Indigenous Intellectual Property: or Stick(er)ing to the Question

November 5th, I got to spend a couple of hours with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC), who held a "Book Club" event, using our book "Indigenous Intellectual Property" as the point of conversation. They had a great set up. The four of us co-authors (Val, me, Deb, and Richard) were allowed 2 minutes each (what?! two minutes only?!) to give a brief summary of what we were hoping to do in each chapter. After that, they split us up into 4 breakout rooms (16 minutes each time), so we could circulate through the smaller groups in a more intimate way, chatting about the kinds of questions and thoughts folks had. I certainly came away from it with another whole host of questions. Amongst them, I started thinking about the need we have in this particular time to avoid providing "ANSWERS", and instead create space and time for more extended conversations with eachother about the "QUESTIONS" that come up, and the ordinary/mundane spaces in our life that might help us see how many "PATHWAYS FOR THINKING" are around us.

After the event was over, I found myself looking at the piles of stickers and sticker books that I have on the desk around me: decorative, functional, tracking, art.... I like stickers, and like attaching them to things.

[here is the point that, in person, I would start singing Lionel Ritchie's song "Stuck on You" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVqR2PwX428. Or maybe the earlier Elvis Presley hit? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NIc3b_jcIo.]

Could I use the stickers to think about some of the Intellectual Property questions that had come up in the day's conversation?  Why not?  I wondered about a focus just on the stickers with images on them ... the ART stickers. One might start with the cluster of 'named' stickers: little gatherings of stickers by Picasso, da Vinci, Monet and Kahlo.

One might then start with the Frida Kahlo stickers. In the world of art stickerbooks, it is more difficult to find women artists, for all the reasons one might imagine. So, lets just celebrate that someone printed these (thanks Dover Publications). Inside cover tells us a bit more about Freida as an artist (ie tortured, married, communist, jewish mexican indian). There are any number of questions one might ask here about biography, identity, relationality, etc.

There are others, related to copyright or IP. The interior cover gives us some info. This is a "New work" (take a look at the bibliographical note).  The copyright is held by Dover over this little book of stickers, NOT over the content of the book. And thus, the ISBN points us to 'the work' (the sticker book). And then what do we have as far as content? 16 stickers. Each one repeats Kahlo's last name, and gives us the title of the work. I don't get a date for the work, nor a more extended conversation, but name and title are clearly reproduced with each, so i do not have to remember a title after I peel the sticker off.

The back cover of "the work" gives us a bit more storytelling to contextualize the paintings. In addition to a bit about HER (on the inside cover), that back cover tells us a bit more about the art she produced, and how to experience it! This is work, we are told, is full of "anguish and passion"; it "smoulders!" We are also told (in case we didn't know) that she was once eclipsed by her more famous partner (is this part of what helps us engage with her work?). Or we can see that in purchasing the sticker book we are helping her achieve more widespread recognition? This then might be one of the purposes of the book itself (as a work of stickers): to engage with art, and see something of the works of Frida Kahlo. Her paintings, we are told, might add to a personal collection, or 'add instant interest' to letters or other flat surfaces. I do love that (thinking about ways to add interest to flat surfaces!)

The sticker book also contains some warnings: "not intended for children under 4." It is not clear to me if the warning (which is about INTENTION) is made to protect children (who might chew on or choke on the stickers?). Given that that book tells us that the paper and ink are acid free, I presume that a consumer of fine books such as these could probably eat the pages (literally) without digestive damage. And it seems to me that if it is about a choking hazard, people over 4 may be equally susceptible to getting a snack stuck in their windpipe on the way down. Or maybe the concern is with the content of the reproductions? Maybe there is just too much anquish and passion (and painterly nudity) in these reproductions, and children under 4 should be looking at different images? Hard to say. But certainly, as readers, we are told about the publisher's intentions regarding the use of these stickers.

I turned next to a different sticker book, one that did not foreground any specific artist, but instead turned to a collection of artists, or a style of art?   This was "Inuit Art from Cape Dorset".

Some other more slippery questions occured to me here.  First thing to note is that we have moved away from a single artist (Freida, Picasso, Monet, etc), to a style identified by a People: Inuit from Cape Dorset. It is also known as Kingait (or 'High Mountains').

The backcover again tells us a bit about the purpose of the book. This time it appears to target kids (a publication series explicitly named 'pomegranate kids'. 

We have three main take aways (in tems of purpose): 1. learn and craft, 2. self expression (personalize your crafts or journals), and 3. enjoyment.

What, then, is there to learn? The inside cover starts the learning process, delivering a paragraph sized bite of info. We do get a map of north america with a dot to geolocate us. Note, there are no 'political borders' here, either to separate US/Canada, nor to indicate the relative size of Nunavut. I did wonder about the work done by phrases like "way up in Northern Canada", "little hamlet", "tradition", "harsh environment", "dependent on animals" (which tend to lean not precisely to terra nullius, but do paint a certain kind of picture). 

 Also, I found myself wondering why there was a decision to use the phrase "people known as Inuit" that than just saying "home to Inuit."  Is that just a function of targetting young people?  There is also not much history here.  The paragraph suggests that in the 1960s the Inuit simply starting making art to share? [there is a larger story about dispossession that explains how and why people turned to art as a way to survive the damage produced to their economy, but that story is not part of this sticker book for kids].  And maybe that is not the best story to share in this context in any event (one might ask whether a celebration of the art and images is best situated alongside some of the damaging forces of colonial pressure, or rather along the vector of strengths, which have always been around adaptability, innovation and resilience?

But.... this is, afterall, just a brief moment of education in a book of stickers, so one might cut a bit of slack (while still generating some interesting questions). The intro does point us towards the beautiful prints that have been prized around the world!

One can then flip through the book to look at the images/stickers that are offered.

When I start thinking more about this book, it was clear that there were some distinct differences from, for example, the Freida Kahlo book.  Primarily, there are no descriptive 'labels'. What we have a these interesting images of animals, but none have names, and none are attributed to any particular artists. So, are these just images produced by 'people known as Inuit', or are there actually specific artists involved? And in any case, how is a sticker lover to know what artists in particular interest them?

Were specific artists being invisibilized in this process?  I flipped to the last page, thinking about this problem.   The book DOES give some attribution. Here we have a list of 17 artists (both dead and alive). Better.  But as readers, we have no mechanism (unless we are already 'in the know') to express an opinion about specific prints or specific artists. 

And there is a further qualifier, which left me with another question. The text tells us that the stickers are derived from prints by a specifically listed number of Inuit artists. As a reader (sticker user?), it is not it clear what it is meant by "derived from". Does that mean just clipping an image out of the context of a larger print? Or taking inspiration from? Or altering? Or working in the style of?  

Here, I found myself thinking of artist Michael Snow suing the Eaton's Centre when they tied christmas ribbons around the necks of the geese in his sculptural installation there. https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/virtual-museum/snow-v-eaton-centre-ltd-1982-70-cpr-2d-105. So I just don't really know what the story is in this case.  But I remained curious about the ways that these stickers aren't identified in any ways that would help me know as a reader 1. which images were produced by which artists, or 2. the conditions under which those artists are or are not compensated for the 'reproduction' (derivation).  

We are also told that the book is designed by Carey Hall. My assumption is that this is a way of acknowledging the work of the graphic designer, who would have done the design structure.   But they will not have been the person who decided what went into the book itself, or they would hold the copyright.    

The 'publication' info at the bottom of the page gives us a bit more info. There is a copyright notation to "Dorset Fine Arts." So in both the case of the Frieda Kahlo book, and this one, the copyright is held by a corporate person.   I do find it interesting to think about copyright as held by a corporate entity, rather than by an individual. I wondered more about this company (presuming that they had taken care of those questions in the production of the book).  

With this in mind, I went to look up Dorset Fine Arts, to get addtional context.  Their webpage tell us that they were set up in Toronto in 1978, and are "the wholesale marketing division of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative." Fabulous!   I love the history of the co-op form and its power in the North.  And immediately, I found myself feeling just a bit less worried about the decisions made in the design of the book.  So, here is a bit more of the story told by Dorset Fine Arts about themselves:

The Co-operative is in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut and is unique among the Arctic Co-operatives for its focus on the arts and artists of the community. Dorset Fine Arts was established to develop and serve the market for Inuit fine art produced by the artist members of the Co-operative. 

OK.  Interesting!  With this in mind, I returned to my questions about the title (which points to an area, rather than focusing on the work of a particular artist), as well as the decision to cluster a group of images without attributing to a specific artist.   Rather than seeing this as a way of erasing artists, I could see how this book might do the work of curating an appetite for Inuit fine art from the co-op, without leaning into  a culture of "auteurs" or a "star" focus.   In this context, it seems a bit more like the artists are both sharing their names, but celebrating their work in a way that holds up the whole community.  In this context, I feel less worried that the book undermines principles of 'authorship', and can see this decision as one that is supporting the idea of a collective of images and ways of seeing.  

So once again, it seems that the decision to derive stickers from prints in this way enables Dorset Fine Arts to create the sticker book as "a work" with a different focus and goal, which is not simply to introduce someone to a particular artist, but rather to a community of artists, which then might lead to the decision to support the community by coming to appreciate the style in this broader way, which might lead to more economic support the the community of artists, or to valueing Inuit art more generally.  While I initially wondered about/worried about this sticker book (that is, had the artists been consulted? was their work recognized? were they compensated in the reproduction of these images), my worries were allayed in thinking more about the artists as involved in those questions through their participation as members of the cooperative (which is was not visible to me until i looked behind the corporate form of the copyright holder).  Again, those are presumptions.   But I like being able to at least look at those sticker books to start asking questions about the images, their reproduction and transformation into different forms. 

So, at the end of the day, what to say?   I love stickers.  I love being reminded that there are any number of questions that ordinary life opens up for thinking about the production and reproduction of images.