Human Capital

×

Expand

Chantal Gibson, “The Braided Book: a/Historical In(ter)vention Altered History of Canada (1935)

with B/W photo of my mother (Nova Scotia, 1955) included in (missing Black) Loyalist section,” 2011, mixed media hanging book sculpture, faux suede, acrylic medium, jute rope and metal armature, approx. 12” x 12” x 12” (courtesy of the artist, photo by Don Hall)

Human Capital, a group exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, features work that reflects on themes tied to the experiences and histories of immigrants, settlers and other arrivants to Canada. Organized by assistant curator Tak Pham and on view until April 18, the exhibition turns a critical eye to the federal government’s historical and ongoing treatment of humans as capital through immigration and settlement campaigns – including Canada’s points-based immigration system, in place since 1967.

Regina artist Jeannie Mah’s Train: Les Arrivées, a 2013 porcelain work with photo-transfers and film projections, reflects on the histories of Chinese populations in building Prairie cities like Regina and Yorkton. As an Asian Canadian, Mah has long explored themes of immigration, settlement and memory as well as family and civic histories.

×

Expand

Jeannie  Mah,  ”Train : Les  Arrivées,”  2013

porcelain  with photocopy transfers and underglazes, mirror,  overhead projectors and video, installation view (photo by Don Hall)

The exhibition also looks to the complex and suppressed histories of Black communities in Nova Scotia with Vancouver-based artist Chantal Gibson’s 2011 sculpture, The Braided Book: a/Historical In(ter)vention Altered History of Canada (1935), with B/W photo of my mother (Nova Scotia, 1955) included in (missing Black) Loyalist section.

What is clear, through the curation of this exhibition, is the need to tell marginalized histories as part of Canadian history – all the many stories school textbooks leave out – and to consider the violences of such nation-building through the embodied experiences of BIPOC, Jewish and queer people, particularly in relation to who is “valued,” how and to what effect, in the eyes of a colonial government.

×

Expand

Shellie Zhang, “It’s Complicated,”2019

pholographic metalized polyester vinyl, 24”x 14’ (courtesy of the artist, photo by Don Hall)

Tonally, the works could benefit from more context. Toronto-based artist Shellie Zhang’s 2019 text-based work, It’s Complicated, reads, in all-caps, DIASPORAHAHA in silver metalized polyester vinyl. The aurality of the work, when spoken aloud, begins as if one is saying “diaspora” but transmogrifies into “haha” – laughter as the release of a buildup of tension. 

Overall, the exhibition's mood is sombre, and given the subject matter of xenophobia, structural racism and homophobia, as well as the juxtapositions with nearby works, I can’t imagine laughing. (I’m a white settler viewer and imagine others may have a different experience – for me it was one of discombobulation.) 

Zhang says her work asks questions like, “Who is in on the joke? Who is laughing? Are they laughing with us or at us? Is it a chuckle or a cackle?” But neither the work, nor its curation, hone in on potential answers, choosing instead to keep things open ended.

×

Expand

Human Capital, 2020, installation view at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (photo by Don Hall)

With work by other artists, including Esmaa Mohamoud, Brian Jungen, Aleesa Cohene and Florence Yee, the show was effective in providing gripping snapshots of primarily BIPOC experiences of colonial governmental immigration and settlement policies – both historically and in the present – as well as visual approaches to imagining worlds otherwise. 

There is so much to dig into on the topic of colonial government settlement and humans-as-capital just here on the Prairies – Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, alongside Eastern European, Central Asian and other demographics in Saskatchewan’s history. Ukrainian, Romanian and Turkish people, are also entangled in histories of settlement via humans-as-capital, where different nationalities and classes were given different economic “value” that was then reflected in which land they were allotted by colonial authorities for farming. This is a complex topic warranting a series of exhibitions, perhaps, and one on which I am glad to reflect. ■ 

Human Capital at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina from Dec. 17, 2020 to April 18, 2021.

PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.