Rethinking Archive

with Serene Weasel Traveller

Atonan, Blackfoot quillwork

and Rethinking Archive

Atonan, the Niitsipowahssin (Blackfoot language) word for Blackfoot quillwork, Weasel Traveller’s approach to Indigenous methodology resulted in a collaborative digital arts project presented at the Crowlodge Park (June 2-3, 2025, Piikani Nation) and at the Dr. Margaret Perkins Hess Gallery at the University of Lethbridge (October 2025 - Jan 2026). Conducted collaboratively under Serene Weasel Traveller’s supervision, Rethinking Archive was a way to reconceptualize traditional, settler-colonial approaches to archival materials through the use of Blackfoot methodologies and digital materials. The project comprised documenting two performances that took place at waters of the Piikani nation and at Áísínai'pi (Writing-on-Stone provincial park) that were part of Weasel Traveller’s graduate research and conceptualizing alternatives to archival data by considering alternations such as immersive 3D virtual environments and multi-channel video. It was supported by the Niitsitapi Pod (housed at the University of Lethbridge) of the Abundant Intelligences project.

Ksisstsikomaki (Thunderwoman)

Serene Weasel Traveller

Serene Weasel Traveller is from the Piikani Nation of the Blackfoot Confederacy and she resides in Lethbridge, Alberta, where she has successfully completed her university studies and has received her Bachelor of Fine Arts – Indigenous Art Studio Degree. As a graduate of a Fashion Design and Merchandising program from the Lethbridge College, Serene is a designer of traditional and contemporary native regalia using beadwork, quillwork, textile garment construction, and jewellery. In her art practice, Serene works with beading, digital media, installation, site specific projects, found objects that are combined with traditional Indigenous art processes. Balancing her two-world realities. Blackfoot culture, where she was raised within traditional societies and protocols, and western worldviews where she conforms to the requirements of another value system. Serene integrates the opposing realities in a continuous search for balance.

  • Crowlodge Park, Piikani Nation. June 2, 2025

  • Crowlodge Park, Piikani Nation. June 2, 2025

  • Serene Weasel Traveller, Crowlodge Park, Piikani Nation. June 3, 2025.

  • Atonan (part of group exhibit). Dr. Margaret Perkins Hess Gallery. Iniskim/University of Lethbridge. Oct 2025 - Jan 2026

  • Atonan (part of group exhibit). Dr. Margaret Perkins Hess Gallery. Iniskim/University of Lethbridge. Oct 2025 - Jan 2026

  • Serene Weasel Traveller and Nayan Velaskar. Dr. Margaret Perkins Hess Gallery. October 17th, 2025

  • Serene Weasel Traveller (Process Exhbition, part of Hess Gallery Outreach). Dr. Margaret Perkins Hess Gallery. October 17th, 2025

  • Serene Weasel Traveller (Process Exhbition, part of Hess Gallery Outreach). Dr. Margaret Perkins Hess Gallery. October 17th, 2025

The video-documentation of the performances were recorded, directed and edited by me, (Nayan Velaskar).

Monique Weasel Traveller participated in the documentation as a co-videographer.

The warrior song was sung by Trevan Weasel Traveller.

The first performance took place at the waters of the Piikani Nation, April 2025.

The second performance was documented at Áísínai'pi (Writing-on-Stone provincial park), May 2025.

Virtual Remediations

This project attempted to foreground mediated ways of documenting Blackfoot objects—in this case, alternate ways to document quillwork shirts housed at Pitt Rivers Museum. Our objective was to propose virtual environments to document the intent behind an offering: representing Weasel Traveller’s (and our) collective understanding of how something that is produced from the land, must be returned back to it. Alongside Weasel Traveller and Kaiya Healy (Niitsitapi Pod Researcher), we organized multiple photogrammetry workshops to produce 3D digital objects of Weasel Traveller’s quillwork-on-paper offerings and of fullbody scans of Weasel Traveller, in her own handmade ribbon dresses.

  • 3D Photoscan of the (brother) offerring left at Áísínai'pi (Writing-on-Stone)

  • 3D Photoscan of the (sister) offerring disintegrated in the waters of Piikani Nation

  • Shirt with (brother) insignia held by Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.

  • Shirt with (sister) insignia held by Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.

  • 3D Photoscan of Serene Weasel Traveller for virtual performance remediating the performance at Piikani

  • 3D Photoscan of Serene Weasel Traveller for virtual performance remediating the performance at Áísínai'pi (Writing-on-Stone)

The virtual environments were made by me (Nayan Velaskar) using Unity Game Engine and Blender.

Kaiya Healy. provided significant visual effects assistance by producing the disintegration effects.

Interactive 3D virtual environment documenting Weasel Traveller’s performance at Áísínai'pi (Writing-on-Stone).

Interactive 3D virtual environment documenting Weasel Traveller’s performance at Piikani Nation

  • 3D virtual environment documenting performance at Áísínai'pi (Writing-on-Stone)

  • 3D virtual environment documenting performance at Áísínai'pi (Writing-on-Stone)

  • 3D virtual environment documenting performance at Piikani Nation

  • 3D virtual environment documenting performance at Piikani Nation

  • 3D virtual environment documenting performance at Piikani Nation

  • Interactive 3D virtual environment documenting performance presented at Crowlodge Park, Piikani Nation