Please join us for the screening of two films, followed by a conversation between Mi’kmaw Elder and filmmaker Catherine Martin and scholar Dorota Glowacka.
This double-feature will present two documentary films on the theme of cultural preservation through material culture.
The Basket Maker (2017), by award-winning Mi’kmaw documentary filmmaker and producer Catherine Martin, features the traditional Mi’kmaw art of basket-weaving. Her film celebrates Mi’kmaw artists and honours cultural knowledge passed down through generations.
Mina’s Recipe Book: Terezin 1944 (2017), tells the story of a recipe book created by a female inmate in the Terezin Nazi concentration camp, where female prisoners secretly shared and recorded recipes as an act of spiritual resistance.
The screenings will be followed by a conversation between Catherine Martin and workshop co-organizer and Holocaust and genocide scholar Dr. Dorota Głowacka.
Award-winning filmmaker and independent producer Catherine Anne Martin is a member of the Millbrook Mi’kmaw First Nation and a Mi’kmaw Elder. The first Mi’kmaw filmmaker from the Atlantic Region, Martin has been making documentaries since 1989, producing films for the National Film Board of Canada (The Spirit of Annie Mae, Spirit Wind, Kwa’nu’te’, and others). With degrees in theatre arts, education and media literacy, and in conflict negotiations and mediation from Henson College, Martin is the past Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and former Director of Indigenous Community Engagement at Dalhousie University. She is also a drummer, teacher, community activist and consultant for the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Center, among others. She is the recipient of the King Charles III Coronation Medal and a member of the Order of Canada.
Dorota Glowacka is Professor of Humanities at King’s in K’jipuktuk, Halifax. She is the author of From the Other Side: Testimony, Affect, Imagination (2017) and Disappearing Traces: Holocaust Testimonials, Ethics, and Aesthetics (2012) and co-editor of Between Ethics and Aesthetics: Crossing the Boundaries (2002), Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust (2007) and the special issue of the Journal for Holocaust Research on “Gender-Based and Sexual Violence during the Holocaust” (2024). She has written numerous book chapters and journal articles in Holocaust and genocide studies, continental philosophy and gender theory. Her current research focuses on gender and genocide, the intersections of the Holocaust and settler colonial genocides and the politics of translation. In 2023, Glowacka organized the workshop “Trauma, Memory, and Material Culture: Dialogue between the United States Holocaust Museum and National Museum of the American Indian” in Washington D.C.
This is part of our ongoing series this fall called “Fostering Indigenous-Jewish Dialogue in Mi’kma’ki: A Two-Eyed Seeing/Etuaptmumk Approach.” The series is being organized by Dr. Dorota Glowacka in collaboration with Dalhousie’s Jewish Studies Department, MSVU’s Two-Eyed Seeing Program, and other university and community partners. It takes place October 25 to 27 and involves events open to the public—including a keynote roundtable at the Halifax Central Library and an art exhibit at the NSCAD Treaty Space Gallery.
“Fostering Indigenous-Jewish Dialogue in Mi’kma’ki: A Two-Eyed Seeing/Etuaptmumk Approach” will also include workshops for students and workshops for faculty and staff on the topics of: language destruction and revitalization, material culture, and restitution and return of cultural objects. For information about the workshops please contact Dr. Glowacka at dorota.glowacka@ukings.ca.
