Riding Lines Nadia Myre

bead appliqued on black felt. Nadia's colour scheme was derived from the context of the colonizers and colonized, and how white people constructed this ...
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Riding Lines

Nadia Myre

Nadia Myre Riding Lines ll/Jan./01 - 16/Feb./01

Artist-In-Residence

Centre d'art Indien Indian Art Centre 10 Wellington, Hull QC

(MAINC)(DIAND)

ARTIST STATEMENT Nadia Myre is a visual artist of Algonquin descent, born in Montreal, Quebec. She is a graduate of Camosun College and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.

RIDING LINES Investigates the act of balancing Canada's colonial history by foregrounding the native subtext upon which it was built. Reinscribing the voice of the other, each piece is a monument to this, as it navigates from past to present. Nadia Myre

RIDING LINES//NADIA MYRE In the exhibition "Riding Lines", artist Nadia Myre is investigating her history, searching for a better understanding of her own personal identity. Through the use of iconic artifacts like the canoe, wampum belt and the Indian Act, Nadia inserts herself into her culture by altering these objects with her own personal practices and ideas. Nadia Myre is of Algonquin ancestry from the Kitigan Zibi First Nation reserve. She completed her studies at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, and is now attending Concordia University, to acquire her Master's degree. Since arriving in Montreal Nadia's focus has been on her mother's native ancestry. Like many, finding a place to fit into any cultures has been one of her difficulties, "...I'm a Anglophone living in Quebec, my family's French, my mother's native," she says. In this exhibition, she is creating a space for herself and the viewer. The artifacts within the installation are intertwined with the cultural, the historical, and the personal. Nadia started out as a reactionary artist, using text and word-play as a way to respond to her surroundings. Her work was site oriented, and the use of language acted as a social commentary. An example of this was a graffiti piece stencilled at the corner of East Hastings and Princess Street, in Vancouver. Spray painted on the wall was the statement "spread-eagle looking for good wolf on full moon". It was located in a desperate neighbourhood, where drugs and prostitution are the routine and the media portrays this area as a burial ground for young native women. What Nadia attempts to do here is to create an awareness that these are actual people by marking a territory for them. Wanting to create a larger discourse in her work, she is now moving beyond basic one-liners by exchanging the word play for material play. In Nadia's newest work she has removed the text totally, and is exploring her desire to look at the horizontal line as a separating factor, a dividing factor, and a space unto its own. Hover Baby Hover, the first work produced for this exhibition, is the

genesis of the other works created for Riding Lines. Hover Baby Hover was originally exhibited at the Montreal Telegraph building in Montreal, as a site-specific installation. This building was the first place news was received about World War II. The installation consists of a steel frame, gun metal blue, implanted into the wall. The contents of the frame is an 11 foot bandage dipped in resin, with pieces of metal, rust and blood stains. This piece references Native involvement in the war, their lack of honourable mention, and the use of native language as a code. In this installation Nadia physically inserts herself into the piece, by using her own blood. The blood circles that are deposited every few inches reads out like a language or Morse code, in beeps. It also raises the issue of veterans' loss of their native status. Their enfranchisement or "forfeiture" of their status in order to enlist, created a generation of "urban Indians", native people were required to live offreserve^). The denial of Native people's status by the Canadian government also has personal implications for Nadia, which she examines in her next piece. The next artifact is a work in progress titled the The Indian Act. In doing some research for a paper, Nadia came across the document on the internet. She downloaded it and then began to cross out all the words. Intuitively, the activity evolved into a piece where she could exchange the word play for material play, by transcribing the Indian Act into beadwork. The pages themselves are beaded in red, in a lazy stitch, and she has replaced the text with lines of white beads. Each page is bead appliqued on black felt. Nadia's colour scheme was derived from the context of the colonizers and colonized, and how white people constructed this document. Trying to define 'the Indian', Nadia feels that the Indian Act is composed of a series of limited definitions, but at the same time, expresses an experience that is more vast. In her final presentation each page will be placed in shadow boxes, referencing museum cases, and continuing to situate the work as a document or artifact. She is rewriting the Indian Act, which was never translated into a native language but nevertheless defines native people. She asks, " if there was a universal native tongue, what would that be? It might be more pictorial and visual." 1 Viviane Gray, "Indian Artists* Statements Through Time" in In the Shadow of the Sun: Perspectives on Contemporary Native Art, Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, pp. 137-164.

Hover Baby Hover, 1999

Hover Baby Hover, 1999 (detail)

Hover Baby Hover, 1999

Hover Baby Hover, 1999 (detail)

In A History in Two Parts, Nadia inserts herself into another native practice through the building of a canoe. Her history is that of an urbanite from Montreal going away to summer camp. "I'd go to St. Saveur, at this camp and do these two-week portages or month treks in Algonquin Park and La Verendrye, which are the Algonquin hunting grounds. I didn't know that! So it was weird to go back to Maniwaki and see the place where my great-grandfather hunts was the same place where I would go canoeing in the summertime." For this installation Nadia got an aluminum canoe from the summer camp that she attended and has cut the aluminum canoe in half, building a birch bark section onto the stern of the vessel. By using materials such as birch bark, cedar, spruce root, and duminum to physically attach the two sections together, she is also bridging her great-grandfathers history together with her own personal history. Through this work Nadia is looking at her own history of growing up in the city, which is how she encountered the two row wampum. Monument to Two Row, the final artifact in this exhibition is based on the Two Row Wampum Belt, a treaty between the Mohawk and the Dutch. Already understood as a popular symbol, the wampum is an icon for all Native peoples. Nadia was attracted to the wampum because of its aesthetic (the lines) and of course the theme, "a treaty about two people coexisting, two nations coexisting but not necessarily interfering with each other." Historically this treaty reads through the use of cultural metaphors, translating the visual into a language. Again Nadia is attempting to insert herself into this Native history, and attempting to bring that knowledge to other people. She wanted to show the historical importance of the wampum by displaying it as a monument. Its granite base makes it a literal physical monument. But for Nadia this piece functions as a monument to herself and all the works in Riding Lines function in that manner. Collectively the artifacts in Riding Lines create a place where relationships and interrelationships converge, with the understanding that we might not function together, but we appreciate that the other exists, with a mutual respect and a mutual honouring. Frank Shebageget Curatorial Assistant

QUELQUES MOTS SUR L'ARTISTE Nadia Myre est une visualiste de descendance algonquine, nee a Montreal, au Quebec. Elle est diplomee du Comosun College et du Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.

RIDING LINES (LIGNES DE PARCOURS) Cette exposition tente de nuancer l'histoire coloniale du Canada en mettant en avant-plan le « non-dit» autochtone sur lequel elle s'est construite. Regravant la voix de l'autre, chaque piece constitue un monument a cette vision des choses, dans son passage du passe au present. Nadia Myre

RIDING LINES//NADIA MYRE Dans l'exposition « Riding Lines (Lignes de parcours) », I'artiste Nadia Myre scrute son histoire, cherchant a mieux comprendre sa propre identite. Par rintermediaire d'artefacts iconiques, comme le canot, la ceinture wampum et la Loi sur les Indiens, Nadia s'insere dans sa culture en conferant a ces objets des formes correspondant a ses manieres et idees personnelles. Nadia Myre est de descendance algonquine; elle est de la reserve de la Premiere nation Kitigan Zibi. Elle a termine ses etudes au Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, et poursuit actuellement des etudes de maitrise a l'Universite Concordia. Depuis qu'elle est arrivee a Montreal, Nadia cristallise toute son attention sur l'heritage autochtone de sa mere. Comme pour beaucoup d'autres, trouver un endroit d'integration culturelle n'a pas ete facile :«Je suis une anglophone qui vit au Quebec, ma famille est francaise, et ma mere est autochtone », dit-elle. Dans cette exposition, elle cree un espace pour elle-meme et pour le spectateur. Les artefacts de rinstallation ont des resonnances a la fois culturelles, historiques et personnelles. A ses debuts comme artiste, Nadia a voulu reagir par l'ecriture et les jeux de mots a son entourage immediat; le message vehicule par ses oeuvres se voulait porteur d'un regard et d'observations sur la societe. Comme dans le graffiti par pulverisation et pochoir qu'elle a realise au coin de East Hastings et Princess Street, a Vancouver. Sur le mur on peut lire : « spread-eagle looking for good wolf on full moon » (grand aigle cherche bon loup soir de pleine lune). II est sitae dans un quartier abominable, ou la drogue et la prostitution font partie du quotidien, et que les medias decrivent comme un cimetiere pour jeunes femmes autochtones. Ce que Nadia veut c'est faire prendre conscience au monde que ces gens appartiennent au genre humain, en leur delimitant un territoire. Voulant elargir la portee de son message, elle a remplace les jeux de mots par des jeux de matieres. Dans ses dernieres oeuvres, delaissant les courts messages et toute forme de texte, elle explore son desir de

The Indian Act, 2001

The Indian Act, 2001

perception de la ligne horizontale comme facteur de separation et de division, et comme espace en soi. Hover Baby Hover, la premiere oeuvre qu'elle a realisee pour cette exposition, est a l'origine des autres oeuvres creees pour Riding Lines. Hover Baby Hovers initialement ete exposee au Centre telegraphique de Montreal, a titre d'installation localisee. C'est dans cet edifice que sont parvenues les premieres nouvelles concernant la Deuxieme Guerre mondiale. Cette installation se compose d'une charpente metallique en bronze bleute, inseree dans le mur. Les parties constitutives de la charpente sont: un bandage de 11 pieds de longueur, qui a ete trempe dans de la resine, avec des morceaux de metal, de la rouille et des taches de sang. L'oeuvre fait allusion a l'engagement des Autochtones pendant la guerre, a 1'absence de mention honorable a leur sujet, et a l'emploi de la langue autochtone comme code secret. Nadia s'investit physiquement dans cette installation en utilisant son propre sang. Les cercles de sang qui la parsement a intervalles de quelques pouces se lisent comme un langage, du morse, une serie de bips. L'oeuvre souleve aussi la question de la perte du statut d'Autochtone qu'ont du subir ces anciens combattants. Leur affranchissement ou leur « renoncement» a leur statut afin de pouvoir s'enroler, a cree une generation d'« Indiens urbains », d'Autochtones tenus de vivre a l'exterieur des reserves (1). La denegation du statut des Autochtones par le gouvernement du Canada a aussi des repercussions sur la vie de Nadia, repercussions qu'elle examine dans la piece suivante. L'artefact suivant est une oeuvre en cours d'elaboration, intitulee The Indian Act (la Loi sur les Indiens). Alors qu'elle faisait des recherches sur Internet pour la redaction d'un document, elle est tombee sur ce document. Elle l'a telecharge, puis elle a commence a barrer tous les mots. Intuitivement, cette activite s'est transformee en une oeuvre ou elle pouvait remplacer les jeux de mots par des jeux de matieres, en transcrivant la Loi sur les Indiens en perlage. Les pages elles-memes sont brodees de perles rouges, au point lache, et des rangees de perles blanches remplacent le texte. Chaque page est brodee de perles sur fond 1 Viviane Gray, "Indian Artists' Statements Through Time" in In the Shadow of the Sun: Perspec tives on Contemporary Native Art, Huh, Quebec; Canadian Museum of Civilization, pp.137-164.

de feutre noir. Pour la combinaison de couleurs, Nadia s'est inspiree du contexte des colonisateurs et des colonises, et de la facon dont les Blancs ont redige ce document. Dans sa tentative de definir l'lndien, Nadia a l'impression que la Loi sur les Indiens se compose en fait d'une serie de definitions restrictives, mais qui en meme temps traduisent une experience beaucoup plus vaste. Dans sa presentation definitive, chaque page sera placee dans un coffrage symbolisant une vitrine de musee, continuant de faire de cette oeuvre un objet d'artefact. Elle reecrit la Loi sur les Indiens qui n'a jamais ete traduite dans une langue autochtone, mais qui pourtant definit les Autochtones.« Si une langue maternelle universelle existait, en quoi consisterait-elle? Peut-etre qu'elle serait plus picturale, plus visuelle », se demande-t-elle. Dans A History in Two Parts (Une histoire en deux parties), Nadia s'insere dans une autre coutume autochtone: la construction d'un canot. Son histoire est celle d'une citadine de Montreal qui se rend a son camp d'ete. « Je partais pour St-Sauveur, pour me rendre a ce camp, afin de passer deux semaines a faire du portage, ou bien un mois a faire de la randonnee dans les pares Algonquin et La Verendrye, qui sont les deux territoires de chasse algonquins. Je ne le savais pas! C'etait vraiment bizarre de revenir a Maniwaki et de voir que I'endroit ou mon arriere-grand-pere chassait etait maintenant I'endroit ou j'allais passer l'ete a faire du canot. » Pour cette installation, Nadia s'est procure un canot en aluminium, au camp ou elle passait l'ete, puis elle l'a fait couper en deux et a construit une partie en ecorce de bouleau qu'elle a placee a l'arriere. En utilisant des materiaux comme de l'ecorce de bouleau, du cedre, des racines d'epinette et de l'durninium pour fixer les deux parties ensemble, elle fait le lien entre rhistoire de ses arriere-grands-peres et sa propre histoire. A travers cette oeuvre, Nadia observe sa propre histoire de petite fille qui a grandi en ville, et qui l'a amenee a connaitre le wampum a deux rangs. Monument to Two Row (Monument a deux rangs), le dernier artefact de cette exposition s'inspire du Two Row Wampum Belt, un traite qui a ete signe entre les Mohawk et les Hollandais. Deja percu comme un

symbole populaire, le wampum est l'icone des Autochtones. Nadia a ete attiree par le wampum a cause de ses qualites esthetiques (ses lignes), mais aussi a cause de sa thematique:« deux peuples qui cohabitent mais qui n'interviennent pas forcement dans les affaires de l'autre ». D'un point de vue historique, ce traite renvoie a des metaphores culturelles, traduisant ce qui est visuel en langage. Nadia essaie encore une fois de s'inserer dans l'histoire autochtone et de transmettre cette connaissance aux autres. Elle voulait montrer l'importance historique du wampum en l'exposant comme monument. Sa base de granit en fait un monument physique au sens litteral. Mais aux yeux de Nadia, ce monument fait fonction de monument pour elle-meme, et toutes les pieces de Riding Lines ont la meme fonction. Pris ensemble, les artefacts de Riding Lines creent un espace ou les relations et les interrelations convergent; nous savons que nous ne marchons pas forcement ensemble, mais nous apprecions Fexistence de l'autre, en nous respectant et en nous honorant mutuellement. Frank Shebageget Adjoint a la conservation

A History in Two Parts, 2001

A History in Two Parts, 2001

I

Monument to Two Row, 2001

CURRICULUM VITAE EDUCATION 2001

1997 1995

Master of Fine Art -studio/sculpture, Concordia University, Montreal, QC. Studio XX -web design, Montreal, QC. Associes Iibres -graphic design intern Fine Art Degree -studio, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC. Fine Art Associate Degree -studio, Camosun College, Victoria, BC.

FORTHCOMING 2001

Cont(r)act, Galerie Oboro, Montreal, Qc. (solo exhibition curator: Rhonda Meier). May 12th-june 10th

EXHIBITIONS 1999

1998

1997

Out of the Studio, White Mountain Academy of the Arts, Elliot Lake, ON. 48 Hours / 48 Rooms, 4004 rue St. Denis, Montreal, QC. Uh...Ummmm..Ahh...Stop, Montreal Telegraph Gallery, Montreal, QC. Artist Autochtones -1999- Native Artists, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC. Abkssissttstatoaa, Gallery V.A.V, Montreal, QC. Here and Now: First Peoples Perspective 1964-1997, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC. Artropolis: Browser, Presentation House, Vancouver, BC. From the Tunnel of Love: Part 4 & 5, Gallery Sansair,

1996

1995

Vancouver, BC. (solo exhibition). Only Drunks & Children Tell the Truth, Firehall Arts Theater, Vancouver, BC. Wild Women Revue, XChanges Gallery, Victoria, BC. Wild Women Revue (traveling exhibition) Wilna Thomas Cultural Center, Camosun College, Victoria, BC. Suk Enowkin Gallery, Penticton, BC. XChanges Gallery, Victoria, BC. Malaspina College, Duncan, BC. Lucid Dreams, Mixed Nuts Studio, Victoria, BC. Mars Temongraff, XChanges Gallery, Victoria, BC. Look '95 Art Show, Rogue Art, Victoria, BC.

AWARDS A N D SCHOLARSHIPS 2001 1997-9 1997 1995-7

Canada Council National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation Cultural Services British Columbia Vancouver Foundation

BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY Dossier: Amerindiens et Metis, Publication: Spirale, March-April 2000, No. 171, p. 4-5. "Two Row Wampum: When Jack Met Jill", Author: Nadia Myre, Publication: Endnotes, Publisher: Rebell, 2000, p. 54-55. Artistes Autochtones-1999-Native Artist Catalogue, Publisher: Montreal Native Art Centre, 1999, p. 42-43. "Sending a Message From the Old Telegraph", Author: Margot Berrill, Publication: The McGill Daily, 1999, Vol. 88, Issue: 64, p. 8. "Contemporary Traditions", Author: Alisa Gordaneer, Publication: Monday Magazine, May 8/ 95, p. 22.

THANK YOU TO:

Pinock Smith Annette Smith Jo Ottawa Jimmy Whiteduck Dan Whiteduck Doug Gangon Robert Morell Robert Myre Rhonda Meier Frederick Belzile Allyson Adley Dave Hind

Quebec Granite (Denis Delisle) Climatisation Maniwaki (Hughes Lachapelle) C.T. Sports (Pierre Trudel) Trailhead (Chris Harris) Canada Council Kamp Kanawana (Joanne) Sagamok First Nation

Special thanks to the Indian Art Centre Staff January 2001

centre d'art indien (MAINC) Indian Art Centre PIAND)