‘Paper Trails’ at IAIA MoCNA: Indigenous Art as Decolonial Archive of Land, Memory and Structural Erasure

The exhibition foregrounds Indigenous epistemologies by treating paper not as a neutral surface but as a contested site of colonial violence and Indigenous resilience. Indigenous artists like those in ‘Paper Trails’ use paper to reclaim agency over narratives erased by settler-colonial archives, such as land deeds and census records. This work aligns with global Indigenous archival movements, like the Māori Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlements or the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which challenge the state’s monopoly on historical truth. The score reflects the exhibition’s strong centering of Indigenous knowledge, though it could deepen its critique of institutional complicity.

Paper has been a tool of Indigenous erasure since the 15th century, from the Treaty of Tordesillas to the Dawes Act, where bureaucratic documentation facilitated land theft and cultural genocide. The exhibition’s title evokes the ‘paper trails’ of colonial bureaucracy, paralleling historical cases like the 1887 General Allotment Act, which used land surveys to dispossess Indigenous peoples. Contemporary parallels include the use of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) to justify resource extraction on Indigenous lands, a process critiqued by the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA). The score reflects the exhibition’s engagement with deep historical patterns, though it could explicitly name these mechanisms.

Globally, Indigenous artists use material culture to resist archival erasure, from the Māori use of carved meeting houses (wharenui) as living archives to the Palestinian embroidery (tatreez) that encodes land narratives under occupation. In Canada, the ‘Resistance Through Art’ movement by First Nations artists like Kent Monkman challenges the erasure of Indigenous histories in national museums. The exhibition’s focus on paper as a medium echoes these global practices, where materiality becomes a site of both trauma and resistance. The score reflects the exhibition’s potential for cross-cultural resonance, though it could draw more explicit comparisons.

The exhibition’s use of paper aligns with cognitive science research on how material artifacts enhance memory and narrative retention, particularly in oral traditions where objects serve as mnemonic devices. Studies on ‘embodied cognition’ show that tactile engagement with materials like paper can deepen emotional and intellectual processing, supporting the exhibition’s claim that art is ‘felt, not read.’ However, the framing lacks engagement with the material science of paper degradation, which could parallel the fragility of Indigenous knowledge systems under colonial pressure. The score reflects the exhibition’s intuitive alignment with cognitive science, though it could integrate more empirical grounding.

Indigenous art often operates as both spiritual practice and political act, where materials like paper carry ancestral energy and challenge the secularization of colonial archives. The exhibition’s emphasis on ‘feeling’ over ‘reading’ aligns with Indigenous epistemologies that prioritize relational knowing over textual authority. In many traditions, art is not separate from spirituality—it is a form of prayer, resistance, and communal healing. The score reflects the exhibition’s strong spiritual dimension, though it could articulate these connections more explicitly.

The exhibition models a future where Indigenous knowledge systems are not just preserved but center in institutional practices, challenging the extractive logic of museums and galleries. It suggests a shift from ‘archiving’ to ‘repatriating’ knowledge, where institutions like MoCNA become sites of restitution rather than consumption. Future scenarios could include Indigenous-led archival systems, where paper-based art is part of a broader ecosystem of digital and oral archives. The score reflects the exhibition’s forward-looking potential, though it could outline concrete steps for institutional transformation.

The exhibition centers Indigenous artists, but the framing risks reducing their work to aesthetic experience rather than amplifying their political demands, such as land back movements or repatriation of cultural artifacts. Marginalized voices within Indigenous communities—like Two-Spirit artists or those critical of institutional co-optation—are often sidelined in mainstream coverage. The narrative also obscures the labor conditions of Indigenous artists, many of whom face systemic underfunding and exploitation within the art world. The score reflects the exhibition’s partial centering of marginalized voices, though it could interrogate these power dynamics more deeply.