Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 36: Blanketing the City in Arts and Culture — with Kamala Todd
Speakers: Paige Smith, Kamala Todd, Am Johal, Glen Coulthard
Paige Smith 0:05
Hello, listeners. I'm Paige Smith with SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Below the Radar. We would first like to acknowledge that Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. On this episode, our host Am Johal sits down with Kamala Todd, the Indigenous arts and culture planner for the City of Vancouver. Kumala describes herself in the following way:
Kamala Todd 0:31
Tansi, My name is Kamala Todd, and I was lucky enough to be born and raised in these beautiful Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands. I myself am not of these lands, my own ancestors are Metis and Cree, from the prairies, and on my mom's side. And on my dad's side, I'm a second-generation German. And so I just, you know, happy that I was born and raised here, and my children were born here as well, and doing our best to give back and practice our teachings of reciprocity to this beautiful place, and the people who have taken care of it for thousands of years.
Paige Smith 1:14
In this episode Kumala discusses her contributions to the 2020 through 2029 Cultural Plan for the City of Vancouver. This plan is titled Culture Shift, Blanketing the City in Arts and Culture, which has an emphasis on Indigenization, decolonization, and inclusion. With this plan in place, Kamala shares what steps the city has taken, and what more needs to be done to combat the ever-present consequences of colonialism.
Am Johal 1:45
Thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar. We're really excited to have Kamala Todd with us. Welcome, Kamala.
Kamala Todd 1:52
Thank you.
Am Johal 1:53
So, you've been in this newly-created position as the first Indigenous arts and culture planner at the City of Vancouver just a little bit over a year now, wondering if you can talk a little bit about coming into the City of Vancouver planning department with really, you know, a really big role to play, and particularly within the arts and cultural part of the city.
Kamala Todd 2:15
In the past, I worked with the city as Aboriginal Social Planner, and in various ways work with the city as a freelancer, and have moved away to Gibsons in the past six years, so it was kind of more focused on raising my kids in homeschooling, and working as a filmmaker. But I've always been still really focused on Vancouver, which is the city that I was born in and where I grew up, and where I raised my kids, for the first few years anyway. And, you know, I can't seem to leave the stories and the issues and my home. So even though I live a 40 minute ferry ride away, I've managed to maintain relationships with the city either through park board or different roles that I've played over the years in trying to address the ongoing colonialism of my city. And I heard that this position was coming up: Indigenous arts and culture planner. I was like, oh, man, that's exactly what I want to do. I wish they had the position when I was at the city, you know, 15 years ago? Would it be worth the commute? Can I do it? Because from Gibsons it's pretty much a two hour commute if you're on transit. And so I applied and thought, well, you know, just see what happens. My kids are getting older now maybe I could, you know, actually get a full-time job, but I was still not so sure. And then they offered me the position, which was incredible, because people from the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations were involved in the hiring, they were involved in writing the job description, and in the hiring process. So, to have that support from folks from the nations was pretty incredible. And so it's a big, you know, conversation with my family about, can we do this, you know, can I really go back to work full time when my youngest son was just in grade seven. But I had to, because it fulfills so much of what I love, but also my sense of responsibility to continue the work that I started and to do what I can to bring the teachings that I've been given by people from these lands around how to support their own visibility and voice on their lands. So I took the job and feel incredibly privileged to be in this position. I guess the thing that kind of sums it all up for me is one of my first jobs. One of my first tasks was to work on repatriation of Haida belongings from the Museum of Vancouver, because in theory, the city owns the collections there at the MOV. And so to be able to work with the Haida community and In the local nations on organizing events that were celebrating the leaving, returning of these belongings, and also, working on protocols between the nations was incredible to sit in that room and have the Haida representative, say, you know, "We want to thank you for holding our belongings all these years, even though you had nothing to do with them being taken from us, we want to thank you for caring for them." And it was a real healing of that relationship between the Haida nation and the local nations. And then yeah, from that moment, I was just, like, I can't believe I get to do this work. And since then, there's been a whole host of areas such as the culture plan, working on the languages working, you know, with the idea of decolonizing the city, I mean, how incredible is that? So there's a whole host of projects that we're working on, but overall, I get to sort of be in a department with incredible people and cultural services, and share my perspectives, help connect them with Indigenous people, and really help expand and change the way that things have been done before.
Am Johal 6:14
And, you know, when you think about city planning departments and processes, you know, historically they have been so connected with colonialism, like the form of the profession itself as planning, it's a kind of linear rationalism and connected up, you know, very clearly, with processes of displacement. And you're coming into the city right now, where the arts and culture plan came in, and it's called Blanketing The City. And it does have a really strong language around Indigenization, decolonization and also equity, diversity inclusion, and those pieces that are very new for an arts and culture plan at the city. Wondering if you can share a little bit about your work on that.
Kamala Todd 7:00
I came into the work on the culture plan, which used to be called The Creative City Strategy, and now officially is Culture Shift: Blanketing The City In Arts and Culture. I came into it about a year and a halfway through as it was, had been underway for a while. And so Mater Brown had had already created an amazing process of really trying to engage with diverse groups, and people who, you know, probably aren't normally heard from, within, quote, "engagement." So that was exciting to see, that that language was already there, and to see that, since I had left the city, those conversations around visibility on the land had expanded. Because basically, when I was at social planning, the first time as Aboriginal Social Planner, even though it was, you know, social planning work, which generally means being at a community and working with social service providers, and so on, I did that work through the lens as a filmmaker, and you know, through story. And so I knew then from my own experience, as an urban Indigenous person, and as someone who has been advocating for the rights of Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people for a long time, I knew how important visibility was, to shift that colonial narrative to try to address all the erasure that we see around us in the urban landscape itself, in the naming, and in the way planning happens. So to be able to come into a project that was already grappling with some of those themes was incredible. We worked with Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh directly in a way that was trying to support their self-determination. So it wasn't like, "Okay, we want your input in this way." We said, you know, "We want to support your community engagement, and how would you like to do that?" And so, I took direction from each community around how best to support their own engagement around how Vancouver should look at arts and culture on their lands. So that was cool. That was, you know, Musqueam have their own process, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh have their own process as well. And I feel like all the conversations that have been had over the past few years, all the things that I've been told, have really been woven into the plan around visibility and voice. So not just purely, you know, to be seen on the land, but also to have a say, in their lands, in terms of the urban Indigenous community also, you know, the need for more supports the need for more recognition and inclusion. All of those things are written into the plan. You know, what reconciliation and decolonization are one of the key guiding principles, and they are also one of the key directions, and so we have a huge list of goals and actions that basically came from what people have been saying for a really long time. Of course, it would be nice if we had a lot of money to enact all of those things. So, we'll see what kind of financial support we have. But the fact that we have that now to drive a lot of the work is really exciting. I think one of the things that I'm getting immediate, that I'm the most excited about, getting going right away is having liaison positions within cultural services. So, a person from each of the nations to work with us directly, and to work with our nation directly. So that it's not just me, you know, doing my best to, to help create those relationships. But we're it's people from the communities themselves, in those positions.
Am Johal 10:43
And when it came to Council, it had overwhelming support, and almost unanimous support at Council. And if there was any concern expressed, at all, it's that, is there enough money in the plan itself. So I think that was also maybe an invitation to come back to council once plans start to unfold, as well. So we'll see where that goes. But I know certainly, in the arts and cultural communities, a lot of excitement around the plan, I think it speaks a lot to the form of consultation that was done over a long period of time and who has engaged with it, but I want to talk a little bit about, you know, you've returned back to working inside of a planning department, which has a certain form and a history, and you used to work inside of the planning department before. And you notice a shift from when you worked there before to working there now and how have these bureaucracies shifted? And this is particularly inside the City of Vancouver, but I imagine these types of conversations are happening in different ways in other municipalities and suburban municipalities where they may even be underdeveloped, and just wondering what some of your thoughts and observations are in terms of coming back to work inside of the City Planning Department?
Kamala Todd 11:16
Yeah, well, the two departments, so I was in Social Planning, and now Cultural Services. So they are arts cultural, social services departments, so they're a little bit less hardcore than planning. You know, I, my background is urban cultural geography, I didn't go to planning schools, I don't consider myself a capital-P planner, in the sense of having you know, that, the language around approvals, and zonings, and all those things. So, I've been lucky to work in what I consider the heart of the city in social policy and cultural services. But absolutely, the shift, when I first started working at the city, there was no Aboriginal-specific position. This was in the early 2000s. But my boss at the time, Jeff Brooks, recognized that there was a need for better relationships. And so he brought me on to do my best to, you know, build relationships with the, quote, "Aboriginal community." I think from the city's perspective, then, that meant urban Indigenous people. And in particular, you know, urban Indigenous people in the Downtown Eastside, so much more around supports that way. And so I did my best with that, but again, I did it mostly through storytelling. But I also felt like the city should have a relationship with the people whose lands we're on. And at that point, there was none. There was no recognition of who the local people are, there was no real discussion of that, and so I really tried to help people understand that we are obligated to have a relationship with the local people, to acknowledge that we're on their lands and to start to make amends for the role that Vancouver had. And you know, the dispossession and all the different impacts from colonization.
Am Johal 13:23
That wasn't very long ago that you worked here, where that was normally, like, roughly, when were you...?
Kamala Todd 13:47
Like, early 2000s.
Am Johal 13:48
Yeah.
Kamala Todd 13:48
Yeah. And everybody would say, "Oh, well, that's a treaty issue, we don't work with on-reserve people, they're federal." So to start, so the way that I approached that was through story and to say, "Okay, well, what you need to understand is that, that narrative that Vancouver's a young city that was built by white men, you know, a few generations ago is not true. And in fact, these are some of the stories to help you shift your understanding. And these are some of the people who you should talk to, to start to shift your understanding." And so. that gradually started to happen because of the storytelling and the film projects that we were doing. I actually partnered with the Film Board. So it was the City of Vancouver and the National Film Board, and we did oral history videos with youth and elders. And so, I feel like that helped to at least begin some level of awareness amongst people that, yes, working with urban Indigenous communities really important and we are obligated to support people so that they can enjoy the same quality of life as, you know, everybody and have the same living standards as everybody. And, we're also obligated to build relationships with the people whose lands we're on, and to look at what that means and what is the history of that? So we did that. And then I left in 2006, but I continued to work with the city on the dialogues project. And I think the Dialogues Project was another shift in that way towards people getting to know, "Okay, so it's Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh. And, okay, these are some of the histories, this is what people have contributed to building the city. This is some of the impacts." You know, people didn't know that smallpox happened here, like in a really devastating way. They didn't know that there were residential schools here, you know, pass systems, and curfews, and all of the various race-based laws that were... happened here. So to start to bring about that awareness and how people start to actually contend with some of that history... And then a couple years later, there was the--well, I was also part of the first nation-to-nation, relationships and meetings with the nations, I got to facilitate the first government-to-government dialogue with the Council at the time and Tsleil-Waututh, Chief and Council. And that was a huge privilege to witness that, as the first, you know, just--and a lot of it had to do with the mayor and council at the time, making that a priority. And then a couple years later was the land acknowledgement, which I see is a real turning point in that recognition. That Vancouver is on the unceded territories of Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. So once that started happening, it's like okay, now that can help to shift the way the city is. So coming into cultural services now, that's already kind of part of peoples' awareness and language. And they recognize that they need to work within that fact that it's unceded territories, but the reality is that us Indigenous planners, there's only a few of us, but there are some now, whereas before, it was just little old me, and then for a while it was just Ginger Gosnell-Myers, and her position, you know, to recognize that the we, again, are obligated to work within that fact that these are unceded lands? And what does that look like? So I do still feel like in some areas of the city, there's a lot more work to do, to make that be reflected in how we do things, to reflect and to maybe even question, not only just like, "Oh, okay, well, we need better relationships with the nations," but actually, like, maybe we need to rethink how we do planning on these lands at all, maybe we need to rethink how we look at land, and real estate, and all of those things. So, I feel like people are more and more open to that. And so, I wouldn't be able to be in this position if it was an excruciatingly colonial institution. And right now, it's, it feels like it's completely opening up. And so that's how I can manage in that setting.
Am Johal 14:07
When Ginger Gosnell-Myers was in the position as the Aboriginal Relations Manager at the city, I'd been rent evicted, so I would be taking the Seabus, and Ginger lives over there. So I'd run into her on the Seabus. And I'd be like, "How's it going? Ginger, you know, how's the work going?" And she would describe what she was working on, the kind of immensity of the project, and I was like "Ginger, you sound like you need an entire department. Like, that sounds like a lot of work for one person." And last week, we had a discussion with a number of planners that Ginger was also involved with, but I'm wondering when you speak with your colleagues at the park board, other municipalities who are working in similar roles, what are the kinds of conversations you're you're having? And kind of, what are the obstacles and things, like what's working and what's not working in this context right now, because people are sort of running into these kind of the bureaucratic inertia is that get in the way of the work?
Kamala Todd 18:57
Definitely a big part is the burden, like the burden of feeling like, if we don't point it out, it's gonna go ahead. So if we don't say, "Hey, excuse me, you know, you've written this neighborhood plan, without any acknowledgement of the people whose lands, that neighborhood is in," you know, if we don't say, hey, you know, why are you going with the usual consultant who has no cultural competency? You know, so there's a lot of kind of having to bear witness, there's a lot of having to point things out, being sent documents three days before they're due and having to review it and go, "Oh, okay, there's nothing in here, or this needs rework or, you know, we're not comfortable with this going out as is." So there's a lot of kind of feeling like, yeah, the weight of a colonial system, where, you know, things don't necessarily change unless we say something, unless we're somehow looped into the conversation. And by we, I mean, right now, there's the measure of Indigenous relations, there's an Indigenous engagement specialist, but that position is currently vacant. There's an Indigenous social planner, who works mostly with urban Indigenous people. There's a park board reconciliation planner. And there's also a reconciliation planner in engineering, but that position is also currently vacant. So there's really only four of us right now, who are in Indigenous-specific kind of roles. So we really try to support each other as best as we can. So sometimes, yeah, there's a very overwhelming feeling of it's a machine, it's a business as usual thing, a system where people are used to doing things a certain way. And people are used to being seen as the experts. So they are the planners. They are, you know, the decision makers, and they're just used to that privilege. And so, you know, part of what I'm trying to do is help people recognize that there's other knowledge and governance systems and legal obligations here that we need to start thinking about. And, yes, there's things that need to get done. But sometimes being in cultural services, I'm in this beautiful bubble, where we get to support people, to talk about these things, through their own creative process. But sometimes when I go to planning meetings, it definitely feels like there's a lot of work to be done, and it can sometimes be overwhelming. So we do try to support each other. I think the big change that is happening in that will make things feel more hopeful is other staff, other non-Indigenous staff taking this on themselves, and taking on the learning, taking on the, you know, the rethinking of how planning happens, rethinking the whole system itself. So the fact that we're now embarking on a city-wide plan holds that possibility for actually looking at the history of Vancouver, what we want Vancouver to be and how far we're willing to go in actually, you know, questioning the history of how this place was established, and how reflective it is of the laws and governance systems and cultural knowledge and protocols of the people who've lived here for thousands of years. So, it is exciting in that way. But I think if we didn't support each other, and if we didn't have other colleagues who are really taking on their responsibilities, it would be pretty easy to burn out. But I still feel very energized and hopeful, because of this culture shift, really, it really is a shift.
Am Johal 22:38
In fact, the document itself around the cultural plan, Culture Shift, that there's a template and a model that can be learned from and brought into other departments, perhaps. So you've recently joined SFU's Urban Studies Department as an adjunct professor and teaching and wondering if you can talk a little bit about, that must be really interesting. I mean, particularly for students to be able to hear from your perspective within a discipline like urban studies.
Kamala Todd 23:08
Mhmm. Yeah, I'm really grateful for that. Part of it came from being asked by a few grad students to be their external on their committee, and the privilege of that, of being able to hear what kinds of cool research people are doing and offer my perspectives. I haven't started teaching yet, I think the idea was to just that recognition that the planning tradition and urban governance, in general needs to be decolonized, and I'm doing my best within that. So I think, you know, there's some recognition of the importance of those perspectives. So the first course that I plan to teach is an existing course around arts and culture in urban planning. So, it's a perfect opportunity to talk about the new culture plan, and my own work as a filmmaker, and just ways, different ways of looking at at planning through arts and culture. And then, I'm hoping to develop a course on decolonizing planning or even just looking at you know, how the tradition of planning overall, in the North American context anyways, has has basically perpetuated colonialism and perpetuated the erasure of, of the first people, and their governance, and legal systems and throughout North America. So that course, I hope to work with local people on since it will be talking about their lands and, you know, try to either co-create a course together or at least have lots of involvement and perspectives from people from Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh in that, but that's a longer-term goal. And we did receive funding to look at a sort of decolonizing approach even to the course itself: decolonizing research and decolonizing instruction. So that was exciting, but that's down the road. And then yeah, there's always that fine line, too, of sharing my experiences at the city. I'm not there to trash the city by any means, I'm just there to kind of show my own observations of the sort of entrenched colonialism within it, and how that can be addressed. And in particular, through arts and culture, I really feel that's an important way through.
Am Johal 25:20
And before you came to work in the in the city, and now teaching at SFU, you of course come from being an artist yourself. And if you can talk a little bit about your film and art practice.
Kamala Todd 25:33
Sure, just like I say, I'm not a capital-P Planner, I don't consider myself a capital-F Filmmaker, in the same way that my mom Loretta Todd is a filmmake. You know, she went to film school, she really has that deep aesthetic, and brilliance around film itself, and new media in general. But I, but I started to realize through my own background in urban geography, and in seeing the colonialism written onto the land all around me, I began to realize how important story is to, to challenging colonial narratives, and to making space and visibility for our perspectives as Indigenous people. I realized that yeah, film is a really important way to do this. You know, it's an, it's our, one of our forms of documenting oral histories, sharing oral histories, and making sure that important perspectives are recorded and remembered. And so, I've basically been working in recording and documenting Indigenous stories of Vancouver in particular, with that idea that, you know, people have no idea that there's thousands of years of history here. You know, there's such a lack of awareness, at least when I first started, and by sharing, you know, stories about the languages, stories about plant knowledge, stories about the traditional laws that are here, and the cultural landscapes that were here, before colonization, you know, I just feel like the more that people see that and are welcomed into that, the more people will start to, you know, move away from these very oppressive colonial ideas about what this place is. So I've been mostly focusing on Vancouver stories from Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh perspectives. And then my own perspective as an urban Indigenous person trying to connect to culture on someone else's lands, because my own Cree and Metis ancestors are elsewhere, and I didn't grow up in any home territory, so grappling with that. But I think for me, the the most exciting stuff lately has been being asked to make videos about Indigenous law. And I've learned so much around how our laws are in the stories, and we just have to remember our stories, and then work together in the interpretation of those stories. And it's law, and it's there, and it needs to be reinstated. And people living on those lands need to start learning what those laws are. And the nations themselves are beginning to restore their laws and it excites me, because I feel like that's the the best hope for pushing back against capitalism and colonialism around the endless resource extraction and the endless sort of takeover of lands and making decisions for somebody else's lands. Indigenous laws are a way of saying "No, this is how you do things here. This is how we treat our animal relatives. This is how we treat water. This is how we connect to the past and future. And you need to respect that." And so I feel like it's a way for Indigenous people to start being able to stop some of this constant onslaught. You know, people have been trying that the whole time. It's not like people haven't been trying to stop the constant onslaught of extraction and pollution, and theft and deforestation and all of that people have been pushing back against that since the beginning. However, I feel like this increasing recognition of Indigenous laws, that they exist and that they are an affirmation of rights and title, that that will offer the way to say no, go away, pipeline go away, you know, polluter like this is the law of this place, and you have to respect that. So I was, that's when film to me is just so exciting that I can learn to that and then share that with others as well.
Am Johal 29:46
Of course, there must be so many challenges that you have at the City of Vancouver given ongoing planning processes, but what what in your work do you feel really hopeful about?
Kamala Todd 29:56
I feel really hopeful that myself and other Indigenous planners can go to meetings with planners and say, Okay, you need to do some consultation here, while some of that money or all of that money needs to go to the people of these lands to have a voice in those decisions. So, there's more and more receptiveness to that approach of "Yeah, okay, sure, you might want a consultant to do a review of that building and the heritage of that building." But some of that money needs to go to the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh to talk about the significance of that place to them, in a much older cultural heritage of that place. So, we're doing that in many different ways. But for myself, personally, I'm very excited about the cultural heritage side of things. Normally, heritage is part of the planning department. But it really is culture. So we're, through Culture Shift, we were advocating for a more shared approach to heritage between cultural services and heritage, and it's happening, and heritage people themselves, their team are also open and excited about this shift. So we're looking at things like... so when making decisions about a neighborhood and telling that story. And during the planning, the voice of the first peoples needs to be really central. And so, we're looking at supporting the local nations to do their own cultural mapping, whether that's through the city-wide plan, whether that's through a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, whatever that looks like, to support them to tell their own stories of the lands, so that all of us know what they want us to know about their lands, not, you know, nothing that's private, or sacred or not to be shared, but things that will help people treat the land better, make decisions that are more inclusive and reflective. Yeah, I find that really exciting. Especially now as Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, through their their MST DC Development Corporation, are now you know, they own more land than any other developer like fee simple land in that sense. So that's exciting, too, and how they can transform this place and help the rest of us remember where we are, and what we need to consider in shaping our homes here, you know, this is my home, my children were born here, this will always be my home, but it's not my territory. And so what does that mean, and how do I connect with this place? And how do I carry my responsibilities, reciprocity, and showing gratitude, and making sure that the people of these lands and their ancestors and their children and grandchildren have the respect and voice and self-determination that they deserve? Can we get to that point, you know, it's always been seen as kind of mutually exclusive? Well, you can't recognize people in a city, because it's a city, and it's occupied, and it's urbanized. And it's like, no, you can. And that's one thing I learned from the Tsleil-Waututh people that, you know, all the nations will retain rights and title to their lands forever. That's not something that can be taken away. And so what does that look like with collaborating and co-managing urban environments? It's anything's possible.
Am Johal 33:24
Kamala, thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar.
Kamala Todd 33:28
Thank you for having me.
Paige Smith 33:32
Thank you again to Kamala Todd for joining us on this week's episode. We have linked more information about the Culture Shift plan in the description below. Join us next week with our special live recording with Glen Coulthard. Glen is an assistant professor in the First Nations Studies Program and the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. He's also the author of behind Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting The Colonial Politics of Recognition.
Glen Coulthard 34:01
We don't know what to do when when we're confronted with if gentrification is related to colonialism in this non-metaphorical way. Then what would anti-gentrification and decolonization look like?
Paige Smith 34:16
That's all for this week, folks. Join us next time on Below the Radar.