Percy Lezard

Individual

Roles

Artist, Educator, Writer

Biography

According to my sqilxw ways, personal introductions come before any other words. 

Wai, iskwis (my name is) Percy Lezard. I am outma sqilxw, and my relations are the Lezards in sn’pinkton, the Krugers from Arrow Lakes and the Baptistes from Chopka. As part of my sqilxw cultural practice, I want to begin my introduction with an acknowledgement of my positionality and responsibilities, in an era across the Academic Industrial complex of race shifters and pretendians it’s important to identify "who I am, who are my people and who claims me."  

I am the adult-child of Indian Residential School Survivors, Valerie Lezard and Moses Baptiste and day school survivor, Pierre Kruger.  

My maternal grandparents were Indian Residential School Survivors are twi pl̓wic̓ia Elizabeth Lezard (Manual) and naʔł twi stiʔulaʕxʷ Ernest Lezard.  

My paternal grandparents were Indian Residential School Survivors are twiʔ Katherine Baptiste (Alec) and naʔł twiʔ George Baptiste.  

We are all status First Nations members under the Indian Act of the Penticton Indian Band and are members under our nations custom membership code. As sqilxw people, we have lived on the territory known as the Okanagan Valley since the beginning of people on those lands. My traditional territories stretch from Mica Creek, just north of modern-day Revelstoke, [unceded] British Columbia (BC) and east to Kootenay Lake, south to Washington state and west into the Nicola Valley. 

I continue to live as an invited guest on the lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples for the past twenty plus years and am responsible to upholding the Dish with One Spoon treaty in my nation-to-nation relations with the caretakers of these territories. 

I received my collaborative Ph.D. from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education /University of Toronto (OISE/UT). I received a collaborative Masters from University of Toronto.

I am very grateful to be here in the Laurier Brantford Community where I am being supported to thrive and excel as a critical Indigenous Scholar, prior to joining this scholarly community in 2021, I held an appointment with the Faculty of Social Work at University of Manitoba.

Wilfred Laurier University, 2023

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive (Artist)

Related programs

2 Spirited (Artist)
Queer City: The Queer Series and The Two Spirit Series (Artist)

Related Archive, Library & Publication Objects

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