A protester stands on Parliament Hill in a photograph by Ben Powless, one of many artists whose
Ben Powless has travelled around Canada and parts of South America to document the struggle of native groups. His pictures show indigenous communities reeling from violence in Peru, as well as those impacted by tar sands development in Alberta holding up banners in protest.
These photographs of native resistance are showcased in Create This Revolution, a new exhibition at Gallery 101 that runs until April 13.
Billed as a “flash mob art show,” Create This Revolution features many works inspired by Idle No More. That movement hit a chord with many in the artistic community, says Laura Margita, director and curator of Gallery 101.
“Artist-run centres, historically, are about revolutions in terms of creative freedom, (where) people who are often marginalized have a place to show their art,” Margita says. “There’s a lot of people, especially in the indigenous communities, who haven’t been idle, but it’s a question of empowering them.”
Powless’s series of photos is entitled We Rise to Mother Earth. A member of the Indigenous Environmental Network and a Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario, Powless says he started taking photographs to support the activism he was involved with. Two of his featured pictures show rallies on Parliament Hill in support of Sisters in Spirit, an initiative started by families of missing and murdered Aboriginal women to raise awareness for that issue.
One photograph shows a peaceful march by the Alberta tar sands, where several First Nations communities came together to offer healing to the land and ask for the destruction to stop.
“A lot of people are getting sick these days,” Powless says, concerning the indigenous communities in Northern Alberta most affected by the tar sands. “We’ve always needed someone on our own side to document everything . . . especially with the rise of social media, to get those things out there to the general public.”
The catalyst for Powless’s photojournalism began when he went to Peru in 2009. During his stay, native Amazonian tribes were protesting the Peruvian government over new laws that would have sold parts of their tribal land.
After two months of protest, armed police went to clear protesters from the area near Bagua, Peru. When the police broke down a blockade, the two sides clashed, leaving more than 30 dead, including nine tribesmen.
Powless accompanied chiefs and members of the media to Bagua and snapped several photographs of the devastated native community. He says the press did a poor job of reporting the aftermath in the natives’ perspective.
“That, for me, was a really powerful moment in my own life, of really realizing the power and the necessity of visuals to communicate some of these stories . . . especially from indigenous communities who rarely have their stories shared and told,” Powless says.
Create This Revolution also features sculpture, painting, video and performance art from both emerging and established Canadian artists. Gallery 101 has become one of Ottawa’s largest centres for Aboriginal and Inuit art in recent years. Margita says exhibiting art with an activist purpose can expose Ottawa residents to various social and political issues.
“Sometimes, it’s easier to understand (issues) if you’ve got an art gallery and something beautiful to go and see,” she says. “It makes the message more poignant.”
One of the emerging artists, Alan Harrington, got a call from Margita after he posted a photograph on Facebook that he took on Parliament Hill in January. The picture, named “Power of the Jingle,” shows an elder woman from Wiki in a jingle dress holding her family staff.
A jingle dress is a ceremonial dress for First Nations that represents healing people when they are sick. In the photograph, women draped in the jingle dress stand, solemn, around the elder.
The dress originated from the Whitefish Bay First Nation in Northwestern Ontario, where a father was told in a dream to create the dress to cure his ailing daughter. When the young girl, Maggie White, wore the jingle dress and started dancing, she got better.
“Women in our cultures are very strong and they do have the power with the jingle,” says Harrington, who is Ojibwe. “When they dance, it is a healing dress. When they came (to Parliament Hill), it was to start healing… for everybody in Canada and all parts of the world because Mother Earth is hurting.”
Harrington has taken photographs as a hobby for six years, but says he decided to document moments of the Idle No More movement whenever he could. Create This Revolution is his first exhibit.
“If it’s for a good cause, I’ll do it,” Harrington says.
Beyond taking photographs, Powless says that he will continue to be an activist. He works for many indigenous organizations, such as Defenders of the Land, which connects native communities who protest government legislation to take up the cause together.
“There’s a lot of groups that have never been idle,” Powless says.