Lisa Meyers/Gallery 101
“Through surface tension” is part of a media installation to be featured in exhibit Owning with the Gaze.An exhibition exploring how we stake claim to territories in the age of the smartphone is preparing to open at Little Italy’s Gallery 101. Owning with the Gaze, curated by Cheryl L’Hirondelle, will feature work from seven indigenous and non-indigenous artists, and will run from Oct. 31-Nov. 28.
Cheryl L’Hirondelle, a Cree-Metis musician and artist from central Alberta, says the theme of the exhibition was inspired by a talk she attended by Samoan thinker Lemi Ponifasio in 1997.
Ponifasio explained that in pre-colonial Samoan culture, there were some things that should not be looked at, things that should not be “owned with the gaze.”
L’Hirondelle recalls his words clearly 18 years later. “It stuck with me all these years, this notion of looking at things that weren’t yours to look at,” she says. “The basis of the idea for the exhibition was, wow, we’re now in the state we don’t even think about that we just take out our cameras and take a click of it.”
L’Hirondelle’s exhibition seeks to explore what our responsibility is to the land regarding use of technology. She sees a sharp contrast between today and a previous time when permission was required to photograph or videotape.
“The only time where there’s specific permission is if you go into a gallery or a theatre. There’s very limited places now in the world where you still need to get permission, so I wanted to focus on that,” says L’Hirondelle, who received a $29,000 grant from the Ontario Arts Council to put on the show. The National Gallery of Canada, located in Centretown, began allowing visitors to photograph its artwork in March 2014.
Owning with the Gaze will bring together media and performance pieces from seven artists. Some works will be Ottawa specific, including that of Kelowna-based performance artist Ayumi Goto, who will run 25 kilometres from Chelsea, Que. to Parliament Hill with speakers strapped to her waist blaring independent indigenous music. Goto’s route will trace the path the Nishiyuu walkers covered on the last day of their 1,600 km journey from Wapmagoostui, Que. to Parliament Hill in support of the Idle No More movement.
L’Hirondelle says Goto’s use of technology will echo indigenous music and voice back to the land. The performance will also be filmed. “In this documenting the land is ‘captured,’” says L’Hirondelle. Goto’s costume will be displayed in the exhibition.
L’Hirondelle had initially hoped to commission a brand new piece about the Chaudière and Albert islands in Centretown, the site of a $1.2-billion development that has divided the Ottawa-area Algonquin community, but this was not possible given L’Hirondelle’s timeline or budget.
The exhibition’s opening will take place between 6 and 9 p.m. on Oct. 31. B.C. tattoo artist Dion Kaszas will be tattooing a small “earth line” on the forearm of eighteen volunteers using the traditional method of his Nlaka’pamux ancestors, which involves stitching and poking.
The Nlaka’pamux are a First Nation from southern B.C.
Kaszas says tattooing participants is his way of strengthening the Nlaka’pamux tattooing tradition and sharing his interpretation of the earth line. “For me the earth line is a message from the past in the present for the future,” Kaszas said in an email calling for volunteers to receive the tattoo. “It reminds us that we have a responsibility for all that is.”
Gallery 101 has a history of hosting indigenous programming. Laura Margita, director and curator at the Young Street venue, says the gallery has recently started consciously bringing aboriginal and non-aboriginal artists together in the same shows.
“Gallery 101 isn’t an aboriginal gallery,” she says. “We feel that’s a little bit ghettoizing. You know, ‘Here’s this little space that we’ve made for you that’s separate from all others.’ We don’t want that and this show is embodying that for us.”
L’Hirondelle says indigenous and non-indigenous collaboration is essential – and not just in art. “We’re in a state now where we need to work together,” she says. “It’s time that we start having a dialogue with each other about what the future holds for us.”