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Kent Monkman’s alter ego is challenging colonial history

The Cree artist Kent Monkman has a striking alter ego: Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, a time-travelling, shapeshifting, gender-fluid agent of imagination who appears in many of his works. With her flowing dark hair, glamorous outfits and red-soled Louboutin heels, she stands out in Monkman’s work alongside his depiction of settlers and colonists. The contrast is intentionally destabilizing, both funny and deadly serious: in his 2016 tableau “The Daddies,” she brazenly sits naked atop a Hudson’s Bay blanket, holding court among the fathers of Confederation, disrupting the colonial narrative of North American discovery. In 2019, the Met museum in New York commissioned two monumental works featuring Miss Chief. It was her—and Monkman’s—breakout moment on the world stage.

Miss Chief is the star of Being Legendary, Monkman’s ambitious new Royal Ontario Museum exhibition in Toronto. The show features 35 original pieces showcasing Miss Chief’s earthly travels from the beginning of time until now. “I thought about her as a legendary being that fits into Cree cosmology, but her specific purpose is to be our witness,” Monkman says.

See Monkman’s works and continue reading

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Also in this issue:

• Changpeng Zhao: The Canadian crypto king who lost billions 
• My dad’s secret criminal past: A memoir 
• How physicians assistants could help fix health care in Canada
• Hot Spot: Why everybody is flocking to the Eastern Townships

Check it out