Feet on the Ground

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Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, “Jingle Dress” (detail), 2018 (courtesy of the artist)

According to traditional Indigenous knowledge, there are many physical ways we can heal. Talking, laughing, crying, yawning, yelling, sweating and dancing are ways to express grief, pain and anger, as well as love, joy and happiness.

Cree/German artist Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal has found her own healing through dancing, specifically the Jingle Dress dance. It’s performed at community powwows and the dancer wearing the dress is asked to pray for the hurt and sick, the young and the old.

Cardinal, who was gifted with the spirit name Mahihkan Acahkos Iskwew, or Wolf Star Woman, shares her connection to her culture as well as her journey to reclaim her Indigeneity in her solo exhibition, Feet on the Ground, on view at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary until Jan. 6.

Cardinal’s sketchbook illustration of a jingle dress design meets visitors before they enter the exhibition space. Inside, four dresses are illuminated in a round display. Two are from the Glenbow’s Indigenous material culture collection. The others were created by Cardinal, who grew up in Lloydminster, Sask., and graduated in 2015 from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary.

Without reading the accompanying didactic panel, one might think they were from the same time period. However, the museum’s dresses are from 1910 and around 1950 to 1960, while Cardinal’s dresses were made within the last five years.

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Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, “Jingle Dress,” 2018 (courtesy of the artist)

One of her dresses is adorned with unfired clay jingles instead of the traditional tin. This unique dress was created for a 2015 performance, Back Into Earth: Creation and the Interpretation of Meaning, presented in the exhibition as a single-channel video.

It shows Cardinal dancing down Calgary sidewalks and through green spaces, followed by her mother and sister. The video culminates with Cardinal stepping into a bathtub filled with water. As life-givers, Indigenous women are considered water protectors and carriers, the theme Cardinal appears to be expressing.

Cardinal’s connection to family and culture is evident through photographs of her relatives. Alongside these family photos are archival images from the Glenbow’s collection that depict Indigenous women at powwows dating back to 1910. The effect is to link the past once again to the present, expressing a continuum of ancestral knowledge.

Feet on the Ground is a reassertion of Indigenous representation and voice that resonates soundly within the walls of the Glenbow. ■

Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal’s exhibition, Feet on the Ground, is on view at the Glenbow Museum from Sept. 29, 2018 to Jan. 6, 2019.