Blog 26…October 2013
I’m very happy to see the rising confidence and exciting
visual presence of indigenous artists from here and around the world. Earlier this year there was Beat Nation at the Power Plant, in
the summer I discovered Sakahan at
the National Gallery in Ottawa (Blog
23) and here in Toronto, Imaginative, the festival of indigenous film has just finished at the Lightbox. Now, the Ryerson Image Gallery in Toronto has Ghost Dance, activism, resistance and art, created mostly by Aboriginal artists, running until December 15.
The Image Gallery has a fascinating history…opened last year
on the Ryerson campus, the collection originated in Berlin
in the 1930’s with the Black Star photo agency.
Politics in Germany
prompted a move to New York where
the agency became the principal source of news photos for magazines and
newspapers for the next 70 years, accumulating an archival history of most of
the 20th century. As other
media took over, the Black Star collection moved around for several years,
finally being donated to Ryerson, who have created a superb venue to store and
exhibit the images. The Gallery also serves as a showplace for Ryerson students
and others, providing exposure for a variety of still and moving images.
Sonny Assu is posed beside posters created from Department
of Indian Affairs material encouraging “absorption as the happiest future”. Although this is moving, it’s his piece
called Leila’s Desk that touched my heart most deeply. Sonny’s grandmother was
nervous and excited to be the first native person to attend her local high
school. Many years later, as an old woman, she still felt the shame of her arrival the first
morning to find a bar of Lifebuoy soap sitting on her desk. Sonny has built a
replica of the kind of small pine desk used at the time and the offending bar
of soap that shouted “dirty Indian”. My
breath caught in my throat when I saw this piece, and in case you get to see
the show, which I hope you will, I’m not putting up an image of it so the
impact will be as powerful for you as it was for me.
It’s great to see these shows and get to know our fellow
Canadians through their art, I hope though that we’re on the way to recognizing and appreciating indigenous art more widely in mainstream galleries. We should be grateful to artists who connect us with the world around us and
within us from their own unique viewpoint, whether they’re women, gay, Chinese,
white guys…or Aboriginal.
And, a final thought, the community of native people, artists and others deserve a loud shout out from the rest of us for the heavy lifting they're doing in preserving our home, the earth.
