Blog # 66…February 2017
After the Women’s Marches recently, as many of us were
rejoicing in our feeling of a common sensibility and wondering how to proceed, I
heard Jesse Wente say on the CBC, “Now is the moment to begin the hard work and
that start lies in art.” Bingo, I
thought. Did you know btw, that in most indigenous languages, there’s
no word for artist? Creativity is inherent in daily life.
From the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the inquiry into the Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls to the many other soul destroying things going on here and elsewhere, there’s sadness and outrage aplenty. But small initiatives are starting to appear as people are trying to come together and make sense of it all and they’re using various art forms to do it
From the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the inquiry into the Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls to the many other soul destroying things going on here and elsewhere, there’s sadness and outrage aplenty. But small initiatives are starting to appear as people are trying to come together and make sense of it all and they’re using various art forms to do it
A group of Ryerson students have assembled articles from a murdered woman’s life as an installation to give substance and dignity to her memory. A bit like a piece of music composed for the 10th anniversary of the Montreal massacre that chanted the names of the women murdered... changing the focus from the vicious act to the lives that have been ended.
In Prince George, Kym Gouchie wrote Cleansing The Highway of Tears while taking part in a healing walk
in the summer of 2016. Across the country in Toronto, music instructor
Angela Rudden and her students at Dixon
Hall composed an orchestral score to accompany the song. As well as the musical
experience, the young students got a glimpse of a world far from theirs both in
distance and in complexity.
The anguish of the "Sixties Scoop"is obvious as Mounties restrain mothers trying to keep their children from being taken by the priests and nuns.
I was particularly moved byMonkman talking about the urban experience of native people... the city continues a sense of imprisonment - they're not able to see the horizon, smell the trees or feel the wind. The imprisonment started with the reserves and continues with the disproportionate number of native people in jails, in some Canadian prisons as high as 60% of prisoners are native.
Kent Monkman, with his sly humour, offers some respite from the crushing weight of violence and poverty both for his fellow natives and for us, We'll remember his images long after the candles on our birthday cake have gone out.
And, our Iraqi refugee family is still resting safely in Jordan, awaiting the movement of the machinery that will bring them here.
On a larger scale, Kent Monkman kicks off Canada’s 150th
birthday celebrations with Shame and Predjudice running until March 4 at the U of T Art
Gallery, then embarking on a cross country tour.
Here’s what Monkman has to say about the show, “It‘s a
pretty deliberate effort to have people reflect on the last 150 years in terms
of the indigenous experience…the signing of the treaties, the beginning of the
reserve system, the legacy of incarceration, residential schools, sickness, the
removal of children in the 60’s, missing and murdered women. There’s a lot of material in the show that
tries to encompass and stitch together this narrative.”
 |
| The Daddies |
What the pieces show is a wicked sense of irony, referencing classical painters of the period, sometimes incorporating his alter ego, Chief Eagle Testickle often seen naked wearing only Louboutin pumps.
 |
| The Scream |
The anguish of the "Sixties Scoop"is obvious as Mounties restrain mothers trying to keep their children from being taken by the priests and nuns.
I was particularly moved byMonkman talking about the urban experience of native people... the city continues a sense of imprisonment - they're not able to see the horizon, smell the trees or feel the wind. The imprisonment started with the reserves and continues with the disproportionate number of native people in jails, in some Canadian prisons as high as 60% of prisoners are native.
Kent Monkman, with his sly humour, offers some respite from the crushing weight of violence and poverty both for his fellow natives and for us, We'll remember his images long after the candles on our birthday cake have gone out.
And, our Iraqi refugee family is still resting safely in Jordan, awaiting the movement of the machinery that will bring them here.
