Talking Treaties Collective

The Talking Treaties Collective is a multidisciplinary group of Indigenous and settler artists/researchers whose projects artfully share Indigenous history and awareness of the place now called Toronto. Led by Kanien’kehá:ka interdisciplinary artist Ange Loft, associate artistic director of Jumblies Theatre, the Talking Treaties project has many branches and has engaged thousands of participants in generating symbols, poetry, improvised maps and performative explorations. Their creations include The Talking Treaties Spectacle, a site-specific mobile performance at Fort York in 2017 and 2018; the installation and three-part video By These Presents: “Purchasing” Toronto at the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art; and our illustrated book A Treaty Guide for Torontonians, for the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art.

Members of Talking Treaties Collective:

Ange Loft (Kahnawà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka, born in Kahnawake, Canada; lives and works in Toronto, Canada) is an interdisciplinary performing artist and initiator from Kahnawà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka Territory, working in. She is an ardent collaborator, consultant, and facilitator working in arts-based research, wearable sculpture, theatrical co-creation, and Haudenosaunee history. She is a vocalist with the music collective Yamantaka // Sonic Titan.

Jill Carter (Anishinaabe-Ashkenazi, born in Toronto, Canada) is a theatre practitioner, researcher, and educator at the University of Toronto. Based in Tkaron:to, where she was born and largely raised, she is an active member of the Talking Treaties Collective, serves as researcher and tour guide for First Story Toronto, and devises land activations, mapping interventions, and personal cosmography workshops.

Martha Stiegman (settler, lives and works in Toronto, Canada) is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. Her community-based research and collaborative video work examine Indigenous-settler treaty relations in their historical and contemporary manifestations, with particular attention to food sovereignty and justice as well as participatory and visual research methodologies.

Victoria Freeman (born in Ottawa, Canada) is an author, historian, theatre co-creator, and educator of British settler heritage. Her work focuses on Indigenous-settler relations and the Indigenous and colonial past of Toronto. She has collaborated on numerous community projects, including with First Story Toronto, L’Arche Toronto Sol Express, Toronto Council Fire, and Jumblies Theatre