Aylan Couchie is a Nishnaabekwe interdisciplinary artist and writer hailing from Nipissing First Nation. She is a NSCAD University alumna and received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design at OCAD University where she focused her thesis on reconciliation and its relationship to monument and public art. She’s currently in her third year of study at Queen’s University where she’s working on her PhD in the Cultural Studies program. Her written, gallery and public works explore the intersections of colonial/First Nations histories of place, culture and Indigenous erasure as well as issues of (mis)representation and cultural appropriation. She’s been the recipient of several awards including an “Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture” award through the International Sculpture Centre and a Premier’s Award through Ontario Colleges. She served as the Chair of Native Women in the Arts until 2020 and lives and works from her home community of Nipissing First Nation in Northern Ontario.
Twitter: @AylanX
Facebook: AylanCouchie
Vimeo: AylanX
Youtube: AylanX
Recent News:
- Article: “The ‘Site-Specific’ art and politics of Aylan Couchie”, Anishinabek News, February 2018
- Podcast: Talking Art with Aylan Couchie, The Roundtable Podcast with Wayne K. Spear, January 13, 2018
- Social Media Writer-In-Residence: #callresponse, Blackwood Gallery, December 15, 2017 – January 27, 2018
- Article: Anti-seal hunt rhetoric ignores facts and suppresses Indigenous culture, Written by Ian Mosby & Aylan Couchie, The Globe and Mail, October 2017
- Article: Let’s Start With What Cultural Appropriation is Not, Written by Aylan Couchie, Global News, May 2017
- Article: Returning Our Voices to Us: The recent debate about cultural appropriation shows that true reconciliation is not about saying sorry, it’s about listening to Indigenous Voices, Written by Aylan Couchie, IRPP Policy Options, May 2017
- Exhibition: Wake The Town and Tell the People, Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL
Social Media
Twitter: @aylanx
Facebook: AylanCouchie
Vimeo: AylanX
LinkedIn: aylan
Aylan Couchie 
I don’t have a Twitter or Instagram account and there’s no e-mail listed for you, so I hope you don’t mind my reaching you here.
I just wanted to thank you for putting up the side-by-side pictures of Norval Morriseau’s work and Amanda PL’s. I’d seen paintings by both, but not of the same subjects the way those two are, so I didn’t understand why painting in the same style as Mr. Morriseau or using the same colour palette would upset someone as long as the subjects weren’t the same or a traditional/teaching story or an element of one hadn’t been used inappropriately. Having seen the two paintings side by side, I’m don’t see how anyone could see them and think ‘inspired by’ was even remotely accurate. If something inspires you, you make something that may reflect the original in some way, but is very clearly something of your own. That’s not what happened with those two paintings: it looks as if Amanda PL just plain copied Mr. Morriseau’s. Making a copy is fine if you clearly identify it as a copy because then the person who made the original gets the credit for creating it, but it’s not fine when you copy something so closely people can barely tell the difference and then try to pass it off as yours.
Those pictures together were worth a thousand words. Once again, thank you for posting them.