creative forces

Blog 23… July 2013

Over a year ago, in Blog # 9 on native writers, I opened with the quote…”Every man is like every other man, like no other man and like some other men”  I like this quote and it popped into my thoughts in Ottawa recently, looking forward to seeing Sakahan, the current show at the National Gallery.

As we walked towards the Gallery, my first glimpse was of  Ilulaq, a gigantic iceberg sitting beside the Great Hall. Created by Greenland artist Inuk Sillis Hoegh, it’s in fact a canvas cover hiding the scaffolding in place while the windows are being repaired. It'll gradually melt away as the work on the windows is completed.... 

how cool is that!

This witty and creative approach emerged again and again in the five hours I spent with pieces by 80 indigenous artists from 16 countries on 6 continents, exploring contemporary issues -  some unique to the area where they originated, some particular to the region and some universal to both indigenous peoples and settlers (that’s the rest of us). Most of the art has been created in the past 10 years with a unique aesthetic brought to concerns about the environment, the relationship of the past to the present and the ongoing effects of colonialism and imperialism.

Sakahan means “the lighting of a fire” in the language of the Algonquin peoples, hosts of the show as the original inhabitants of Turtle Island where the Gallery is located. Draped along the top of the magnificent long, windowed colonnade leading to the galleries is Earth and Sky, a 50 meter long banner representing a collaborative drawing by Inuit Shuvinai Ashoona and Dutch born Canadian John Noestheden. 

YumaTaru of Taiwan tells us “We weave our own dreams by hand and eventually achieve our own gaga (integrity, responsibility, courage and self identity) in the modern time.” The figures in her piece  represent a parade into the world of spirits.

When Canadian Brian Jungen couldn’t learn beading to render designs of the ancient flowers that are being destroyed near his home by oil and gas exploration, he drilled their patterns in gas cans to make his point.

The message on Australian Richard Bell’s mural tells of the need to be both modern and indigenous to survive in today’s world.

The images continue to touch and amaze me with their freshness, their messages sometimes subtle, sometimes angry, always moving with their juxtaposition of familiar material placed in totally original ways. The pages of Canada's Indian Act (last amended in 1985!} are beaded by 230 workers in white on red, a series of pieces conceived and designed by Natalie Myre: Kent Monkman, irreverent as always, takes us into a bordello teepee;  from Hawaii, Maika’i Tubbs sculpts plastic cutlery into a climbing wood rose vine, an invasive plant that takes over while we’re not looking. Theresa Margolis used traditional Guatemalan embroidery on a cloth stained with the blood of a murdered woman to tell the story of many women in her country.

I found myself lying on my back looking at 6 circular windows showing videos of human figures floating in water from the river that flooded their town.  By Maori artist Brett Graham from New Zealand, it could have been Alberta…or Toronto last week!

And a whole programme of short films…one of my favourites was Scratch an Aussie, a satirical poke at racial discrimination, complete with abo jokes.

One of the last pieces I saw was Fringe, an iconic image used on much of the Sakahan publicity material. BC artist Rebecca Belmore’s transparency in a light box seems to use scars to record both past damage and future healing.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of this hugely important show, one for us to be proud of…if a visit to Ottawa is possible for you before September 2, run, don’t walk to see it.  And if you miss it this time, watch for the next one in 5 years time…Canada steps into the ring of quinquenniale shows with Documenta in Kassel, Germany and the British Art Show.