Slut Island Festival is organized and run on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka people; more specifically in the area known as Tio’tia:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka and it has served as a meeting place for many First Nations. The area is commonly simply referred to as Montreal as the result of a colonial agenda, and a territorial acknowledgment is a small gesture towards intervening on the continued erasure of Indigenous people, language and history.
This land is recognized as unceded both in the Indigenous legal system of the Kanien’kehá:ka and also in Canadian law, while non-Indigenous people living in Montreal continue to be afforded privileges and opportunities resulting from ongoing and profound injustice and oppression of Indigenous people since the surreptitious acquisition of this land for the exploitation of its resources by colonists since the early 1500s. Slut Island Festival was created by two settlers, and is operated by a team of people who denounce the violent systems rooted in white supremacy that hold Indigenous and other marginalized people in places of grave injustice, and have been working towards dismantling these systems in the realm of festival programming through employing and exclusively deferring to people who these systems continue to harm. We are following the multi-faceted call to action that is LAND BACK and pledge to advocate for the demands put forth by Indigenous people, including language revitalization, reclaiming urban spaces, sexual sovereignty and prioritizing Indigenous and Black 2S/trans women.
Thank you to the Indigenous peers, collaborators, creators and thinkers who have generously shared their knowledge and lived experiences and who continue to guide us out of our ignorance; who teach us and other non-Indigenous people about the life-long commitment of decolonization and who pave the way towards liberation.
The following links are sources of information, calls for donations and calls to action surrounding Indigenous struggle on Turtle Island and beyond. If any Indigenous person (or non-Indigenous person engaged in these conversations) is reading this and would like links to be added to this page, or would like to share thoughts on this acknowledgement or how to better use this platform to address and take action on these issues, we would be grateful to hear from you (slutislandfestivalmtl@gmail.com).
Literature / information:
Thread about anti-Indigenous racism in the Canadian healthcare system
Find out whose land you are on
Take Action / Donate:
WAYS TO SUPPORT MI’KMAQ ASSERTING THEIR TREATY RIGHTS IN DIGBY, NOVA SCOTIA
Unist’ot’en 2020 Legal Fund
Organizations / Projects / Initiatives: