Water Meets Body

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Katherine Boyer, “Water Meets Body,” 2019, installation view at Gallery 1C03, Winnipeg (photo by Lindsey Bond)

Water Meets Body dives, breaststrokes and doggy paddles through the layered depths of Métis experience and familial histories.

The exhibition, on view until April 6 in Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg, serves as a prequel to work Katherine Boyer produced for her 2018 MFA show, Labour is in the Body, Time is in the Bridge.

Boyer’s exhibitions are encapsulated as stories. They tug at memory, reminding us to think about moments or people that have been forgotten, and what implications that may have for the future.

Conversations about displacement and the resulting hardships are common in Canada, a nation-state where land claims are an ongoing process. Yet, Boyer’s work resists the narrative of despair and cultural destruction, a narrative that assists the erasure of Métis culture within Canada.

Instead, her art emulates the adaptability, mobility and kinship that is intrinsically ingrained in Métis culture as a response to the ongoing pressures of colonization.

These concepts are carried through Boyer’s references to domestic material culture.

Domed-glass picture frames, wall pockets, side tables with delicately carved legs and tiles that resemble linoleum flooring all create a sense of timelessness. Carefully selected, they reference identity and celebrate Boyer’s Métis experience with a wink to other Métis folks who may be in the gallery.

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Katherine Boyer, “A Valley in Twain,” 2018

video installation, 2:45 min. with “Water Meets Body,” 2019, cedar, spruce, fir, oak, red river clay, enamel pots and audio, 20” x 126” x 60” (photo by Lindsey Bond)

Boyer’s video, A Valley in Twain, shows her engaging with the land where her family lived until it was flooded by the Rafferty Dam, which opened in 1994 on the Souris River near Estevan, Sask.

Winnipeg, the place where the two rivers meet, is a catalyst site where the Canadian government formally acknowledged Métis identity and culture. I wonder how the dialogue would change if the exhibition travelled outside this territory, and how the narrative would overlap with the experiences of other communities forced to leave their land.

Boyer, an art professor at the University of Manitoba, is primarily known for masterful beadwork, but flexes her multimedia and installation muscles in this show.

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Katherine Boyer, “Pockets to Hold Penitence,” 2019

monk’s cloth, cotton and wool, 38” x 18”, “Mother Berries,” 2019, duffel, wool and seed beads, 36” x 20”, and “Pockets to Hold Resistance,” 2019, monk’s cloth, cotton, wool, 36” x 17.5”, from left to right (photo by Lindsey Bond)

Watching visitors adapt to the layout of the space is an interesting aspect of the exhibition, as boundaries can become blurred when you are surrounded by familiar objects and no velvet stanchions prevent access.

For example, upon entering the gallery I immediately asked if I could sit on Water Meets Body, displayed in the centre of the room. It’s such an inviting object, but the answer was (understandably) no. Despite the risk to the work, 1C03 has increasingly had exhibitions with artwork that has experiential qualities, rebuffing the institutional tendency to create specific pathways and “do not touch” signs through the space and allowing gallery attendees fuller engagement with the show.

Water Meets Body sweeps down the length of the gallery as a visual centrepiece, referring to the kitchen table, a site of activism and cultural production at the heart of Métis homes. The work’s sweeping curves highlight the relationship between craftsmanship within the domestic sphere and the land upon which these objects and people live. An audio element, a heartbeat with the sound of water chasing it, addresses the history of the Souris Valley and the people who called it home. It’s a beautiful metaphor for transitory spaces and existences.

Thoughtful and beautiful responses to the exhibition have been written by the gallery’s curator, Jennifer Gibson, and offered through opening remarks by Warren Cariou, a Métis professor of English at the University of Manitoba. As well, a catalogue with an essay by Cathy Mattes, a Métis professor of visual and Indigenous art history at Ishkabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabateg, Brandon University Visual and Aboriginal Art program, will be published.

The multitude of responses, and the conversation’s plurality, speaks to the impact of Water Meets Body. I look forward to seeing more exhibitions like it. ■

Water Meets Body is on view at Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg from Feb. 28 to April 6, 2019.