TRADITION ‘EXPRESSED IN NEW WAYS’
Sharon Fortney, a guest curator at the Bill Reid Gallery, helped assemble an exhibit exploring historic and contemporary works by First Nations artists. She chatted with Aleesha Harris about creative media and disrupting perceptions of cultural art.
Q For those who aren’t familiar, what is the Intangible exhibition all about?
A We are exploring Contemporary Coast Salish art — looking at long-standing traditions being expressed in new ways. In the past, people weren’t really artists, they were decorating personal belongings and creating wealth objects, often with spiritual messages embedded within them. Today, we have people intentionally creating art and they are doing it from unique perspectives. “Coast Salish” isn’t an identity that is experienced the same way by everybody who can claim that term. Your teachings depend upon who your family members are and where they live, what places are important to your understanding of family history and the community you belong to; how well you understand Salish language and the frameworks it provides for thinking about the world; and many other cultural components that aren’t material and so are unseen.
Q What can people expect to see during the program?
A We will be showing artworks in a variety of mediums from cedarbark weaving, leather work, blown glass, copper repousse, video installations, and graphic works — painting and prints. The artists explore traditional Coast Salish teachings in new ways. They are people who aren’t afraid to experiment and try new things, sometimes to reclaim lost knowledge and at other times to explore contemporary issues like urbanization and issues affecting women and communities.
Q Why is it important to have events like this one that, “disrupts our perception of ‘First Nations art?’ ”
A Many people have incorrect ideas about what it means to be First Nations, and try to hold people to their own ideas of authenticity, while simultaneously ignoring all the years that our government tried to force assimilation on First Nations across our country. Master carver Aaron Nelson-Moody frequently gets challenged about using metal tools, and told that working with metal is unauthentic. Ironically, many First Nations communities worked with native copper — it’s found in archeological sites. Local people were not strangers to metal at contact, and during trading showed a preference for iron as they didn’t have forged metals. They knew the difference. All cultures change over time; if they didn’t, archeologists wouldn’t have much to study.
Q The idea of showcasing both traditional and modern Coast Salish creations sounds very interesting. Are there any themes you see bridging old and new? And, if so, what are some of them?
A The teachings and spirituality of Coast Salish traditions resonate through all of the works. The main difference is that the artists are artists living in our contemporary world with access to new materials and lives affected by issues our ancestors did not have to deal with.
Sesemiya/Tracy Williams has created several types of shoes for the exhibit. She is always experimenting to learn how to make things that were common in the past, but the knowledge has been lost. I used to refer to her as a weaver, because she taught me how to harvest cedar bark, but nowadays I say she is a traditional technologist as her work is so much broader and very connected to traditional territory.
Dyes, methods for harvesting plant and animal resources were often family specific. People wouldn’t share the information outside of their families, and with so many generations forced to go to residential schools, some teachings
were lost. Sesemiya listens to elders and other knowledgeable people, and sometimes studies museum collections, but often she just goes out on the land to find what she needs and then experiments until she finds a process that works. Sometimes it’s with traditional materials, and sometimes she uses things you can buy at the grocery store like eggs and olive oil.
Q Is there anything about Intangible you think will surprise people?
A I think people will be surprised by the diversity of works. We made a real effort to find artists who worked in many different mediums so that we could show Coast Salish art in a new way. We didn’t want to just celebrate the past, we wanted to show how people are “spring boarding from their culture” as Marvin Oliver says.
Q What makes the Bill Reid Gallery such a good fit for this program?
A Beth Carter, the curator at the gallery, wanted to shake up their image as a place focused on Haida art. Bill Reid studied many Northwest Coast art styles, and he was a great innovator. He was the first to take massive carving into a new direction with sculptures like the Raven and the First Men. He moved away from totem poles to try something new.
He was also highly influential and taught or spent time with many younger artists.
Marvin Oliver, who has glass work pieces in this exhibit, spent time with Bill Reid when he was younger and it really opened his mind to the places he could go as an artist.
Q Lastly, what do you hope people take away from the exhibition?
A I hope that people recognize that material culture — the objects that are produced, whether as traditional belongings or as contemporary artworks, are only one aspect of cultural expression. There is a lot more there that is unspoken, that informs the work. If they can recognize that they are only seeing a small piece of Coast Salish culture, that its richness lies in beliefs and shared teachings, I think that would be great.
I also hope that they come down for one of the public programs and interact with the featured artists. I am hoping they will feel a connection to them. This is why we wanted to create films for the exhibit, and sought out the School for Interactive Arts and Technology at SFU.
We worked with six teams of students to create films for this project.
It was a learning experience for the students, but it helped us add that conversational tone to the exhibit.