Opening the Archives
A Winnipeg show that elevates work by female and non-binary artists considers the body as a site of personal and collective histories.
Dayna Danger, “Gi Jiit,” 2017
digital photograph, 66” x 44”
Winnipeg writer, artist and all-around radical innovator Noor Bhangu is interested in how female and non-binary artists access history and memory through the body.
The show Bhangu curated for Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg – Not the Camera, But the Filing Cabinet: Performative Body Archives in Contemporary Art – takes viewers through a variety of experiences, interpretations and reflective processes.
On view until Nov. 24, it includes 10 national and international artists who work in diverse media, from painting, photography and sculpture to video, audio and performance.
As Bhangu makes clear in her curatorial essay, the aim is not to rescue history or its archives but “to lift women, queer and non-binary voices out of a discourse that is interested in a single story toward one that recognizes agency, diversity and refusal.”
We are thus witness to a revolution. The camera is averted in favour of the filing cabinet, a metaphor for the feminist archive, and artists are shown as the holders of history and information, creating work that deals with issues like trauma, aging, body image and cultural survival.
Ayqa Khan, “Untitled,” 2018
nine digital photographs, each 5” x 5”
Bhangu weaves intimate experiences into the gallery space with great care and solidarity. At the entrance, I was immediately struck by Winnipeg artist Dayna Danger’s Gi Jiit photograph: the subject has glistening skin, a powerful gaze and holds a large set of antlers. The work’s placement signals that viewers are about to have a radical experience.
Other photographs, these by Pakistani-American artist Ayqa Khan, balance and grapple with cultural traditions, expectations and assumptions about body hair and beauty standards.
Sophie Sabet, “Though I am Silent, I Shake,” 2017
single-channel video, 9:14 min.
The three multimedia works in the show bring viewers closer to real-time performance. Sophie Sabet’s single-channel video, Though I am Silent, I Shake, is a narrative journey through trauma via sweeping edits of domestic spaces. Dear Mary, a work by Sarah Ciurysek, a University of Manitoba professor, brings listeners into what she calls sonic photographs, moving through rooms and conversations about memory and experience, both internal and external. And a video by Inuvialuk artist Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter shows sticky pepto-pink syrup running down scarred arms while the intro to the 1970s’ television show Match Game loops in the background.
Susan Aydan Abbott, “Foot,” from the "R.O.T. (Rape Over Time)" series, 2017
silicone and foam, 12” x 9”
Remnants of prior experiences – like the roses from Winnipeg artist Christina Hajjar’s performance, Ghanouj – have been left in the gallery. Silicone moulds of body parts, both fleshy and ragged, by Winnipeg’s Susan Aydan Abbott, give weight to the room’s centre. Her R.O.T. (Rape Over Time) series tackles the uncomfortable but necessary humanization of assault.
Leesa Streifler, “Her Body: Fragility: Legs,” 2016
acrylic on canvas, 30” x 40”
Leesa Streifler, a visual arts professor at the University of Regina, and Matea Radic, a Winnipeg artist born in Sarajevo, reflect on the act of performance in two-dimensional works.
Streifler offers viewers a fluid understanding of the body through contoured and abstracted forms treated with both neon and earthy washes of paint. Meanwhile, Radic’s signature colour palette and dream-like forms overtake her canvases as she weaves stories of longing and belonging.
Matea Radic, “We’ll Never Be Silent,” 2017
gouache and graphite on paper, 12” x 12”
The exhibition is a testament to the important work that curators like Bhangu, a graduate of the University of Winnipeg, are doing to raise the bar in Canadian curation. Jennifer Gibson, over her time as the director at Gallery 1C03, has treated the small space with love, attention and refinement. This show is no exception, engaging necessary voices in the truthful ways needed to shift the dialogue on gender. ■
Not the Camera, But the Filing Cabinet: Performative Body Archives in Contemporary Art is on view at Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg from Sept. 13 to Nov. 24, 2018.
Gallery 1C03
515 Portage Ave, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9
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Open Mon to Fri noon - 4 pm, Sat 1 pm - 4 pm.
