Guides de voyages
Photomontages by Akwiranoron Martin Loft (Mohawk from Kahnawake) and Chris Bose (N'laka'pamux from British Columbia)
Traditions that have forged First Nations identities have kept their relevance (and sometimes their cheek) in this 21st century with all its social, identity, ecological and spiritual questions.
Images derived from Christian iconography (Bose) or the Iroquois legacy (Loft) are assembled using technological arts into iconographies seemingly divergent (but we must go beyond first impressions) to act on unsettled consciences facing an uncertain future.
Because this century will be spiritual or it will not be, as Malraux had prophesized. Martin Loft and Chris Bose's photomontages mark new roads with ancient landmarks. The figure of the guide soon comes along, not as a tutelary authority but as a call from the master to his disciple for him to find the light guiding a walker's steps within himself. The route and the traveller are one and the same and the illumination comes from the soul.
Such an artistic response to essential present-day questions swings the doors to the future wide open and is a powerful call to the spirit's breath.
For more details, see the Canadian Guild of Crafts' website.