Home and Away

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Chantal Fraser, “The Way,” 2018

wind, turbine, generator, rhinestones and steel, detail of installation (courtesy of the artist; photo by Louis Lim)

Much of life is a series of journeys away and return trips home. But for many Indigenous people, home is a particularly fraught thing. 

Diaspora, dispersion, exodus, exile – call it what you will. Being forced to leave one's homeland is an experience that emerges in different ways throughout Transits and Returns, an expansive exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery until Feb. 23. 

In the curatorial ethos, gentler words are used in lieu of displacement – movement, territory, kinship and representation – but they belie the visceral kick packed into many works. 

This third iteration of the show, organized in conjunction with the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, includes 21 Indigenous artists, ranging from Alutiiq territory in Alaska to Māori lands in Aotearoa, the traditional name for New Zealand.

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Bracken Hanuse Corlett, “Qvùtix,” 2018

akoya, abalone and mussel shell buttons, wool and digital animation (courtesy of the artist; photo Carl Warner)

In such a large exhibition, viewers tend to move quickly in order to cover a lot of ground. But it would be better to slow down and spend more time, at least in certain places.

This is especially true for the show’s film installations. Taloi Havini’s Habitat, 2018, a multi-channel digital video is a serious and challenging piece that demands audiences witness and understand history, as well as the ongoing repercussions of violence perpetrated against Indigenous people. 

Spread across four screens, the film unfolds in documentary fashion, tracing the story of the Panguna copper mine on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea. The uprising against the mine precipitated a decade-long conflict that left 20,000 dead. Havini’s family were among the last to flee their homeland. Loss and grief manifest in images so horrifying and beautiful they almost singe your eyes. 

Other works examine conflicts over land and resources, including Ahilapalapa Rands’ 2018 piece, Lift Off. It looks at the struggle over Hawaii’s sacred Mauna Kea Mountain, which attracted global attention when plans to build the Thirty Meter Telescope were announced. Rands’ three-channel animated projections transform the ongoing efforts of the Kānaka Maoli people to protect this sacred site into a subversive celebration of power and silvered confetti. 

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Chantal Fraser, “The Way,” 2018

wind, turbine, generator, rhinestones and steel, installation view (courtesy of the artist: photo by Louis Lim)

In Chantal Fraser’s The Way, 2018, a beaded wind turbine makes reference to the fraught history of the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm on unceded Cahuilla land in California. Located on one of the windiest sections of the Coachella Valley, the wind farm provides much of Southern California’s energy. Fraser’s rhinestone-studded turbine actually works, but in a gallery context, it stands immobile, a glittering diamante statement on the ability of art to encourage social change. 

Amidst stories of struggle, other hopeful ideas emerge, including the possibility of renewal and the comfort of family. Debra Sparrow and her sisters helped resurrect the traditional weaving practises that once occupied a central place in Coast Salish culture. Four of Sparrow’s extraordinary blankets are included in the show, connecting to a cultural lineage that dates back thousands of years. 

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Bracken Hanuse Corlett, “Qvùtix,” 2018

akoya, abalone and mussel shell buttons, wool and digital animation, detail of installation (courtesy of the artist; photo Louis Lim)

Bracken Hanuse Corlett, a Northwest Coast multimedia artist from the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose nations, also uses traditional forms in his work, Qvùtix, the W’uik’ala word for dance blanket. At first glance, the work appears to be a traditional representation of a family crest featuring a thunderbird and double-headed serpent. But a quick duck around the back reveals another reality. Here, history comes to vivid capering life, with an animated sequence of the dance blanket in action. 

Beaded, embellished and silvered with abalone buttons or studded with rhinestones, objects often stand in for human experience. None more so than in the tangled snarls of ideas by Natalie Ball, a Modoc/Klamath artist based in Oregon. She combines pop culture references with anthropomorphic elements – wigs, toys, coyote skulls and beaded moccasins – to create deeply unsettling conflagrations. Her work, I Bind You Nancy, with its nod to the teen-horror film, The Craft, is a perfect embodiment of her car-crash aesthetic. 

To be frank, there is almost too much work in Transits and Returns. Each piece is dense with history and culture. To understand the multiple points of connection and departure, along with the hard-fought struggles to go home again, requires more than one visit. So, go home and then return again, until you’ve taken it all in, one piercing perambulating experience at a time.■ 

Transits and Returns is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery from Sept. 28, 2019 to Feb. 23, 2020.

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