Founding Mythologies | engravings and sculptures

From June 10 to August 14 2004

Bernard Saladin d’Anglure

Throughout history, mythologies have played a major role in the lives of peoples. By telling of origins, they cast light on their roots and traced the paths of their future. Because they take up the great existential problems of humans, starting with their relation to the Earth, they reassure them and give them hope to retain a place in the great cycles of life and the cosmos. Why is death a necessary part of life? Why are men and women both necessary to keep life flowing? And why must we kill animals and plants to feed ourselves? Some of the many questions myths speak to us about.

The founding myths of the Aboriginal peoples of the Americas were passed on for many generations through oral tradition. Now they face competition from myths from afar, the religions of the Book, school, the media and new communications technology. However, for almost half a century, we have been witness to a resurgence of these mythologies through the hand of artists who bring them to life in stone, through another medium, elements of the founding stories, laying the bases of a new memory, long-lasting and accessible to all.

In this field, the Inuit have played a pioneering role through their sculptures, prints and approach to silk-screening. Moreover, the Inuit are masters at use of new media, as is shown by the success of the first feature film Atanarjuat, based on an ancestral legend, and the first Inuit novel, Sanaaq, originally written in syllabics and teeming with myths and beliefs.

Shamans, supernatural beings, spirits and simply men and women carrying out daily life activities: Mattuisi Iyaituk explores the different aspects of Nunavik life and in his hands, these all become the foundations of an accomplished body of work, open to major contemporary currents and nourished by the elders’ rich traditions.

Sedna, the sea goddess, keeps watch. Iyaituk sees her with the respect she warrants as spirituality incarnate, but doesn’t lose sight of her laughter. Iyaituk’s sense of humour permeates his very approach to stone. His sculptures have a light touch, reflected in the at-times outrageous titles he bestows on them.

Mattiusi Iyaituk was born in a hunting camp, and makes his home in Ivujivik in the far north of Nunavik. After studies in Police techniques in Montreal, he worked as a village policeman for many years. He didn’t decide to devote himself to sculpture full-time until 1984.

His original style developed little by little through works that operate as a rebus. He leaves it up to us to find the solution and meaning. A bear claw set into the centre of a downy stone becomes the beak of an owl decorated with a few caribou antlers. We think we have understood it all and this pulls us out of our usual way of seeing. If Mattuisi Iyaituk seems to play with reality by multiplying his tracks, it is to better reveal it to us.

He looks upon the goose whose long wings brush away the snow, the woman quietly gathering blueberries and the Shaman who observes his own tortured soul flying off. The earth speaks and Mattuisi knows how to communicate what it is saying.

Eshi-uapatakanit | visions of Innu Youth

du 10 au 21 juin 2004

Over the course of a year, thirty young Innus living in Uashat mak Mani-Utenam photographed important moments of their lives and community. The exhibition Eshi-uapatakanit, Visions of Innu Youth brings together more than 250 photos by these young people from 6 to 18 years old who wanted to share them with us.

By revealing other aspects of their lives than those the media usually depict, these photos, taken between May 2003 and April 2004 bring to life a daily experience that may have its share of concerns and problems, but gives a glimpse of the pride these young Innu feel in their people.

With humour, tenderness and awareness, they invite us to discover with them what sets them apart and what brings them closer to all other youth in the world.

This exhibit is a presentation of Shaputuan, the house for Innu cultural heritage in Sept-Iles. Karoline Truchon, an anthropology student at Concordia University, encouraged community youth to take photos of what they liked and liked less in their lives. Afterwards, she discussed their photos with them. Shaputuan and the Innuvelle newspaper backed this initiative from the outset. Since July, Innuvelle has published a Youth page and Shaputuan has offered this travelling exhibit to schools that would like to host it. Information: Sylvie Jourdain (418) 962-4000.

The organizers of this exhibit wish to thank le Secrétariat aux affaires autochtones, radio CKAU, the Monta-gnais Cultural and Educational Institute (ICEM), le Foyer Pishimuss, le Foyer Mishta An Uass, the Uashat mak Mani-Utenam youth centres, Manikanetish school, Johnny Pilot school, Tshishteshinu school, the Uashat mak Mani-Utenam health centre and LandInSIGHTS for their respective support in making this project a reality.

From June 04 to June 26 2004

What spirits, niwaskw in the Abenaki tongue, have been skulking about hereabouts? What web have they woven, what snares have they set, to have brought a group of First Nations’ artists works to the walls of a Montreal gallery?

There is no word in their aboriginal languages for art. And yet, each of the artistic processes we are presenting bears the mark of a reflection on the meaning of art, and of so-called “aboriginal art”.

Jacques Néwashish, an Atikamek painter and engraver from Wémotaci, has a long familiarity with contemporary performance and installation practices. His works are not merely expressive; through his techniques and iconography, they are much more a prolongation of territory than a representation of it. Néwashish is unique in the way he physically invests the locations where he works, by transplanting real shares of his own universe, altered or not.

Véronique Thusky is an Anishnabe embroiderer from Lac-Rapide. Her works, the thread of legends, present a modern and paradoxical approach to an ancestral technique. As Whites showed too keen an interest for these embroidered objects, the women of her community had got into the habit of disguising traditional motifs. Using this technique to depict Anishnabe myths of origins and exhibiting them in full view, Véronique Thusky has cleverly turned about the strategies of many contemporary artists.

Tom Bulowski takes us on a journey from myth to dream and from dream to imagination. His wood engravings exacerbate his commitment to carve the rich legacy of his Anishnabe origins into modernity, through their sharp contrasts. They are a bold leap over the chasm between these two poles. This sincere approach is rich with promise.

Cree artist and poet Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau continues her sensitive body of work in which family and territory, mythical animals, plants and rocks make up an organic world, constantly renewing its own energy. In her world, a powerful wind of deeply-rooted creativity bursts forth, based on a thorough knowledge of the major issues shaking the contemporary art world. The works on paper she has contributed here are strongly expressive, testimonials to her open and generous sense of identity and belonging. In formal terms, the paper surface becomes the territory where the Medicine Woman finds means of healing.

Abenaki-Wendat Christine Sioui Wawanoloath has borrowed the trickster’s jokes to immerse us in a rather joyful Creation story. Under the sign of the horned Shaman, a nuptial dance leads to the sexes separating. The artist has created a complex mythic world, an original Genesis whose codes and signs could snare some naive observers. Christine Sioui Wawanoloath’s art lies in revealing the essence in the guise of mischievous spirituality. Her red goddess and her androgynous dancers are proof that laughter is sacred.