17 for 2017: Wanda Nanibush recommends The Winter We Danced

15. The Winter We Danced edited by The Kino-nda-niimi Collective recommended by Wanda Nanibush

Throughout my tenure as the December Writer-In-Residence, I will be assembling a list of 17 must-read-books for 2017. To accomplish this numerically satisfying task, I have asked 17 people whose work I adore to suggest one title for the list. Consult the end of each post for the growing list of recommendations!

Wanda Nanibush is an image and word artist, currently serving as the Art Gallery of Ontario's first Assistant Curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art. Wanda's AGO curatorial debut Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971–1989, is a landmark exhibition for the gallery, which explores various artistic and activist foundations of the city. In addition to the AGO, Nanibush recently toured her show The Fifth World, which launched in January 2016 at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery. Listen to Wanda, recently in conversation with Toronto-based artist and curator Luis Jacob; and read this interview conducted by Metro Toronto News wherein she recommends three emerging indigenous artists to watch.

From Wanda:

The Kino-nda-niimi Collective is a collection of Indigenous writers, artists, editors, curators and allies responsible for editing the anthology The Winter We Danced (2014). The book collects a lot of the online writing about a movement as it is happening. In the context of backlash racism being legitimized as state policy (see: American election), Indigenous activism has a lot to offer the world right now. 

Stay tuned as we build the ultimate 2017 reading list!

17 for 2017:

1. Mariko Tamaki recommends The Land of Forgotten Girls

2. Sheila Heti recommends The Normal Personality: A New Way of Thinking about People

3. Vivek Shraya recommends The Mothers

4. Kate Bornstein recommends Siddhartha

5. Casey Mecija recommends Tropical Renditions: Making Musical Scenes in Filipino America

6. Morgan M. Page recommends Small Beauty

7. Lauren Berlant recommends Long Division and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

8. Chase Strangio recommends Exile & Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation

9. Jamie Keiles recommends The Group 

10. Sarah Joynt recommends The Hour of the Star

11. John Greyson recommends Citizen: An American Lyric

12. Yasmin Nair recommends Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion

13. Trish Salah recommends AKA Inendagosekwe

14. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore recommends For the Children?: Protecting Innocence In A Carceral State

December Writer-In-Residence

Chase Joynt is a filmmaker and writer. His latest two films Genderize and Between You and Me are now streaming live online with CBC Digital Docs. His first book, You Only Live Twice (co-authored with Mike Hoolboom) was published by Coach House Books and just named one of the Best Books of 2016 by The Globe and Mail and CBC. His second book The Case of Agnes (co-authored with Kristen Schilt) is forthcoming from Duke University Press.