Miles Cantelou is an artist whom I have covered on numerous occasions in these pages, most recently in terms of Miles’ return to Second Life after time away, when I wrote about his Homestead gallery space Scirocco Art Galleries (see: The art of Miles Cantelou in Second Life).
But I’m not the only one appreciative of Miles’ work. Dido Haas, the operator / curator of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery also visited Scirocco and, like me, was struck by the intensity of Miles’ studies – particularly (I hope I’m correct in assuming) those found within the Galleria Polynesia. As a result, Dido invited Miles to exhibit at Nitroglobus, and on September 1st, 2025 they opened Shamanism.
Located with The Annex at Nitroglobus, this is a further richly engaging exhibition of paint-renderings by Miles, this one on the subject of Shamanism, with a focus on the (mainly female in this case) Shaman. Produced through a process of ink line sketches scanned into a PC and subjected to photographic and post camera blending, prior to being printed and painted, before an image of the finished piece is uploaded to Second Life.
Shamanism is a spiritual phenomenon centred on the shaman, a person believed to achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experience – the Shaman, a person regarded in many cultures as intermediary between humans and the spirit realm, performing roles such as healing, divination, guiding souls, and maintaining spiritual balance within their communities. The term comes from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman, a noun formed from the verb ša- “to know”; so a shaman is literally “one who knows.”
Given this etymology, the terms apply in the strictest sense to the spiritual systems of the people of northern Asia. However, shamanism has played an important role among Australian Aborigines, some African groups, Arctic peoples and Native American Indians.
Shamanism presents fourteen richly emotive portrait studies startling in their intensity and depth. Given the headdresses apparent in all of the images, they might be taken to lean towards Native American shaman. That the majority of the images appear to be female in nature reflects the fact that shamanism has no gender exclusion.
For me, however, what is particularly striking about these portraits is the intensity of intelligence and vitality they carry. It is hard not to be drawn to the eyes of those pieces which appear to be looking directly at you and not sense the depth of knowledge and wisdom lying behind them. The result is a series of images that suggest they have not originated from within Miles’ head and sketches, but with the subjects physically allowing their likeness to be captured.
In order words, a marvellous selection of evocative art.
SLurl Details
- The Annex at Nitroglobus (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
the artist and yourself have no actual knowledge of Native American “shamanism” or the status and symbolism behind our headdresses.
doubling down is the fact most of these images look AI generated. The ignorance coupled with the fact AI destroys the environment is fully showing the artist has no appreciation for any type of shaman.
LikeLike
The technique behind how the images were produced is given in the article.
LikeLike
“paint-renderings” “Produced through a process of ink line sketches scanned into a PC and subjected to photographic and post camera blending”— So AI.
Also wild how you don’t apologize for your blatant racism to first person to point it out, but instead to the second after we had a race to see who’s comment will be approved first.
Indigenous people are still alive, we don’t all have shamans, we don’t all have spirit animals, we don’t all wear headdresses, in fact, most tribes don’t. The ones you see popularized are legitimately a handful of tribes and were stereotyped by– you guessed it– white men.
You and the artist are ignorant and this ignorance makes you racist. Delete this post and apologize and tell the artist he can apologize to indigenous people for taking thousands of nations and smashing them into this AI looking hellscape of ‘shamanism’. We’re not your mystical mythical beings. We exist and our closed practices are not yours to ‘study’ by way of making shit up.
LikeLike
Again, my apologies for any offence taken (on both counts).
LikeLike
We love that you’re collectively stereotyping a whole group of people who are, despite white history trying to erase us, still alive.
To the ‘creator’, Miles,
Most tribes did not wear headdresses and they were usually reserved for high honors and for men, shamans were not prevalent in cultures that wear feather headdresses. You took an entire nation of tribes of clans of people and combined them into one size fits all insult towards everything we still stand for. Additionally, it looks like you used AI for these, which is ironic as pointed out by Zeke Onyx, since most schools of Shamanism are rooted in naturalism and the environment while AI actively destroys it.
To Inara,
You should know better.
LikeLike
If my own commentary on the exhibition has caused offence, I can only apologise. That was not my intent.
LikeLike
mmm seems this exhibition in SL created a lot of anger, which of course was never the intention of the artist, nor of me, the curator. The artist merely made art (according to him, as also stipulated by Inara in her review, he didn’t use AI). I specifically asked him coz Nitroglobus doesn’t want to show AI generated art in SL.
However, if you feel hurt by these SL images please accept my appologies.
LikeLike
Thanks Inara for taking the time to visit the exhibition and write your excellent review. Sorry for the agressive comments which you received. This was of course NEVER the intention of Miles when he created this exhibition.
Dikke kus
dido
LikeLike
Second try is the charm since Inara wants to silence POC voices.
You clearly don’t mean the apologies you gave in the other one due to this one.
Your exhibit you curated is a racist caricature of an indigenous people who are not the ‘red man’ from Disney’s Peter Pan.
Perhaps, instead of invalidating our complaint by labelling us ‘aggressive’ you do bare minimum research on why we’re upset about being repeatedly made into a stereotype.
Like, idk, the fact that Indigenous women in the US and Canada are more likely to be sexually assaulted than any other race? Or that we go missing at a higher rate and are more rarely recovered? The fact that the US and Canadian Governments know our sisters’ bodies are in the landfills but won’t let anyone find them.
“Kill the indian and save the man” lead to children being forced into ‘boarding schools’ where many of them died in the hands of the clergy meant to ‘civilize’ them.
Instead of writing the complaints off, consider there is a valid reason for the anger. Depicting women wearing native regalia– not Shaman headdresses, sacred regalia to some of our tribes– is just another man turning indigenous women into depiction of ‘other’.
And yeah, no, it looks like AI on several of these considering one picture includes Taoism symbology out of nowhere, he may as well have included the Aztec Calendar since most of you would believe it’s the Mayan one and none of you wouldn’t know that the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans are also Indigenous– and descendants of all three nations are still alive today.
Doesn’t matter what he ‘says’, AI was absolutely involved in the process somewhere.
But yeah, we’re so aggressive… pointing out how this is a stereotyping racist attack against indigenous peoples and Inara should know better… and so should you, and so should Miles.
What the exhibit you curated has done is on the same scale as the Disney movie Pocahontas. Wanna know why? The exhibit is exploitative and far from reality of actual indigenous experience. The reality of the move is Pocahontas was named Matoaka, and she was actually 12 years old when she was kidnapped and forced into marriage with a 30 year old white man. She died in her 20s from at best a flu, at worst an STD given to her by a white man. Her bones are now a tourist destination in England. Exploitative and far from the reality. Indigenous people are still here, we are not a ‘study’, we are not some mystical beings capable of communing with spirits, we don’t all wear headdresses or do rain dances or wear buckskins. By allowing that exhibit is showing your ignorance– at worse, willful racism towards women of color– considering barely any of the women depicted look indigenous, which may actually make the whole thing worse. Google is free. There is no reason in 2025 that we should still tell people to stop fetishizing us.
Sit with that as long as you need, the artist can read it too. He’s the most culpable, but you and Inara are guilty of enabling him and you should know better. The internet is free. Regardless of where you are fro
m, you could have googled “What are stereotypes to avoid with Shamanism/Native Americans/Indigenous People”. Again, sit with that as long as you need, but you don’t get to dictate if I am being ‘aggressive’ by standing up for myself and my race against stereotyping, fetishization, exploitation, and the ironic use of generative AI on the subject of those who are most well know for being in tune with the environment.
[08:47] Zeke Viridian (zeke.onyx): And yet, nothing from your for over 20 days on your ‘artist’ using AI. We found more hallmarks, and everyone is waiting for you to remove him if you’re actually against gen AI being used. Considering you let Inara of all people write the article, we feel you’re probably not actually against AI, since she uses it as a crutch.
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:v4ceq76bdkod3ou22eid3sfd/bafkreiecsiay265ekh7a44qegnxfsik76c5weaumhuc53z7ymrofhi3m3i@jpeg
^those are all AI artifacts in just one photo, sit with that as long as you need since you can’t bring yourself to care about people of color being fetishized
LikeLike