Turtle Island Research Cluster Broadens the SCVN Community with Partnership Development Grant
Building on the success of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project, Drs. Shannon Leddy and Biz Nijdam have been successful in applying for additional funding to include genocide survivors from Greenland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Joined by Drs. Tim Frandy (Sámi, UBC) and Asta Mønsted (Kalaallit, formerly at UC Berkeley), and Frederik Byrn Køhlert (Edinburgh Napier University), this extension of the original Partnership Grant has received additional funding for three years through SSHRC’s Partnership Development Grant competition.
Background photo by Visit Greenland.
The Partnership Development Grant, Visual Storytelling in the Indigenous North, is an Indigenous-led project that connects storytellers, artists, and scholars from across the Circumpolar North to share stories of Indigenous survivance through comics, documentary film, podcasts, and digital media. Spanning Canada, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), Sápmi (Norway, Sweden, Finland), and Denmark, the project brings together First Nation, Métis, Inuit, and Sámi knowledge holders to co-create graphic narratives and arts-based public programming that highlight resilience, resurgence, renewal, revival, and resistance, and that amplify Indigenous voices.
The orientation for this work is rooted in Indigenous methodologies and a commitment to two-eyed seeing, focused on relationship-building, memory work, and land-based learning. Hosted by the UBC Comics Studies and Pop Culture Clusters in collaboration with the UBC Circumpolar Indigenous Storytelling Research Cluster and the Centre for Migration Studies, they are collaborating with museums, cultural institutions, educators, and artists to produce multilingual, multimodal storytelling that centre truth and reconciliation across geopolitical lines. Through their work they hope to continue and expand important dialogues about the ongoing cultural and social impacts of colonization and state sponsored efforts at genocide that have long been underexposed in the global North. Furthermore, they want to share stories that look to the future, particularly in the light of climate change, food security, and the need for sovereignty.
The team is excited to begin the first leg of this new research journey in March of 2026, when they will travel with their research team and graphic artists to the Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse, Yukon. At this important event, which draws athletes and fans from across the circumpolar North, they hope to build on existing partnerships, deepen friendships, and meet plenty of new people, ideas, and experiences along the way. With a plan to produce some exciting new graphic novels and documentary films, they look forward to sharing their work in 2027 and 2028, and to the possibility of expanding their work into the future as well.
Learn more about the Turtle Island Research Cluster here.