To all the words you never learnt
In a creation dedicated to his grandparents, family and elders, Anishinaabe artist Connor Lafortune reinvents a world where the true stories of colonisation can be told. He seeks to reveal language, teachings and history using both oral narration and traditional ceremonial dress. After six generations without speakers of the traditional language in his family, Connor seeks to understand the impact of this loss by speaking directly to his ancestors. ‘To All The Words You Never Learnt dares to ask, ‘How have our words changed us?’ It explores the ways in which colonisation prevented the use of the traditional language and dictated the use of the English language. He shares the traditional words his people never learned and the ways in which they were forbidden to resist.
Connor Lafortune hails from the Dokis First Nation in the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory of 1850, in north-eastern Ontario. He is Anishinaabek, queer and francophone, and draws on his understanding of the world to shape his creations as a writer, spoken word poet and musician.