‘THE DARKEST CHAPTERS’
Artist Kent Monkman responds to Canada 150 by creating ‘Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience’, an exhibition underway at Confederation Centre Art Gallery
Artist Kent Monkman creates “Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience”
When Kent Monkman was contacted by Barbara Fisher from the University of Toronto Art Museum to see whether he was interested in doing a response project to Canada 150, he got excited.
“I jumped at the opportunity to speak about Indigenous issues,” says the Canadian artist and curator of Cree ancestry.
Immediately the wheels inside his head began turning.
“I thought, ‘what has the last 150 years meant to Indigenous people?’ ”
As he reflected on the history, he realized the years around Confederation were the worst of times for Canada’s Indigenous populations.
“You’re looking at the signing of the first treaties, the beginning of the reserve system, the beginning of the legacy of incarceration and the residential schools. All these very traumatic chapters of colonialization really began 150 years ago. So, this project was an opportunity to talk about all these chapters — or as many as I could fit into an exhibition,” says Monkman, creator and curator of “Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience”.
The exhibition, which continues until Sept. 15 at the Confederation
Centre Art Gallery, started with a quest.
“For the first year, we travelled across the country looking at collections of (art) institutions looking at objects and paintings and curating those things, with my own artworks, to support this different perspective on the story of North America and this 150-year celebration.”
The quest was successful. The collected paintings, drawings and sculptures are now interspersed with historical artifacts in the exhibition that consists of nine different chapters.
“I wanted to begin the exhibition in the time of New France, a time when these people were still partners in the emerging economy of North America, which
was based on the currency of the beaver pelt.
The chapters cover a wide range of themes — from the years around Confederation to contemporary life on a reserve.
But, the theme that ties all the chapters together is resilience.
Monkman’s goal is to counter the one-sided version of art history that applauds European discovery of North America with the strong spirit of Indigenous people.
“I hope my paintings will function as a critique of colonization, authorize Indigenous experience in art history and excite people with the enduring power and possibility of history painting.”
Perhaps the most powerful painting in the exhibition is “The
Scream”, which shows the exact moment when Indigenous children were removed from their parents before they were sent to a residential school.
“In the United States right now, Poundmaker’s Moccasins, crafted from painted rawhide and glass beads, are included in “Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience”.
we see children being separated from their families. And that’s no different than what happened with children being taken from their parents and sent to residential schools. It was extremely traumatizing.”
Monkman feels so strongly about this, he dedicated the exhibition to his grandmother, Elizabeth Monkman, who was made to go to a residential school.
“Like many of her generation, she was shamed into the silence of extreme prejudice,” the artist writes in the forward of the pamphlet, “Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience.