Monetized, but Agential, Bodies in Ghost Worlds<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sad Boi extraordinaire, reproductive justice fighter and unabashed tenderqueer\u200a\u2014\u200aFallon Simard is a rare voice within Indigenous art. Picking up on the quick wit and viral culture of Generations Y and Z, Simard\u2019s memes light-heartedly consider the complex effects of colonialism on the Indigenous body as if to say, yes, we are hurting and our embodiments can be painful but we are still here\u200a\u2014\u200aalive, laughing, coping, and loving, despite it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simard\u2019s work should not be relegated to the realm of web-art because of its presumed digital inspirations. Their memes disrupt the assumed disconnection between digital worlds and real life by asking, aren\u2019t Indigenous bodies commodities just like web-based productions: monetized, objectified, and their parts deconstructed for settler consumption<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settler colonialism and resource extraction result in what Achille Mbembe has called \u201cdeath-worlds,\u201d which Indigenous bodies resist through articulating practices of haunting, ghosting, and gendered resentment. Simard argues that Indigenous bodies are animated corpses, ghosts even, extinct, dying and of the past\u200a\u2014\u200aincapable of enacting and embodying the modernity of settlers, and thereby encroached upon by settler colonialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Simard\u2019s depictions of Indigenous ghostings resist representations of the \u201cimaginary Indian\u201d and its logics of disappearance\u200a\u2014\u200aa literal death imaginary ascribed to Indigenous bodies\u200a\u2014\u200athrough the making of memes that portray Indigenous hauntings, or continuance, as a means of resistance. One meme displays a blur of colours representative of dissociative numbness and a sense of confusion, with a text that reads, \u201cmy ptsd hurts.\u201d Simard confronts the viewer with a destigmatized representation of mental health issues that can become associated with Indigenous continuance. Another meme displays McDonald\u2019s fast food, accompanied by the statement \u201cjust a little disassociated\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aa visualization of coping mechanisms that are often deemed unhealthy or harmful, but actually help in the survival of colonial trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simard\u2019s work considers the harms of colonialism\u200a\u2014\u200aand resource extraction in particular\u200a\u2014\u200aas played out on Indigenous bodies. Though Indigenous bodies are corpses, they too yearn to love themselves back to life. Indigenous bodies are ghosts haunting settler communities, subverting the death imaginary ascribed on them through concerted acts of resistance and refusal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n