Jeff Thomas

JEFF THOMAS

Jeff Thomas

Jeff Thomas (b. 1956, Buffalo, New York) is an urban-based Iroquois, self-taught photo-based story teller, writer, pubic speaker, and curator, living in Ottawa, Ontario, and has works in major collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Jeff's most recent solo shows were Birdman Rising, University of Southern Illinois, A Necessary Fiction: My Conversation with Edward S. Curtis & George Hunter, Art Gallery of Mississauga, The Dancing Grounds, Wanuskewin Heritage Park (Saskatoon), and Resistance Is NOT Futile, Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto). Thomas has also been in many group shows, including The Family Camera, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989, Art Gallery of Ontario, Land/Slide: Possible Futures, Markham, Ontario, SAKAHÀN, National Gallery of Canada, UNMASKING: Arthur Renwick, Adrian Stimson, Jeff Thomas, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France. In 1998, he was awarded the Canada Council's Duke and Duchess of York Award in Photography, Royal Canadian Academy of Art (2008), The Karsh Award in photography (2008), the REVAL Indigenous Art Award (2017), and the Canada Council Governor General Award in the Visual and Digital Arts (2019). Please visit his website for more information.

Banner Image:

Strong Hearts, Kevin Haywahe, Traditional Powwow Dancer, 1990

Earth Day 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth

Jeff Thomas, Broken Treaties, 1613 -, digital - pigment print on archival paper, 2020

Travelogue: I visited the Caledonia protest site after things had settled down and documented the signage. As I drove to the reserve I was followed by a black SUV so I drove around the SUV stopped following me, before going to my destination.

Key to images (left to right)

Jeff Thomas, Caledonia, Ontario, 2007, “OH CANADA,” Argyle Street S. Occupation Site, GPS Coordinates: 43.05713, -79.96581 Protest site with Six Nations of the Grand River asserting ownership via the Haldimand land deed (stolen land in 1841), The original Haldimand Tract that the Iroquois were given stretched from Kitchener, Ontario to Lake Erie, six miles on each side of the Grand River. Only 5 percent of the original 950,000 acres remain.

Jeff Thomas, Albany, New York, Dutch Man & Indigenous Man (Mohawk?) Monument, 2004, Tri-Centennial Park, Broadway & Montgomery Street, facing the Hudson River, GPS Coordinates: 42.65421, -73.74746

In 1613 The Dutch and Haudenosaunee signed the first treaty on Turtle, known as the Two Row, and commemorated as the Two Row Wampum Belt.

Jeff Thomas, Chief Red Robe, Grand River looking north from Lake Erie, Port Maitland, 2008, GPS Coordinates: 42.85705, -79.5791

"Corn Husk, Drying White Corn, Six Nations of the Grand River," 1990

"Bear Portraits, FBI," 1998, Ottawa, Ontario, Samuel de Champlain monument

"Bear Portraits," 1984, Culture Revolution

"Strong Hearts, Amos Keye, First Powwow Portrait," 1982

"Where the Rivers Meet," 2021, A Birds Eye View, Medicine Crow, with Custer Battlefield Memorial, 2020

"Indians on Tour, Chief Red Robe," North American Indian, Ottawa, Ontario, 2005

"Indians on Tour, Chief Red Robe," Champlain Lookout, Gatineau Park, 2007

EDITORIAL TEAM

ONLINE FOUNDER
Tariq Hassan Gordon

COFOUNDERS & CURATORIAL ADVISORS
Jamelie Hassan & Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Marnie Fleming, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou and Dan Smoke,  and Lucas Stenning

COORDINATING EDITORS
Tariq Hassan Gordon & Olivia Mossuto

WEB DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA
Tariq Hassan Gordon, Ira Kazi, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi, JoAnna Weil

VIRTUAL TOUR
Andreas Buchwaldt

PRINT PUBLICATIONS
Blessy Augustine, Shelley Kopp, Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Andreas Buchwaldt, Blessy Augustine, Anahí González, Ira Kazi, Shelley Kopp, Ashar Mobeen, Niloufar Salimi,  Jenna Rose Sands, JoAnna Weil & Michelle Wilson.

OUR STORY

Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. Other former members of the board were: Debrann Eastabrook, Henry Eastabrook, Sharron Forrest, Wyn Geleynse, Janice Gurney, Jean Hay (1929 - 2008), Doug Mitchell, Kim Moodie, Gerard Pas, Peter Rist, Wanda Sawicki, Jean Spence and Jennie White. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website.

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program.

Thank you to our partners

E M B A S S Y C U L T U R A L H O U S E . C A

London, Ontario is on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.