Deanna Bowen: Black Drones in the Hive

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Deanna Bowen, detail of “Double Consciousness,” installation view of the exhibition “Black Drones in the Hive,” inkjet prints on archival paper (photo by Blaine Campbell)

Just as the land, the nation, and the national memory are haunted, so too is the colonial archive. – Dr. J.J. Ghaddar

Hidden and forgotten truths haunt our nation’s archives. Despite a multicultural ethos, Canada has a long and buried history of racism built on white supremacy and British imperialism. In the age of reconciliation, the urge to move on or put the haunted past behind us are commonplace Canadian discourse – unless you’re Deanna Bowen.

For more than 20 years, this Montreal-based artist has been deconstructing historical records to expose the racialized undertones in contemporary society. A descendant of two Alabama- and Kentucky-born Black Prairie pioneer families from Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta, Bowen has used her own genealogy to inform her work. Her interdisciplinary practice has evolved to incorporate the significance of Black lives and identity with bold, elegiac narratives that bring violent legacies into the present day. 

Her exhibition, Black Drones in the Hive, is a gritty and illuminating project currently on view at the Esker Foundation in Calgary until Aug. 25.

The exhibition originated as a site-specific commission that played on colonial histories in the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (KWAG) and region; and the terms of the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784, whereby Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) were granted land for their alliance with the British during the American Revolution.

The KWAG exhibition was a result of a years-long collaboration between Bowen and the former senior curator, Crystal Mowry. First presented in 2020, the show has circulated to other Canadian venues through a partnership with the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. 

Drawing on materials from the KWAG’s permanent collection and local and international archives, this multidisciplinary installation is constructed around seven constellations that expose Canada’s colonial past that bear witness to and are thematically clustered around contentious issues like Eugenics, Berlin (renamed Kitchener), Haldimand, The Wars, Slavery, Abolition, and Black Drones. 

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Deanna Bowen, “Eugenics” constellation, installation view of “Black Drones in the Hive” (photo by Blaine Campbell)

In Black Drone for example, authors subjugate real and imaginary subjects in their work using Black stereotypes or caricatures (The Bird of Freedom and the Blackbird), racial slurs (Coon Coon Coon), their status as slaves or labourers, and discriminatory labels as exhibited in a family member’s homestead application that’s marked with the word “coloured.”

Relying on her critical eye and strategies of juxtaposition, Bowen has arranged the constellations on walls labeled with a detailed inventory list and surrounded by other significant objects that weave together narratives about Black labour, migration, racist dispossession, and hierarchies of war and remembrance. Items include an empty statue pedestal, three small Group of Seven paintings, a wall-sized anti Creek-Negro petition from 1911, an Uncle Tom’s Cabin commemorative plate and enlarged postcard, abolitionist coins, and a pair of shackles manufactured and sold to slave owners. 

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Deanna Bowen, “The branded hand of Captain Jonathan Walker, 1845,” from the “Abolition” constellation as part of the exhibition “Black Drones in the Hive,” 2020, inkjet print on archival paper, (courtesy of the artist and MKG127)

It’s important for viewers to understand that some of the descriptive language used in the archival material is outdated and offensive. However, its preservation is crucial for two reasons. First, it acknowledges how Black lives are insufficiently and violently framed within the archival landscape. And secondly, it makes things brutally clear that the archive and its surrounding power structures were created by and specifically for white people.

Bowen’s hope for the show is that viewers will make meaningful connections with recontextualized archives while using her strategy as a catalyst for individuals and institutions face the ghosts of our colonial past by approaching archives and collections with a sense of curiosity, openness, and criticality.

In one final act, the viewer enters a pitch-black room shrouded in darkness. A projection of the jazz trumpeter, Charles Ellison, enters the room like an apparition and performs “Taps,” a bugle call to signify “lights out” and to honour the fallen soldiers. ■

Deanna Bowen, Black Drones in the Hive, is on view at the Esker Foundation in Calgary until August 25.

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