STTLMNT IS NOT HERE

featuring works by Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota), Raven Chacon (Dine’), Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Tania Willard (Secwépemc), and Dayna Danger (Métis/Saulteaux/Polish)

October 8, 2021 – November 13, 2021

Produced in collaboration with STTLMNT and imagineNATIVE; with curatorial support by STTLMNT Producer Ginger Dunnill and concept artist Cannupa Hanska Luger

STTLMNT IS NOT HERE reasserts the presence and perspectives of contemporary Indigenous people from various tribal nations throughout North America and the Pacific. 

STTLMNT IS NOT HERE is designed to reclaim public and digital space in order to consider the continued long-term impacts of colonization on tribal nations. Through contemporary artworks and live engagements, STTLMNT IS NOT HERE creates opportunities to address the questions and traumas around colonization while also presenting a complex example of Indigenous resilience and intersection. 

STTLMNT IS NOT HERE goes beyond conversational decolonization to present vibrant and evolving contemporary culture expressions, thereby enacting Indigenization. 

STTLMNT IS NOT HERE practices Indigenization through an evolved strategy of occupation (digital and physical). By reclaiming space as Indigenous people, we not only find ways to disseminate our post-colonial art works but we stake a radical, visionary claim on the future. 

STTLMNT IS NOT HERE is the next iteration of STTLMNT, a vibrant Indigneous occupation platform which facilitates honest, complex, and living representations of Indigenous cultures within the global conversation, highlighting an intersectional and Indigenous vision of the future. STTLMNT archives Indigenous art practice, relationship, stories, technology, theory and philosophy while disrupting colonial tropes and assumptions.

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Please join us on 16 October 2021 (12PM–3PM) for a performance titled Music for 13 Paths by Raven Chacon, which is part of The Parkette Projects, curated by Shani K Parsons and presented by Gallery TPW.

The performance will begin at Gallery TPW (170 St.Helens Ave), with a pause in Paul Garfinkel Park (1071 Queen St. W), and will conclude at Trinity Square Video (401 Richmond St. W).

Thirteen chimes are hand-cut and tuned to ring at thirteen pitch intervals within the 12-note Western musical scale. Thus shifting the relationship between frequencies across the standard octave, Raven Chacon gestures to possibilities for sounding and listening that transcend conventions in subtle yet subversive ways.

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ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Raven Chacon is a composer, performer, installation artist, and educator from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation, whose internationally renowned work ranges from chamber music to experimental noise and large-scale installations. www.spiderwebsinthesky.com

Candice Hopkins is a curator, writer, and researcher interested in history, art, and Indigeneity, and their intersections. Originally from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation.

Through monumental installations and social collaboration, Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota) interweaves performance and political action to communicate stories about twenty-first century Indigeneity, producing large-scale projects globally.

Tania Willard, Secwépemc Nation and settler heritage, is an artist and curator. Their work is invested in intersectional ecological concerns and land-based art practices centred in Indigenous territory, community, and knowledge.

Dayna Danger a Tio’tia:ke, Two-Spirit, Métis, and Saulteaux/Anishinaabe visual artist, activist, and drummer. They are a visual artist who claims space with their human-scale work to challenge perceptions of power, representation, and sexuality.

Ginger Dunnill is an accomplice who centers collaboration to create a living archive in support of intersectionality. She has organized exhibitions and social engagement projects globally, activating transformative justice practices. Learn more about the work of STTLMNT at www.sttllmnt.org

+image credit: Cannupa Hanska Luger, Héewi regalia (2021). Video still.