“Designing Our Futures: The Skins Workshops and Next-Gen Indigenous Digital Media Makers”

Apr 21, 2021 | Talks & Articles

Watch: “Designing Our Futures: the Skins Workshops and Next-Gen Indigenous Digital Media Makers

Kahentawaks Tiewishaw is a bear clan Kanien’kehá:ka visual artist from Kanehsatake. Her practice includes 3D modeling, illustration, game making, and sculpture. She is the Skins Workshop Associate Director with Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC) and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures (IIF). She graduated from Concordia University with a BFA specializing in Computation Arts. Kahentawaks is deeply interested in video games as a vehicle for Indigenous cultural expressions and experiences, as well as their capacity to facilitate the healing of intergenerational trauma.

Maize Longboat is Kanien’kehá:ka from Six Nations of the Grand River and was raised on the unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation near Vancouver, BC. He is a Developer Relations Manager with Unity Technologies and served as Skins Workshops Associate Director with Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC) and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures (IIF) from 2019 to 2021. He holds an MA in Media Studies from Concordia University. His MA research examined Indigenous videogame development through the production of his own game Terra Nova, an award-winning cooperative platformer with an interactive narrative.