Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2017 - 2018 från C Magazine

to the archive is part visual score, part road map. It describes the formation of my most recent work, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, which reinterprets 20th-century field recordings of the Wolastoqiyik. The journey of this visual piece begins in Tobique (Neqotkuk) First Nation, on the banks of the Wolastoq river. The shapes, words and colours describe the journey that follows. Drawing inspiration from John Cage’s Aria (1958), shapes and colours replace common black note notation. It concludes on the steps of the Canadian Museum of History, where this archive is housed. Sing along. Return the knowledge to the people. to the archive Neqotkuk Where the two rivers meet Eliyay (as I go) Through Past Eliyay (as I go) Other side of Kepek Elakomkwik (Algonquin) These are our relatives Essuwonike (let’s trade) Kani-lintuwakonol…

Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning/Bush University http://dechinta.ca This is a site/ation of Denendeh lands on BUSH gallery minds. Bush University reaches us, at BUSH gallery, as a twin spirit. Together these two entities reimagine the ancient tools created for our use by ancestors. This reimagining enables. This reimagining shapes our shared futures. We look to the land to support our practice. A space of possibility and risk. This bringing our current experience of learning from western institutions to/back on the land. Practicing this art on the land. We honour our original makers/thinkers. The history of innovation, often referred to as survival, continues to transform our realities. This keeps us connected to future ancestors. It is something beyond colonial and decolonial.…

“WITNESS: I want the Commission to tell us the one that sold it, and they should remember that the Indians have a law among themselves just as the whitemen have – and no one is allowed to take another man’s land without first finding out who the land belongs to.” — Kwakwaka’wakw Testimony to the McKenna-McBride Royal Commission (June 1914) In June 1914, the head chiefs of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nations gathered in Alert Bay in order to testify to the McKenna-McBride Royal Commission. This commission was the culmination of decades of unresolved questions around Indigenous Land jurisdiction and the encroachment and imposition of colonial land needs and desires. It was a process that sought to dispossess Indigenous Nations of their lands and to impose severe limitations through the establishment of…

These writings are reflections on growing up in the Kwakwaka’wakw community of Alert Bay, where I also learned to weave. After we moved away, I returned each summer with my family for the commercial salmon fishing season. One year (2007) I brought around a typewriter with me everywhere I went, including on the fishing boat and into the forest. When I look back on the writing from this time I value it so much. Because, I feel like at that time I was the kind of person that the weaving wanted to give itself to, or trusted itself with. I feel like the weaving took root in my heart as a worthy place to flourish in, and lately I find myself wondering if I’m still that person. It offered so…

In the winter of 2016, Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill, Chandra Melting Tallow, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Tania Willard, Amy Kazymerchyk and Aaron Leon came together at BUSH gallery to make a film about trapping rabbits. Gabrielle, a previous resident at BUSH and a long-time collaborator of Tania’s, had proposed the project the year before, after speaking with Jeneen about her experiences hunting and trapping in Gwich’in territory. Chandra, a sound artist who heads the musical project Mourning Coup, was invited to score the film, as well as to come trapping. Amy, a curator who has made films, was asked to be the Director of Photography and Aaron, a photographer who had also previously worked with BUSH gallery, joined the group as a camera person. In this interview, four of the artists involved…

BUSH gallery recently spoke with artist and curator Anique Jordan about her recently curated off-site programming for the Art Gallery of Ontario’s exhibition Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood, and ways in which this programming resonated with ideas we are activating at BUSH gallery. The Public – Land and Body (West) was a video art exhibition installed inside the Black Creek Community Farm farmhouse in North York. Black Creek Community Farm focuses on improving food security, reducing social isolation and improving employment and education outcomes. The Public used performance, video installation and discussion to explore themes of land and body across two community sites: The Public – Land and Body (West) at Black Creek Community Farm and The Public – Land and Body (East) at Y+ contemporary in Scarborough. At Black…

I am my ancestors’ memory I am a mirage of islands drifting on the Arctic ice I am the sound of caribou hoof rattles I am the hollow shaft of caribou hair keeping you warm I am the caribou cow skin stretched across your drum I am the old-timer’s song I am the red blood crystallized in snow I am wafer-thin communion sheets of ice, melting in your mouth I am carved in glacier ice I am ice in the breakup, celebrating movement I am hanging onto polar bear’s fur as we race across the Beaufort Sea I am the balloon in the beluga whale’s stomach that holds your berries I am the opalescent scales glittering on your hands I am the oil slick on your ulu I am the…

On October 13, 2017, Mark Igloliorte and I met to talk about art, communities, art spaces and land. I asked him to share with me a place in his community where he experienced art. The following is a brief transcription of what we discussed. — Peter Morin PETER MORIN: Tell me what you wanted to write about; tell me about what this place is. MARK IGLOLIORTE: I’m talking about the Labrador Interpretation Centre. There is a website with a few images. It’s https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/ plan-and-book/attractions/11303055. On the website, you can see the space. There is a kayak in the middle. Actually, this is really good because I can use it to jog my memory about the Centre for our conversation. PM: You were saying you worked there? MI: I worked there…

This past summer’s LandMarks2017/Repères2017, a nationwide public art program held in 20 national parks and historic sites across Canada as part of reflections on Canada 150, provides a rare opportunity to think about how contemporary art might engage with rural communities and wild places. Including projects by 12 artists, along with corresponding curricula at 16 universities across the country, LandMarks2017/Repères2017 sought to engage a broad public in exploring the meaning and use of Canada’s national parks and historic sites. While we might rely upon an image of these sites as wild places, separate from human activity, and often perceive their surrounding communities as being untouched by the contemporary, this is often far from the case. The creation of the parks system, and the concept of wilderness itself, as Kwantlen writer…

A recent gathering conducted by Primary Colours on Lekwungen Territory, Victoria, BC, gathered various artists; Indigenous artists, Black artists, artists of colour and artists of settler heritage to discuss shared histories of colonialism, race and convention in the arts. This gathering acted as a platform of investigation into exclusionary power dynamics, exploring the constructs of inclusivity, building collective memory and offering tools to those attending, who represented all generations of cultural leaders from diverse and marginalized communities locally, nationally and internationally. Explorations of privilege, abuse, control and ways to circumvent those hazards within institutionalized models served as tools handed from one generation of cultural leaders to the next. Primary Colours is a major Canada-wide initiative taking form as a multidisciplinary series of actions. The actions, spanning from 2016 to 2018,…

The teepee has been an ever-present feature of BUSH gallery; but it does not stand as the gallery. Erected two years ago, the structure has weathered, presented and housed many of the actions of BUSH gallery. At the BUSH gallery Writers Union retreat in August 2017, the structure was dismantled; the canvas too brittle to maintain its architectural function after having ripped apart in a windstorm earlier in the summer. After travelling to BUSH gallery in Secwepemc territory from Vancouver, Tarah Hogue joined Tania Willard in dismantling the teepee, dragging its wooden poles to be stacked for future purposes. Tarah recounted a re-linking of body to land in the reverberations between body, land and wooden pole, activated through their preparatory performance of sorts and marking the beginning of the retreat.…