LONG ISLAND CITY, NY.- This spring, MoMA PS1 presents a retrospective of artist, activist, and musician Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki, b. 1932), one of Canada’s most renowned filmmakers. The exhibition spans six decades of her multidisciplinary practice, bringing together a selection of films, sculptures, and sound, as well as rarely seen ephemera that sheds light on their production. Tracing her lasting contributions to social change, The Children Have to Hear Another Story brings Obomsawin’s innovative model of Indigenous cinema into focus.
This exhibition is accompanied by
Alanis Obomsawin: Lifework, a monograph edited by Richard William Hill and Hila Peleg. The comprehensive book includes essays, anecdotes, conversations, and an interview with the artist, as well as her writings, etchings, film stills, photographs, and archival materials. It is distributed by Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
Arranged by decade, the exhibition features over ten of Obomsawin’s films, including the documentary films created during her tenure at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), for which she is best known. Her first film, Christmas at Moose Factory (1971), depicts the afflictions of residential schools through animated children’s drawings, and it is presented alongside the original works on paper. Incident at Restigouche (1984) documents police raids on Native salmon fishing in the Mi'kmaq reserve, bringing social protest and environmental activism to the fore. Additionally, the exhibition features prized documentaries like Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993), which charts the Mohawk resistance against the expansion of a golf course into sacred burial lands. Seen together, Obsomsawin’s films illustrate her evolving and ongoing commitment to amplifying Native voices across generations.
In Quebec, Obomsawin spent her early years on the Odanak reserve, whose songs and stories she keeps alive through her work. The exhibition includes audio and photographs from the origins of creative practice as a singer, writer, and storyteller in the 1960s. It also highlights her performances presented in universities, residential schools, prisons, museums, and folk festivals across North America and Europe to aid humanitarian causes. In the 1980s, she released the album Bush Lady, featuring traditional Abenaki songs and original compositions. The retrospective includes her many engravings and prints, which frequently deploy the motif of the horse, whose strength and compassion she revisits in her more recent film When All the Leaves Are Gone (2010).
"The exhibition is a survey of my life's work. I have often said a picture may say a thousand words, but a voice is specific; it says precisely what is intended, with little room for interpretation. I hope this exhibition will communicate my voice, and through my voice visitors will learn about our people,” says Obomsawin.
A member of the Abenaki Nation, Alanis Obomsawin is an activist filmmaker and producer. In 2023, she was the first female filmmaker to be awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal. Obomsawin was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize in 2020. She was named a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2019 and has been a Grande Officière of the Ordre national du Québec since 2016. She is also the recipient of over fifteen honorary degrees from universities and colleges across Canada and the US. In 1965, Obomsawin was also named Outstanding Canadian of the Year by Maclean’s magazine for spearheading the construction of the municipal pool in Odanak, which still operates today.
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