LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - A stereotype about the North briefly became a reality through the work of an artist and a group of high school students last week.

Charles Gargan plays Xbox inside a snow cave as part of a video project that toyed with the stereotype that people in the North live in iglus. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

Charles Gargan spent a few very cold minutes pretending to play the Xbox game Call of Duty Black Ops inside a snow cave in Fort Simpson, Jan. 13. The experience was filmed by Ehren Thomas, a media artist who uses the name Bear Witness.

Thomas was in the village from Jan. 5 to 14 doing a community art project with the Open Sky Creative Society, funded through a grant from the Canada Council of the Arts. Thomas spent the week explaining the art he does and producing a project for the next exhibition at the OSC Gallery.

Thomas lives in Ottawa but is originally from Six Nations, an Iroquois reserve near Brantford, Ont.

As a media artist he works primarily with video and music.

"A lot of my work has to do with how aboriginal people are portrayed in the media," he said.

Thomas enjoys flipping the stereotypes related to First Nations.

"How can we take that and take the power way from it and use it for ourselves," is a question Thomas asks in his work.

Ideas as well as stereotypes are never far away. During a presentation by Thomas to the senior high media class at Thomas Simpson School students were asked about situations where they'd been misrepresented.

Charles Gargan had one.

While playing Xbox live Gargan told other players he's aboriginal and lives in the Northwest Territories. Some of the players asked if he lived in an iglu and were amazed he plays video games.

"They just assumed we're not up to date," Gargan said.

To play with this stereotype student in the class decided to make it a reality. On Jan. 13, despite temperatures hovering near -35 C, students put a television inside a hole they'd dug out of large mound of snow. The cold temperature prevented the television from turning on but Gargan gamely crawled inside and mimicked playing Xbox while Thomas filmed the event.

"It's different, very different," Gargan said about the project.

The video along with some of Thomas's other work will be part of the exhibition at the OSC Gallery. Thomas began making videos after being introduced to video cameras in junior high.

Thomas, who found reading and writing difficult, said making videos gave him a lot of self-confidence, an experience he wants to share with other students. Art can be a means of expression and a vehicle for self-empowerment, he said.

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