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Plural

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Workman 1

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Mackenzie

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Review

Yasmine Whaley-Kalaora (she/they) is an artist/writer/arts worker of mixed Turkish and settler-Canadian heritage living and working on the territories of the xᵂməθkᵂəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ First Nations. Yasmine’s practice currently encompasses video, audio scores, collecting/archiving, performance, and writing.

Visiting the Richmond Art Gallery (RAG) feels a bit like being swallowed. Gently lured inside by sliding glass doors that open like a sideways mouth, I slide down the sloping rampway into the opening of two exhibitions: “Codes of silence” and “Sunny Side Up and other sorrowful stories” (both 2022), the latter being artist Mike Bourscheid’s first Canadian solo show. I am met first by “Codes,” which draws on RAG curator Zoë Chan’s research into how documentary film practices foreground un(der)told histories. Bringing four thematically varied video works together with paintings from the RAG’s permanent collection, Chan’s research highlights soft forms of articulation that tactically use silence to communicate complex subject matter. During her curatorial tour, Chan explains how Kevin Quashie’s book _The Sovereignty of Quiet_ (2012) influenced her research process. In this text, Quashie investigates how “quiet,” a metaphor for inner contemplation, offers a framework for everyday practices that might not be legible under the expectation of audibly public responses to anti-Blackness. Thinking alongside Quashie’s work, Chan carves out space to let the works quietly speak for themselves, inquiring into what might surface when self-expression is not driven by the necessity of politicized action. 

In the mouth of the gallery a striking projection of Caroline Monnet’s _Creatura Dada_ (2016) fills the entire right wall. Monnet’s short film engulfs the viewer with a scene of vibrant colours and festive dining. Gathered to celebrate renowned filmmaker and activist Alanis Obomsawin, six Indigenous women, including Monnet herself, converse around a table loaded with fruit and seafood. The scene’s dialogue is replaced with an original score. During the tour, Chan spoke about Monnet’s choice to leave out the audio from the dinner, relaying that back in 2018 the artist told her over email: “I decided not to include the voice recordings because I like the fact people might think we are planning a revolution. These conversations and sharing of experiences belong to us.” Monnet’s choice creates a distinct air of excitement and mystery, entreating viewers to listen instead to what is communicated beyond words. 

Across the gallery, Cauleen Smith’s _Black and Blue Over You (After Bas Jan Ader for Ishan)_ (2010) acknowledges the limits of language in articulating grief, and employs gesture instead. Staged as a compositional nod to the Dutch conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader’s 1974 film _Primary Time_, Smith’s video turns the process of floral arrangement into an allegory for the process of grieving. Using flowers evoking the colouration of bruising, Smith memorializes the tragic death of Ishan, the nephew of a close friend, as she continually attempts to complete the bouquet. However, as with grieving, a sense of completion is not readily obtainable. In the accompanying score, a jazz improvisation by Anthony Braxton serves as an interlocuter for the complexities of grief, speaking where words fail. 

Shirley Bruno’s _Tezen_ (2016) also uses song. Bruno’s short film depicts a Kreyòl folk-tale continuously reinterpreted through song. Working with a Haitian family, the Charleses, Bruno captures intimate moments of daily life, focusing mainly on the youngest daughter who is growing up and branching out from her family. Dialogue is kept to a minimum, allowing quietness to become its own ghostly character. In _Tezen_, meaning surfaces less through narrative and more through glances and gestures that reveal fragments of inner contemplation. 

Aleesa Cohene’s _Kathy_ (2020) presents a cinematic montage of actress Kathy Bates’s oeuvre. Cohene’s single-channel video draws attention to the static character roles Bates is frequently cast in due to Hollywood beauty standards. Cohene edits together clips of striking interiority and intimate dynamism to write over the crude characterization of Bates. Here, and throughout “Codes,” notions of cinematic performativity begin to soften, revealing quiet inner worlds. 

As I exit “Codes,” a sitcom-esque prop door marks the transition into “Sunny Side Up and other sorrowful stories.” Silence begins to feel much more personal. The octagonal gallery is set up like the back room of a well-cared-for but abandoned film set; there are wooden props holding costumes, a bed with furry feet sticking out from the duvet, a pair of wig-gloves on the wall, and three colourful nose castings memorialized like tiny taxidermied wall hangings. In “Sunny Side Up,” Bourscheid mixes fiction with family history as he turns to themes of parenting, domestic labour, and the unspoken interpersonal resonances of familial trauma. Set up across the room from each other are two screens, each playing one channel of Bourscheid’s autofictional film _Agnes_ (2022). Featured prominently in the film are the pairs of wig-gloves and wig-slippers that Bourscheid’s character, dressed in a rotation of costumes, wears as he goes about his daily tasks. Eventually, the wigs become their own sentient actors in the film. Through dialogue, viewers are clued in to the wearer’s motivations, and the meanings behind many of the mysterious and seemingly random objects in the room. As with most autobiographical works, the layers of personal references are complex and at times hard for an external viewer to understand. However, by employing absurdity and a sombre humour, Bourscheid brings a lightness to the messiness of working with personal subject matter. Through the wigs’ dialogue, I am reminded of the polyvocality which underlies any family history, leaving the potential for complete comprehension virtually unattainable. Rather than understand all the references Bourscheid has woven into his handmade works, I find myself supplanting some of my own familial narratives, with my own experience becoming a character in its own right. 

Turning to nonverbal forms of communication, “Codes” and “Sunny Side Up” present examples of communicative agency, revealing the power that comes when the choice to convey or withhold is left up to the individual. By redirecting our attention to internal resonances, the diverse narratives held in this space can intermingle. Toward the end of _Agnes_, the wearer cleans the wigs after a long day of use. Like the wigs, we too collect particles and absorb relics from our daily interactions, and like the wigs, after use we need care. As I moved through the exhibitions, I absorbed sentiments that reminded me of the messy places where celebration, growing, and grieving overlap. 

A hand holding a blonde curly wig by their side.

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Writer

Gossip, as “unverified” information, has complex relations to power. As a historically maligned oral tradition, with gendered roots, it asks that we question our sources—who we trust and why—as well as who has been afforded belief or legitimization over others. In this issue, gossip takes various forms, from a mode of subversion under settler-colonial states to speculative fiction; it is revealed in the archives, in silence, and in its failures to resist authoritarian imaginings or institutional exploitation. After all, why do we gossip?


Gossip

A series of photos of a woman holding flowers

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“Codes of silence” and “Sunny Side Up and other sorrowful stories” ran from 28 January to 2 April 2023 at Richmond Art Gallery. “Codes of silence” included work by Shirley Bruno, Aleesa Cohene, Caroline Monnet, and Cauleen Smith.

“Codes of silence” — Shirley Bruno, Aleesa Cohene, Caroline Monnet, Cauleen Smith “Sunny Side Up and other sorrowful stories” — Mike Bourscheid

Charissa von Harringa is a contemporary art curator, arts writer, and PhD candidate (ABD, 2023) in Art History at Concordia University in Montreal, QC. She is the co-curator of the international circumpolar exhibition “Among All These Tundras” (2018), and Associate Curator for “Tusarnitut! Music Born of the Cold” (2022) at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She is also a contributor and co-editor of the forthcoming publication _Arctic Prisms: Contemporary Arts from Across Inuit Nunaat and Sápmi_, published by Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery.


A cozy glow, like soft blaze issuing from a hearth, infuses the entrance of “ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” (2022). Visitors are welcomed by a replica of a northern porch, designed by Taqralik Partridge and Tiffany Shaw. Hunting, camping, and fishing gear are arranged along a makeshift divider designed with repurposed plywood and two-by-fours—everyday essentials for life and mobility on the land. The divider cleverly marks the transition between interior and exterior experiences of home and land. 

Cocurated by Joar Nango, Partridge, Jocelyn Piirainen, and Rafico Ruiz, “ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” engages the reterritorialization of home and everyday space in creative and inventive ways, reflecting on how Arctic Indigenous communities relate to land and create empowered, self-determined spaces of home and belonging. The central premise of the Inuit and Sámi curators’ statement is that “caring for and living on the land is a way of being.” These thematics are grounded in a compelling and forward-thinking compilation of installations, video, photography, archival materials, and a delightful ad hoc library.
 
Echoing from a remixed radio program produced by DJ Geronimo Inutiq, _Uvatinni Uqaalajunga / J’appelle chez nous / I’m Calling Home_ (2022), are the beautiful sounds of kattajaq (Inuit throat-singing) in a mesmerizing rendition of _ayaya_ by Adina Tarralik Duffy, an English-Inuktitut rap song by John Awa, and a local advisory weather report by Jarvis Usuituayuk. These pieces reverberate across the galleries from a nostalgic mini boom box set within a domestic tableau, a work collectively produced in collaboration with members from Inutiq’s home community, Usuituayuk, Tommy Kingwatsiak, Annie Hickey, and Patrick Michael. Centrally placed between companion chairs, the intimacy of the spatial arrangement encourages visitors to sit and listen. The installation reinforces the notion of borderless space through radio and community broadcasting, which connects Inuit living in the South to home and family up North. 

In an adjacent gallery, visitors are greeted by the textile installation _Offernat_ (Votive Night) (2022) by Sámi artist Carola Grahn, in collaboration with master craftsman Ingemar Israelsson. A hanging neon-green printed textile piece with strung brass rings resembling the northern lights, a winding river path, or the fringe of a Sámi woman’s gákti (skirt) guide the eyes toward a ceremonial plinth bearing a beautifully crafted duodji (Sámi handicraft) piece carved from birch burl and beset with flowers and leaves. In an interview with cocurator Ruiz, the artist noted how “putting this duodji— this craft—as an altar makes it special. To have it as a centrepiece is also a gesture of saying this is something very, very important.” Grahn invokes Sámi futures through an Arctic Indigenous design ethos that emphasizes ceremony and reciprocity with the landscape. This Arctic Indigenous cosmology is cleverly reimagined as a functional design principle, much like duodji itself, where the artists conceive of the exhibited craft as a welcoming object activated by museum staff and visitors who are encouraged to add or replace the offerings. 

A research station resembling a pin-up studio within the exhibition, called “Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic,” features the imaginative design productions following a series of collective conversations, seminars, and workshops. Characteristic of many of the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s (CCA) exhibitions, this research-driven gallery showcases how Arctic Indigenous designers imagine their own sovereign architectural futures. With a focus on land-based practices and Indigenous knowledges in the design process, the resulting works are based on a series of seminars and workshops coorganized by Ella den Elzen, Gunvor Guttorm, and Nicole Luke, and undertaken by Inuit and Sámi participants: Robyn Adams, Jenni Hakovirta, Berit Kristine Andersen Guvsám, Laila Susanna Kuhmunen, Andrea McIntosh, Johanna Minde, Reanna Merasty, Naomi Ratte, and Magnus Antaris Tuolja. The participating curators, designers, and photographers live or travel between the North and South. Luke, for instance, repurposes an everyday object from the Arctic: a sealskin stretcher. For _Arctic Buildings, Nunavut_ (2021) the stretcher frames a collage of photographs from the artist’s childhood, and a recent trip back to Nunavut, the artist’s homeland. 

Cocurator Nango’s _Sámi Architectural Library_ (2022) epitomizes one of the exhibition’s underlying messages: that Arctic Indigenous architecture continues to be forged in peripatetic, adaptable, resourceful, and inter-relational ways. Designed after the mobile library _Girjegumpi_ (2018), Nango’s built library, designed with wood, repurposed construction materials, books, bark, fish skin, and video, is a generous public resource and social space offering the visitor an opportunity to sit with a collection of books related to Arctic Indigenous architectures, history, theory, and criticism. _Sámi Architectural Library_ is designed by the architect to facilitate public reflection on Indigenous architectures that can displace Eurocentric approaches toward cultural, embodied, material, and socio-spatial architectural contexts. 

Through a curatorial emphasis on “the knowledge and experiences of being at home on the land,” this substantive and self-aware exhibition extends consideration toward diverse publics through its curatorial emphasis on access and inclusivity. As reflected in the entrance’s northern porch, the exhibition is structurally and symbolically emblematic of a safe and welcoming presence for Indigenous communities. “ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” is a tremendous achievement—one that opens doors for future research and collaborative opportunities at the CCA. It is a homecoming for emerging Indigenous designers, scholars, curators, and creators. 

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Studio space with various storage and display areas and a bed in the corner. 

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“ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” included work by asinnajaq, Carola Grahn and Ingemar Israelsson, Geronimo Inutiq, Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, and Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic Workshop participants, and ran from 11 June 2022 to 26 March 2023 at Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. Curated by Joar Nango, Partridge, Jocelyn Piirainen, and Rafico Ruiz. 


“ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” — asinnajaq, Carola Grahn and Ingemar Israelsson, Geronimo Inutiq, Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic

“ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” — asinnajaq, Carola Grahn and Ingemar Israelsson, Geronimo Inutiq, Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic Workshop Participants

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