Jeff Thomas
Former Bank of Montreal, Gatineau, Quebec, 2007
Jeff Thomas, Former Bank of Montreal, Gatineau, Quebec, c. 2007, now Howard's Pawn Shop
I was living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, during the mid to late 1990s when I made an important discovery. At the time, I documented and Toronto Dominion Bank being demolished. I noticed that the bank crest included an Indian figure on the left side. Nearby, the site was a former Bank of Montreal that had been converted into an Indigenous center. Above the doorway was a crest that had two Indian figures. From that point, I began seeking out other banks that had crests. To my amazement, I started finding active banks and former banks that had retained the BMO crest in Montreal and all over Ontario. When I travelled across Canada, I found a BMO bank crest in almost every city I visited. An example is during my visit to London, I was taken out for dinner after my talk at the university, when I caught sight of a BMO crest. I have returned to London several times since then, and I noted the crest remained with each new iteration of the business in the former bank. Unfortunately, during my last visit, I noted the crest was no longer visible. The BMO crest series includes over twenty sites and is now part of my larger body of work titled Scouting for Indians. I had said that whatever city I visited, I could rely on finding two Indians.
Jeff Thomas, Bank of Montreal, Kitchener, Ontario, c. 2007
Jeff Thomas, Former Bank of Montreal, London, Ontario, c. 2004
Jeff Thomas is an acclaimed Indigenous photographer, curator, and cultural theorist who identifies as Urban Iroquois (Haudenosaunee). Born in Buffalo, New York and is from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, Thomas now lives and works in Ottawa. His artistic career began in earnest after a life-changing car accident in 1979, when he turned to photography to challenge colonial stereotypes of Indigenous peoples. Through his groundbreaking work, he uses photography as a tool for replacing Indigenous histories and reshaping Indigenous representation. Thomas has received numerous awards, including the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2019.
