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After much discussion, and following Ron Berti’s participation in the 2008 National Association of Service Organizations’ annual meeting, IPAA fully realized and began addressing the stark differences between itself and mainstream Canadian service organizations. IPAA’s responsibility is by no means conventional. Our membership is enormously varied: the national Indigenous arts audience comprises many arts disciplines, practices, and types of organizations, as well as individuals and collectives in both urban and rural areas. IPAA’s focus is not on the individual components, but rather on the relationships between them.
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The Road Forward by Red Diva Projects

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Indigenous cultures are based in relationships and relational structures. This distinct world view is evident in the instinctual tendencies of out artistic disciplines to overlap, focusing on the interplay between varying artistic practices and expressive mediums:  dance is story telling, media is storytelling, theatre is storytelling, and storytelling is storytelling. Indeed, our common inheritance and cultural imperative is the vitality of our storytelling.

As such, it is disingenuous for IPAA to undertake the mainstream identity of an Arts Service Organization. Understanding IPAA as a tool rather than a service better represents our cultures’ relational structure. Consider the following description by Ron Berti:
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Imagine a tool – a hammer – sitting right there in the middle of this circle. What do you expect from that hammer? You don’t expect anything, unless you pick it up. And then you can use it for all kinds of stuff. But if you expect it to ‘serve’ you, it’s not going to happen. Unless you pick up the hammer and utilize it, it’s not engaged.

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As a tool, IPAA demonstrates and encourages the participatory and discursive interaction upon and within which our Indigenous cultures operate. The tool has the following components:
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• Intellectual Component:  IPAA provides assured and organized space within and through which to both archive and disseminate ideas, as well as develop creative relationships and strategic partnerships.
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• Spiritual Component: IPAA’s operations are grounded in Indigenous ethics, values, and protocols. The Indigenous arts community is based on Indigenous world-views where spirituality is the primary tool for building relationships and sustaining mutual respect.
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• Physical Component: IPAA encourages and works to develop the Indigenous communities’ physical and spatial well-being. Our peoples’ physical health is of utmost importance. We use our bodies as mediums of representation and expression. We must develop spatial stability and strength so as to aid and further maintain our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
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• Emotional Component: IPAA acknowledges Indigenous communities’ many varying starting places, past challenges, as well as struggles both ongoing and overcome. These emotionally impact every human resource working directly or indirectly in the Indigenous arts community. We must advance opportunities and means to developing trust while respectfully acknowledging differences.
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