain our relationship with the land?

Iako'tsi:rareh Amanda Lickers
Seneca, Six Nations of the Grand River

Amanda is a designer, pedagogue and multi-media artist whose work reflects the interconnected relationship of land-body sovereignty. Nurturing her creative practice through land-based pedagogy and arts-based visual storytelling, her work has been exhibited in New York and Montreal, and the short film she co-directed, titled Our Ways (2022), has screened in Montreal, Toronto, London (UK) and Ōtāku (New Zealand). A budding hide tanner, Amanda is a member of the Buckskin Babes Urban Moose Hide Tanning Collective producing fish skin leather and bone tools amongst honing other land-based skills. 

An emerging curator, she is the 2023-2025 Indigenous Land Restitution Research-Creation Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. An Indigenous co-design consultant, Amanda has worked with museologists, curators, architects, archaeologists and designers to implement Indigenous design principles and decolonize contemporary approaches to the built environment - on stolen lands. She continues to advocate for cultural safeguarding practices which uphold Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, looking to land-based methods and Indigenous technologies to guide the collaborative process.

Currently a Master's student at Concordia University, Amanda’s research-creation reflects on onkwehón:we land-based futures weaving visual storytelling, Indigenous sciences, necropolitics and design sovereignty.

https://bio.site/lickers

Katsi’tsahén:te Cross-Delisle is a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) archaeologist, rematriations and cultural advocate whose work focuses on Indigenous sovereignty, decolonization and the preservation of Indigenous Knowledge Systems.

She is a member of the Bear Clan at the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Nation in Kahnawake, a Haudenosaunee (Rotinonhshon:ni) community located along the Saint Lawrence River. Cross-Delisle’s work is deeply rooted in the revitalization of her Indigenous culture, history and language, with a particular focus on rematriation of ancestral remains and cultural heritage. Her formal training in archaeology and bio-archaeology has allowed her to work within both Indigenous and western frameworks, giving her a unique perspective on the intersection of cultural heritage and archaeological practices. 

In addition to her archaeological work, Cross-Delisle has been a passionate advocate for the revitalization of Indigenous languages, which is an essential part of her identity. She has been involved in initiatives to bring the Kanien’ké:ha (Mohawk) language back into the public and educational settings, with programs that teach youth about their traditional knowledge, cultural heritage and cultural processes for the Ancestors.  Through her leadership, she hopes to inspire a new generation of Indigenous Scholars and Activists who are dedicated to the preservation of their cultures and the fight for social justice.