Sun Transformation Mask by Kwakwaka'wakw master carver Bill Henderson is a striking piece of art. It reflects traditional mask imagery of Henderson's matriarchal ancestors, the Quocksister/Kwawkseestahla family of coastal British Columbia. Playing on traditional presentations of transformation, but with contemporary technical magic, using a motion sensor and lighting, the mask undergoes a dramatic visual shift – like a diptych-in-one – when someone approaches.
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Bill Henderson, "Sun Transformation Mask," 2005
red cedar, acrylic paint and abalone, 64" x 61" x 14" (courtesy the artist, photo by Bluetree Photography)
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Bill Henderson, "Sun Transformation Mask," 2005
red cedar, acrylic paint and abalone, 64" x 61" x 14" (courtesy the artist, photo by Bluetree Photography)
The mask, held by the Museum of Campbell River on Vancouver Island, is featured in a new large-format coffee-table book, Knowledge Within: Treasures of the Northwest Coast. The book well represents the challenges and accomplishments of 17 institutions, both settler and Indigenous, that house, display and care for such items in the Pacific Northwest. It has facilitated a deeper understanding, given my settler ancestry, of the region’s Indigenous art and material culture.
The Great Hall at the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre in Whistler
B.C., features an ocean-going hunting canoe of the Squamish Nation and carved house posts. (photo by Logan Swayze)
The volume is a little akin to a road trip that ranges from the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, Alaska, to Victoria’s Royal B.C. Museum, some 2,700 kilometres to the south. Along the way, there are stops at places like the ’Ksan Historical Village and Museum in the northern town of Hazelton, B.C., the Haida Gwaii Museum at Kay Llnagaay, the U’Mista Cultural Centre at Alert Bay (off the northern end of Vancouver Island), and the Audain Art Museum at Whistler.
The book, conceptualized as a gazetteer, is edited by scholar Caitlin Gordon-Walker, and curated by Pam Brown, Jisgang Nika Collison, Anthony Alan Shelton and Jodi Simkin. It’s a compendium with chapters contributed by curators or managers at each institution. They present explanatory texts and images of art, ceremonies and buildings.
Knowledge Within offers a rich selection of works and makers, along with insights into Indigenous societies and cultures. The museums are well profiled – their histories, activities and exhibitions have grown with evolved understandings of the sources, merits and values of the works in their collections. No longer characterized by settler institutions as artifacts or craft, most pieces in the book are recognized as significant works of art that carry stories and are informed by cultural memory, often with conceptual or material underpinnings.
Emily Tom, “Cedar-root basketry,” 1960
cedar root, cherry bark and grass, sizes vary (collection of Museum of Vancouver, photo by Bill McLennan)
The ongoing shift in settler museum philosophy and methodology in relation to Indigenous art is articulated by Sharon Fortney, curator of Indigenous collections at the Museum of Vancouver: “We have moved away from ‘experts’ telling stories about others, to people telling stories about themselves, enabling reconnections with traditional knowledge.” This point is echoed throughout the book, particularly by Indigenous speakers.
The texts occasionally refer to Truth and Reconciliation actions and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. So, we are reading and observing through both the broad lens of current understandings of colonization and theft (intentional or not) of cultural production, and the return of works to home communities and regions. We’re also shown the present careful reinterpretation of works’ contexts when held by responsible institutions, curators and minders.
Bill Reid, “The Spirit of Haida Gwaii: The Jade Canoe,” 1994
bronze cast (2/2), jade green patina, installation view at Vancouver International Airport (photo by Kenji Nagai)
Surprising is the fact that the Vancouver Airport Authority, via its YVR Art Foundation, is among the largest privately owned collectors and presenters of Northwest Coast Indigenous art, with some 200 works. The foundation has commissioned many of these since the early 1990s. Some are permanently installed in prominent locations in the airport. One is Dempsey Bob’s sculpture, The Story of Fog Woman and Raven, made from cedar, paint and stone. Bob (Tahltan/Tlingit) is quoted on the meaning of the sculpture, which has ecological overtones: “We’re losing our salmon. And the Fog Woman is the one that calls the salmon back.” The narrative and images made me want to visit the airport to see these works firsthand.
Another of my stops would be at Prince Rupert’s Museum of Northern British Columbia, to see how artistic expression was derived from, and woven into, everyday life. In the words of museum director Susan Marsden, imagery representing lineage relationships is expressed via “crest poles, interior house posts, bowls, and spoons; and painted on housefronts, leather tunics, and dance aprons – and, more recently, sewn on button blankets and vests …” It seems every item, every surface, becomes a vehicle for expression beyond mere utility. One marvels at such richness.
Peter Morin, “This Song is a Museum,” 2011
drums (elk skin, deer skin, wood, sinew and ink) and drumstick (diamond willow wood, rabbit skin, plastic beads, sinew, hide, fibre, metal and ink), sizes vary (collection of UBC Museum of Anthropology, courtesy the artist, photo by Alina Ilyasova)
I was struck by three contrasting items, contemporary, yet tied to tradition – Beau Dick’s compact sculpture Raven Rattle at the Vancouver Art Gallery; Debra Sparrow’s weaving at the UBC Museum of Anthropology; and Peter Morin’s This Song Is a Museum, also at the Museum of Anthropology. Each piece is engaging – Dick’s for its reference to the handing down of traditional narratives; Sparrow for her blanket’s intricate design and fastidious rendering; and Morin’s for his conceptual tribute to the power of the traditional drum, elegant and silent, and, for me, echoing ceremony, yet also loss and the stain of grief.
There is much creative wealth to be found in this attractive volume, which presents the various “treasure houses” – the repositories that hold Pacific Northwest work – sharing it for wider benefit and learning, locally and beyond. I’m also thinking about using Knowledge Within practically as an enticing guide that beckons me to hit the road for a journey of wonderment and new understanding. ■
Knowledge Within: Treasures of the Northwest Coast, edited by Caitlin Gordon-Walker: Museum of Anthropology/Figure 1 Publishing, 2022.
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