Talent converges at gallery VISUAL ARTS

Cherry-bark baskets to sand-carved masks, works are a testament to indigenous gifts XI XANYA DZAM

Xi xanya dzam, the title of 2

a small exhibition at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, is borrowed from the Kwak’wala language. Pronounced “hee hun ya zam”, it is used to describe “incredibly talented and gifted people who create works of art”. Aptly, it is applied here to past winners of lifetime-achievement B.C. Creative Achievement Awards for First Nations Art.

In addition to spotlighting the accomplishments of Primrose Adams (Haida), Dempsey Bob (Tahltantlingit), Rena Point Bolton (Sto:lo), Mandy Brown (Nlaka’pamux), Joe David (Nuu-chah-nulth), Robert Davidson (Haida), Alvin Mack (Nuxalk), Mary Michell (Carrier), Earl Muldon (Gitxsan), Susan Point (Musqueam), and Norman Tait (Nisga’a), the exhibition grapples with different social and linguistic readings of “achievement” and “excellence”. It also provides an opportunity to consider how these qualities are celebrated and rewarded across cultures. While touring the Straight through the show, curator Beth Carter explained that who gives what to whom—and how honours are bestowed—varies from place to place and people to people. In many Northwest Coast First Nations, she said, the honoree presents gifts to the audience, thanking them for witnessing the event or ceremony and, in so doing, enfolding the honour into that people’s history.

Organized by Carter and guest curator Lou-ann Neel, Xi xanya dzam represents the first time works by these award winners have been exhibited together. This means that we can see Tait’s big and extraordinary Weeping Volcano Woman mask, with its small frog-human hybrids emerging from its eyes and mouth, alongside Bolton’s exquisitely woven and imbricated cedar-bark baskets. We can encounter Davidson’s highly abstracted paintings, which riff on two-dimensional Haida design components, in close proximity to Michell’s gorgeously beaded moosehide clothing. And we can consider Muldon’s delicately carved gold bracelet, Killer Whale and Bear, in light of Bob’s Raven Frontlet, with its long beak, black nostrils, and— characteristic of Bob’s distinctive style—heavy-lidded eyes.

The work of each artist is accompanied by a short biography and also a phrase in his or her original language that is roughly equivalent to xi xanya dzam. (In the introductory panel, the curators acknowledge a team of “language keepers who generously helped us identify words and phrases in each artist’s traditional language”.) Mack is represented here by a Creator Mask, a model pole, and a talking stick, all carved out of yellow cedar. The beautiful Nuxalkmc description of his achievement, “Apcwakmtimutilh ala smayustalh ats,” translates as “We become uplifted by our traditions.” Adams, whose finely woven spruce-root hats and miniature baskets speak of her descent from a line of famously creative Haida women, is acknowledged in Old Massett Haida, “Gin ‘la xay ‘aayaagang”—“she is an excellent weaver.”

The artists here work in both traditional and contemporary media and materials. On the one hand, we have Brown’s cedar-root and cherry-bark baskets, executed using ancient coil basketry techniques, which she is credited with preserving. On the other, we have Point’s innovative “rattle” in blown and sand-carved glass, etched with an image of two loons. David’s Welcome Mask, made in collaboration with Tlingit artist Preston Singletary, resembles a historic Nuu-chah-nulth mask in wood, but is also executed in glass. And his Drum With Whale Design effectively combines quite different styles of painting and subtly rendered graphite drawing, to beautiful effect.

Just as the title asserts, all the artists represented here are (and were: Brown passed away in 2015, and Tait in 2016) “incredibly talented and gifted people”. The show is pure joy to view.

> ROBIN LAURENCE

Woman Weeping Volcano

style thrill ride. It’s a meditative look at one man’s obsession, shot in rich, dreamlike imagery. There’s even a nod to Fitzcarraldo when Fawcett’s ragtag team stumbles upon an opera house in the middle of dense rainforest. It’s a Heart of Darkness story, yes, but one that’s measured and modest. Think of it as a gentler, more gentlemanly flipside to Apocalypse Now.

Amazonia was no place for an upper-crust Englishman in collared shirts. So why did Fawcett return after his first failed mission there—despite the mocking by peers who said there could not have been a civilized people in the jungle? “Soldierly decoration and reclaiming your family name” is the reason one of Fawcett’s superiors gives. Fawcett clearly has a taste for masculine glory, but it mixes with a desire to beat the gun-wielding colonialists to the ancient city. Aided by cinematographer Darius Khondji, Gray also contrasts cold-grey Britain against the dense, leafy wilds that call out to Fawcett.

Still, Fawcett remains, frustratingly, an enigma. Hunnam’s reserved, one-note, plummy take on his man of honour doesn’t help matters.

Cryptic and wandering as it all is, The Lost City of Z still casts a spell. It coalesces in a near-mystical ending, when its themes come magically together: the idea that we can never own or tame another civilization, the impossibility of knowing all the world’s mysteries, and the ability of the jungle to reclaim its losses. Just prepare for a long, leech- and spearfilled journey to get there.

> JANET SMITH

formats over at least five years, centres on three Torontonians who have survived well enough to describe their journeys with some clarity. In his feature debut, actor turned director Hugh Gibson is heard cajoling, querying, and driving the three around as they pursue chores, court appointments, and rendezvous with other users— even though they all do conscientious work for the Regent Park Community Health Centre.

“Once you start, you never stop using,” admits Greg, who also goes to college. A big, biracial guy, he was abandoned as a baby and bears the literal scars of his life ever since—most recently from a run-in with police. The talkative Marty, with a Caribbean lilt to his rapid speech, has done somewhat better, having moved on to an addiction to running shoes and Bob Marley T-shirts. (“Because I can see where the money went,” he explains.) But he’s not immune to street-level hassles that interfere with his progress.

The most complex subject is Roxanne, who was adopted as a child by a Mennonite family and then “escaped” into urban sex work she describes sometimes with horror and in some moments with humour. When confronted on the subway for wearing a full-length mink coat, she recalls answering, “Do you know how many animals I had to fuck to get this coat?” She describes her cumulative experience as a kind of PTSD that self-medication still hasn’t quite addressed.

The movie’s best in those candid moments. When Gibson gets more interpretive, with wide-angle lenses and pounding music, the effects are strained. In any case, it’s clear that for those at the bottom, the road to recovery takes far more than 12 steps.

> KEN EISNER