Alex Janvier

As part of UBCO's Summer Indigenous Intensive, Dene Suline and Saulteaux artist Alex Janvier was invited to use the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies' FINA Gallery as a studio. In recognition, Alex invited interested participants to visit him.

When I stepped into the gallery yesterday Alex was just pushing off from his work table after cleaning his brushes. Before him hung twelve recently completed paintings tacked side-by-side to the wall. "Sit down," he said pointing to a chair. I introduced myself and from there, as the song says, "I fell into a dream."

Forty-five minutes passed, and when I left, I knew something. I knew I knew less, not more, than I knew before, and that I needed to let go of more, and how difficult it is to go about it.

Bush Gallery

UBC Okanagan's Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies' Summer Indigenous Intensive residency ended on Sunday with a visit to Bush Gallery, but I was in Vancouver by then, having left Thursday morning.

I have made a couple of visits to Bush Gallery in the past year, both of them special, but unfortunately had too much on my plate to participate in a visit with the residency.

For those interested in reading M:ST Artistic Director Tomas Jonsson's recent interview with gallery principal Tania Willard, click here.

Khot-La-Cha

South of Marine Drive in North Vancouver, between Lloyd Avenue and Lower Capilano Road, is a low flat area of unceded Squamish territory comprised of residential and commercial buildings. Griffin Art Projects is located there, as is North Shore RV Centre, where I find things for my trailer.

Recently I found myself wandering down the area's narrow easements and lane ways, marvelling at the 1950s and 60s era rancher houses, not to mention some amazing trees, gardens and public green spaces, when I came upon a DoNV construction crew.

I asked, "What is this area called?" and one of them, the younger one who looked like an engineer, said, "Norgate," while another, an older guy whose hands looked like they had lived most of their lives outdoors, said, "Little Hawaii!"

Around the corner, closer to Marine Drive, was a strange, vaguely alpine house that said on it Khot-La-Cha Art Gallery & Gift Shop, and I went inside.

"All modern equipment and materials/ are allowed to create an ovoid"*

Shadow-casted ovoids at Platypus House.

* Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun quoted in Colour Zone: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Petra Watson, ed. (Winnipeg: Plug In Editions, 2003), p. 8

Jessie Fosty

On Wednesday evening, after our dinner at Platypus House, Jessie gave a performance that had her braiding Tannis's hair while sharing stories of her family, particularly her mother, who has passed.

After braiding Tannis's hair, Jessie asked if others would like to have their hair braided, and David stepped forward.

Later, while I was doing the dishes, Jessie poked me in the shoulder and said, "I have a present for you," and I was presented with a postcard-sized drawing of something she said I talked a lot about on our drives to and from the supermarket.

Thanks again, Jessie!

Vernon, Sunday, August 7, 2016 11 a.m.

Today is a travel day.

Last Panel

Today was the final panel of the residency. Julie, Tara, Annie, Millie, Jessie (Short), Cheryl, Warren. It was billed as informal, and it was. Jessie brought her weaving on stage with her.

Before that we were treated to staged works by students of Troy's Indigenous Performance Praxis course. These works -- presented by four groups of four to five performers -- varied from those based on historical material (the 1990 Gustafson Lake Standoff) to those embodied by movement.

Tonight is a group dinner at Platypus House, hosted by Haruko, whose performance yesterday had the outline of her body filled in with that which she had collected since her arrival in early July. Following tonight's dinner, a performance by the youngest member of the residency, Jessie Fosty.

Studio on Unceded Native Land

Apropos of Sunday's post I went looking for images from Kenneth Fletcher and Paul Wong's Murder Research (1977), a serial photography project that began with the early morning discovery of a body outside of Wong and Jeanette Reinhardt's second-floor apartment -- a body that turned out to be that of a First Nations man named Eugene Lloyd Pelly, who was stabbed the night before. Interesting to see which of the 36 photographs that make up this work are available online, and in what order. (The image up top was found on the Paul Wong Projects website.)

West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative Ltd.

On Friday, in the middle of her presentation, Heather asked, Why aren't more Inuit artists accessing funding for indigenous artists? To answer this question she recalled her findings from 2011, when she learned that of the 60 Inuit artists she had spoken to, only 2 had applied for arts funding. When those who had not applied were asked why, a common response was, "I didn't want to take money away from those who really needed it," while others saw the funding as "charity." From there Heather's presentation turned to a lack of Inuit in administrative positions, a problem compounded by the lack of a university in the north where those who might hold such positions would be prepared for them.

Something that was not mentioned in Heather's presentation -- a presentation that began with a ("six minute") presentation she was invited to make on northern economic development and the importance of the arts -- was the role co-ops have (and haven't) played in a northern arts infrastructure. For my part, I was interested not so much in the past legacy of these co-ops (a largely commercial venture based on a somewhat feudal system), but in how they might be involved today in the making of a more complete northern administrative infrastructure that would serve both private and public interests alike. But then, after asking this question, it occurred to me that maybe these co-ops will never converge with other forms of arts production, that like David's "colonial museums" they will continue to play to the dead and not to the living, giving people what they know, not what they don't, about what it is to be this north.

Frontier Font and Pictures

Artist Ian Wallace has often said that the story of Vancouver art is one of frontier.

Below are works by four Vancouver artists associated with Ian. The first is Jeff Wall's Bad Goods (1985), the second is Ken Lum's Mounties & Indians (1989), the third is Stan Douglas's Klatsassin Portraits (Prisoner) (2006) and the fourth is Rodney Graham's Paradoxicial Western Scene (2006).

Manitou Stone

The School of Badger was born from on-campus badger sightings by the School's founders. To say that the School began with the badger is also to recognize that the land on which the badger lives had a school dropped on top of it. Inside that school, just before the start of the School's performance, was the start of the symposium.

Like Richard did at the start of this residency, symposium participants were welcomed by Jordan, a young Syilx man who spoke to us of where we are, who the Syilx are, before singing the "Okanagan Song," a song that Jeanette sang before Margo introduced her mother, Eloisa, who told us about the Texas-Mexico border wall last month.

Following Jordan was Skawennati, who introduced Archer's funny and touching space-time performance document, Our Beautiful Future, and then David, who presented a condensed version of an address he gave in Australia about the colonial museum and its tendency to make dead the living, be it through variants of reason, rhetoric, accumulation or science -- a presentation that revolved nicely around the Manitou Stone (pictured up top). During the Q&A that followed (or was it the Q&A for Brian's talk after Heather's talk?), Loretta mentioned Leroy Little Bear's interest in quantum physics and waves in contrast to binaries like zeroes and ones.

And more. But I will get that -- once I get my notes in order!

The School of Badger

On the eve of the 2nd Annual Symposium on the Future Imaginary, Tomas circulated an announcement for "The School of Badger -- On Indigenizing the Institution," a performance (intervention?) by Rebecca Belmore, Lori Blondeau and Adrian Stimson to be held "up the hill towards the Health Sciences Building, half way in the gravel pit."

Below (and attached to the podium pictured above) is the artists' statement:

Taxidea taxus Tuum Est

The School of Badger – On Indigenizing the Institution

A performance by Rebecca Belmore, Lori Blondeau and Adrian Stimson

Friday, August 5, 2016 - 49° 56’ 14” N 119° 23’ 56” W – 450m Elevation

Upon arrival at UBCO all three artist encountered the Badger, thus the School of Badger was born.

Badger is vicious, and attacks with powerful aggression. Badger is quick to anger and quicker to pounce. The power of Badger's medicine is aggressiveness and the willingness to fight for what it wants. The very thought of facing Badger makes other animals run for cover. Like Skunk, Badger's reputation precedes it. Its hissing fangs will tear less aggressive opponents to shreds.

Badger is the medicine of many powerful medicine women, for Badger is also the keeper of the medicine roots. Badger sees all the roots of Mother Earth's healing herbs hanging in its burrow home. These roots are a key to aggressive healing. Roots can ground negative energy into the Earth by allowing illness to pass through a body into the ground as neutral energy. Badger medicine people are quick to act in a crisis, and they do not panic.

If Badger medicine is part of your medicine, you are quick to express your feelings, and you do not care what the consequences are. Badger people oftentimes insist on carrying the ball for the touchdown. This attitude, however, does not endear them to their teammates. Badger medicine may also point to the aggressive healer who will have the courage to use unconventional means to exact a cure. Like the mother who sits for days nursing a child with high fever, Badge is willing to persist.

Badger people can be vicious gossips, or may exhibit a chip on the shoulder, if they are out of balance. You can be sure that people with Badger medicine will be aggressive enough to make it to the tops of their chosen fields, because they do not give up. They are also the finest healers, because they will use any and all methods to ensure healing, and will not give up on the critically ill. A Badger person is often the boss, and the one what everyone fears. That same boss will surely keep any company afloat. Badger gets the job accomplished. Badger is certainty is a source of strength.

If Badger has pushed its way into your life today, it may be telling you that you have been too meek in trying to reach some goal. Badger asks you how long are you willing to sit and wait for the world to deliver your silver spoon. In this medicine, the key is to become aggressive enough to do something about your present state of affairs. Badger is teaching you to get angry in a creative way and say, "I won't take it any more." You must follow-up by keeping your eye on the goal. Honor the healing process as you express those inner feelings.

Panel Five

For this week's panel, our hosts asked panelists to devise a question to ask of each other. The question that emerged was: What role do each of us play in a future, in moving things forward? 

Charles spoke of his work coming out of a "Jamaican context…where it is not easy to hold binaries," and I wanted to hear more, particularly in light of the binary that has "indigenous" contrasted with "colonist" and its influence on present-day Jamaica, but Charles returned to the panel question when he talked about his work "bouncing between past and present."

Elizabeth (Beth) spoke of her work as a digital game maker (her latest project is called Thunderbird Strike) and the difficulty game makers have in moving forward in a commercial gaming industry that insists upon the maintenance of the winner/loser binary (not that she is interested in that industry). In Elizabeth's game, there are no losers, only targets (mining companies).

Jackson spoke of something I mentioned in a recent post, concerning his 4am earth song excavations, but also of how he "accidentally became a documentary filmmaker" through an interest in indigenous radio stations. He addressed the question of Time (future) as a feature of Western cosmologies, whereas indigenous cosmologies are spatial.

Srimoyee spoke at length of her "genealogy," how she came from a "middle-class, secular, democratic Mumbai/Bombay family" and how her experiences as an international student in Central Canada (working as a janitor in the summers) "informed [her] world-view." She concluded her presentation by stating an "interest in the relationships between indigenous and settler cultures, and becoming fluent in each other's histories."

Like Srimoyee, Michelle works primarily as a curator. For her presentation she spoke of indigenous curation as an opportunity to "change what people know of indigenous people" and the "integral role of indigenous people in the future of the country now known as Canada." Exhibitions, according to Michelle, provide "platforms for conversation," "encourage empathy."

Everything[] [Is Going to Be] Alright

Reports that say that something has happened are always interesting to me, because when people say they knew something, I assume they knew it because they experienced it, they thought their way through it, or they constructed it.

How the realtor closest to the premier of British Columbia knew three weeks in advance that a tax -- regardless of the figure -- would be imposed on foreign buyers of Vancouver real estate is a question that requires a better answer than He just knew, okay, followed by a Now go home and get your fuckin’ shine box.

Group Dinner at Upper Cascades

After yesterday's residency meeting Leah suggested a group dinner of Upper Cascaders. That was fine with Aaron, Camille, Charles, Evan, Haruko,  Olivia, Srimoyee, Tara and me, especially since it would still be warm enough to eat outside.

Leah made a chicken dish, Aaron made quesadilla, I cooked a salmon, Tara brought pastries…but it was Haruko who stole the show with her coleslaw, dip and gomae, which she said had plantains in it.

During dinner we talked about what Jackson told us earlier, how he was getting up at 4am to see if he could conjure some earth songs. Haruko had mentioned hearing an owl at that time, and Jackson said he had heard it, too.

I was up at 4am this morning. A fire engine was racing around campus, doing manoeuvres. I looked for Jackson, I looked for that owl, then the fire engine's lights went on and everything looked like a disco inferno.

Stump

Plum trees do not live forever -- unlike apple trees, which live 35 to 40 years.

Though it no longer produces fruit, the stump above is still a plum. It reappeared after the grass was cut. Because it stands where a greenhouse is going, it has to go, too.

Removing a stump can be frustrating. You can hack away at it, eventually dislodging it, but you will hate it by then and I don't think that's fair to the tree it once was.

To remove this stump we dug around it until we found enough space between its roots to get between them with a chain, which we attached to the back of a tractor.

When digging around the stump it is important to not cut off too many roots, else they will continue to grow and produce suckers. To pull out a stump is to pull out its roots, too.

You can see the spot where the stump once stood.

The greenhouse will stand between the apples.

Social and Formal Critique

Between Wednesday's post-panel potluck and the post-panel potluck dance party was Mark's jump.

This was to be a jump on a board that Mark had made based on a kayak, but I did not see the kayak in Mark's board, nor did it matter, as the event was less about what the board looked like, less about whether the jump was completed, than how many times a jump could be performed before authorities intervened -- and they did.

How many times did Mark attempt his jump? Was anybody counting? I wasn't. Nor did it occur to me to do so. As far as I am concerned, every jump was a successful jump, because Mark gathered up something for us that we knew existed but, as is often the case in art and in life, needed to be observed.

Shhhhhh! No Talking Circle!

There were twelve of us sitting cross-legged in a circle, a talking circle, and I was lost in us as the face of an analog clock, our host a psychopomp who had told us he would be there on the lawn behind the noisy machine-powered FCCS Building at 2pm to take us not from midnight through the morning (a.m.) to the afternoon and through the evening (p.m.), but to a place amongst ourselves, by virtue of what we had in common.

It would have ruined it to say so, even though our host told us that "to call it a talking circle is wrong," because it is not a talking circle but another of translation's travesties, as if to tell us why.

Each of us was asked to share in clockwise rotation (our host was in the twelve o'clock position, I was in the six o'clock position) a story of someone who had an impact on our lives, a teacher. I had time to think about this, but in thinking I was unable to retain the first thing that came to me, and so I was left not with the story of a teacher and the double portraits they inspire (with their students), but of lessons, authorless texts, a worldlined object in four-dimensional space-time.

Panel Four

He told us he stopped making art for awhile to look after his disabled parents. He showed us pictures of his parents -- separately, then together -- and I thought he might not yet talk about "hybridity" (his father is of Swiss decent, his mother of Japanese descent) but about what "walking on the land" meant when his parents "walked" on hand-powered wheels. Of course I thought about what Carmen had said, about what it is to be in a physical position different from that which is assumed to be the norm.

Later, he presented a book that moved him, and a critique of that book for its failure to consider architecture in a nomadic context.

Heidegger's "Building, Dwelling, Thinking."

Then his paintings, his interest in holes, enclaves. Literal holes, with strange shapes (strange to me), then more recently a series of alley paintings that suggest the kinds of walks required to find them -- dérives!

Like him, she began with who her parents are (were?), and their parents. Where they landed, how the word "settler" was stamped on their immigration documents by government officials.

A walking practice that she did not want to talk about -- "not today."

A recent project that had sugar cookies in unusual shapes (barbed wire, a noose) and distributed on Parliament Hill. For this she did not project its image, but gave its clear-topped plastic box to the moderator to pass around the room.

She had also mentioned that she would leave it to her collaborator (up next) to talk of a performance the two are doing on Friday, and this her collaborator did after introducing herself through a word that evokes "hybridity" but is specific to a particular time and place in the history of this country's histories, but not before speaking of her current work on a PhD that is interested in the "complexities of dealing with indigenous communities through art."

The kitchen table was mentioned as a site of engagement, research and exchange, a curatorial "counterpoint" to ideas that "mirror" those common to "colonial practice," and this too brought to mind the extra-long dining table cloth Farheen spread out for us in front of the Alternator Gallery a couple weeks back.

Then suddenly her talk began to move quickly, too quickly for me to keep up with. Someone was cited, and I was not sure if the citation had ended. She (her source?) said, "Curators should stand beside or behind artists, never in front of them," and then said something that sounded like she had rethought this position.

(Later, at the potluck at Platypus House, I asked her if she thought curation was closer to art history or to studio practice, and she said, as I expected, the latter.)

The kitchen table is to be the site of this Friday's performance.

The final presentation came from someone who asked not to be photographed or quoted without her consent, and this had me taking it too far, missing much but gaining more through listening with my ears, not my hand.

Ethics was a word that was mentioned more than once, and I mention it here because it is a word whose meaning, I wish, meant something to everyone. An eagerness to learn the natural laws of where she is living. Cognitive imperialism is mentioned only because she did not coin the term. An excellent description of neo-liberalism. Work was shown -- an image of a work made with (iron) nails and hair. New work in the studio, and an invitation to visit her there. Am I taking this too far? Maybe. But we spoke after, at the potluck, and I am hoping it is worth the risk.

Walk, Don't Run

At noon today we gather for the fourth of our weekly panel presentations (we are no longer referring to them as "roundtables"). Today's panelists are Leah Decter, Kevin Ei-ichi deForest, Cathy Mattes and Tannis Nielsen. The panel thematic is "How might your art practice embody the original notion of the o k'inādās residency, that of walking on the land?"

In thinking about today's thematic, I went to my computer to see if Nicolaus Roeg's Walkabout (1971) is available online, for free, and saw that it is. The same could not be said of Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjut: The Fast Runner (2001), which is too bad. Has anyone ever thought to show these films together?