“Our Stories about Extraction”: A Brief Interview with Elizabeth LaPensée

Abstract

In this brief interview, Jordan B. Kinder discusses Thunderbird Strike with Anishinaabe, Métis, and settler-Irish media theorist and artist Elizabeth LaPensée. Thunderbird Strike is a multiplatform, two-dimensional sidescrolling video game created by LaPensée in collaboration with Adrian Cheater and Aubrey Jane Scott (programming), NÀHGĄ a.k.a. Casey Koyczan (music and sound effects), and Kaitlin Rose Lenhard (cut scene editing). The conversation is centred on the inspiration for Thunderbird Strike, its reception, and its possibilities as a pedagogical medium.

Keywords

• extractivism
• Indigeneity
• video games
• Indigenous self-determination
• settler-colonialism
• resistance