gathering across moana

With works by Reweti Arapere, Erena Baker Arapere, Bruno Canadien, Tsēmā Igharas, Sarah Houle, Niki Little, Kereama Taepa, Cora-Allan Wickliffe, Kali Spitzer, Glenn Gear, Johnson Witehira with solo exhibitions by Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Rachael Rakena, and SISTER

Curated by GLAM with Noor Bhangu

Co-presented with imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, A Space, and Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre

October 4 – November 2

Indigenous peoples have drawn connections across vast distances, continents, and bodies of water for thousands of years, revealing the space between us as a potential site for sharing knowledge, experience, and technology. Working from the Pacific view of water (moana and vai) as a mode of connection between islands, and by extension, Turtle Island (North America), these exhibitions will explore the transference of ideas through various media across geographic distances, timespans, and cultures. Together these artists delve into the sharing of knowledge and postulate locations of connection in the future, including imagined concepts of place.

EVENTS

Thursday, October 24, 2019 (as part of annual imagineNATIVE Art Crawl)

7:30 pm: Curator & Artist Talk, TSV

7:40 pm: Performance by Tsēmā Igharas, TSV

8:30 pm: Curator & Artist Talk, CFMDC

8:40 pm: Performance by Cheryl L’Hirondelle, CFMDC

International Exhibition Premiere

With Support by:

SSHRC funded grants Archive Counter Archive, Transactive Memory Keepers (TMK), Canada Council for the Arts, Creative New Zealand.

BIOGRAPHIES OF ARTISTS (Presented at Trinity Square Video)

Reweti Arapere & Erena Baker are visual artists from Aotearoa New Zealand and have exhibited extensively both throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.

Bruno Canadien (Dene) works primarily as a painter, using paint and mixed media to convey ideas surrounding the intersection of Indigenous sovereignty, colonialism, resource exploitation, resistance and presence.

Tsēmā Igharas is an award-winning Tahltan Indigenous interdisciplinary artist making work that connects materials to mine sites and bodies to the land.

Sarah Houle is a Métis multidisciplinary artist based in Calgary and her work is autobiographical with an interest in technology, fantasy and craft.

Niki Little (Anishininew / English) is an artist/observer and a founding member of The Ephemerals who interested in Indigenous economies and cultural consumption through community-based strategies.

Kereama Taepa’s practice considers the tradition of innovation by exploring the relationships between Māori philosophy and digital technologies.

Cora-Allan Wickliffe is a multidisciplinary artist from Waitakere and is of Niue and Maori heritage. Her practice often examines constructed identities of indigenous people and focuses on developing platforms for the self-determination of such representations.

BIOGRAPHIES OF ARTISTS (Presented at A Space)

Kali Spitzer is Kaska Dena from Daylu (Lower Post, British Columbia) on her father’s side and Jewish from Transylvania, Romania on her mother’s side and her work include portraits, figure studies, and photographs of her people, ceremonies, and culture.

BIOGRAPHIES OF ARTISTS (Presented at CFMDC)

Glenn Gear is a multi-disciplinary artist of Inuit, Irish, and English descent, based in Montréal and originally from Newfoundland.

Cheryl L’Hirondelle is an award winning Halfbreed/Cree interdisciplinary artist whose work investigates the dynamism of nêhiyawak cosmology in a contemporary time-place continuum.

Hana Rakena

Rachael Rakena (Ngai Tahu, Nga Puhi) is a video artist who works, frequently in collaboration, to create richly layered performative installations, DVDs and digital stills.

Johnson Witehira

ABOUT THE CURATORS

GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) is a collective of scholars which consists of Heather Igloliorte, Julie Nagam and Carla Taunton. They work through theory, curatorial and artistic practice that prioritize collaborative projects that activate/generate space for visiting/gathering; sharing of knowledge and mentorship.

Noor Bhangu is an emerging curator and scholar of South Asian descent and is currently based in Tkaraonto/Toronto.

Exhibition Technicians: Jon Silveirades and Luke Garwood

Presented with