Presented by the Centre for Cinema Studies and Cinema Thinks the World, the Critical Thinkers Series features research talks by notable and emerging scholars in Cinema and Media Studies. Join us for the next talk in the Spring 2026 Series by Dr. Karrmen Crey, Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.
Producing Sovereignty: Indigenous Cinema and Media and Institutional Contexts in Canada
Indigenous cinema and media in Canada experienced a boom starting in the early 1990s, resulting in a production field that has grown exponentially ever since. Indigenous artists and activists successfully targeted the Canadian state and national media-producing institutions to support Indigenous self-representation in media production. In order to create their work, Indigenous artists navigated complex institutional ecosystems shaped by institutional identities, administrative infrastructures, and production practices. I argue that these negotiations inform on-screen content, making institutional analysis a valuable framework for interpreting the representational strategies of Indigenous media texts.
For this talk, I will focus on institutional analysis of Indigenous television at the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network (APTN), the first Indigenous national broadcaster in the world. The cultural and political context of the 1990s gave rise to APTN’s institutional identity as a “cultural bridge” between Indigenous peoples and the rest of Canada, which has shaped genres as diverse as reality television. The logic of the cultural bridge is enacted in the reality TV series Indians + Aliens (2013-2014) in order to explore both scientific and Indigenous understandings of unexplained aerial phenomena, ultimately illustrating profound connections between seemingly disparate epistemologies.
About Karrmen Crey
Karrmen Crey is Sto:lo and a member of the Cheam Band. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, where her research examines the rise of Indigenous media in Canada, and the institutions of media culture that Indigenous media practitioners have historically engaged and navigated to produce their work. Her current research examines Indigenous film festivals and Indigenous digital media, particularly Indigenous virtual reality and augmented reality.
This event is free and there is no need to RSVP.