Weaving Cultural Identities

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Dawn Livera and Adrienne Neufeld (weavers) and Doaa Jamal (graphic designer), “Find What You Need,” 2018

woven cotton warp and Canadian wool weft, with supplemental yarn from around the world, 46.5”x 21” (photo courtesy of Vancouver Biennale)

Visitors to Winnipeg’s Urban Shaman gallery this summer might, at first, be surprised to find a display of Islamic prayer rugs at an artist-run centre dedicated to showcasing the work of Indigenous artists in Canada and beyond. 

Shaped by the multicultural policies of the Canadian government, our fixed understandings of identity are often not equipped to sustain the breaches brought on by cross-cultural mutuality and engagement. 

Yet, Weaving Cultural Identities, on view until Aug. 1, dares to locate and think through the breach. Employing the surface and container of traditional Islamic prayer rugs, the group exhibition builds a visual dialogue between migrant and Indigenous artists, twinned in their search for the divine. 

Originally curated for last year’s Vancouver Biennale by Zarina Laalo, Weaving Cultural Identities opened at Urban Shaman as part of a national tour. The exhibition centres textiles and the process of weaving as a mode of storytelling and a means of expressing spirituality. It includes 10 artists and five graphic designers who worked together to share skills and cultural knowledge to create 10 prayer rugs. 

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Ruth Scheuing and Mary Lou Trinkwon (weavers) and Sholeh Mahlouji (graphic designer), “Celebrating Knowledge and Belief: An Intercultural Dialogue,” 2018

Jacquard woven cotton, 36.5" x 20.25" (photo courtesy Vancouver Biennale)

Traditionally, prayer rugs have been used by Muslims during worship. They often include geometric designs and inanimate objects, and, when in use, always point towards Mecca. 

In contrast, Coast Salish weavings are produced for diverse occasions, both sacral and communal. They can include ceremonial textiles to adorn the body, as well as sitting and standing blankets, among other uses.

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Exhibition view of “Weaving Cultural Identities,” showing in foreground “Dialogues of Spirit,” 2018

by Damian John (graphic designer) and Michelle Sirois Silver (weaver). Hand-hooked wool on linen, 40.5”x 25” (photo courtesy of Urban Shaman Gallery)

Taking a cue from Laalo, who enters the dialogue on cross-cultural engagement through her own relation to Islamic prayer rugs, I enter as a settler and scholar of South Asian descent through the available discourse of Islamic art history. 

In particular, I want to recall the visually significant parable of The Competition as it was developed between the 12th and 14th centuries through the writings of al-Ghazali, Nizami, Jalal al-Din Rumi and ibn Khaldun. In its various iterations, Chinese and Roman artists are brought together to prove their skills in painting. 

Positioned at opposite walls of a room and divided by a curtain, the artists begin work. While the Romans paint a colourful image on their wall, the Chinese work to polish their own. When the curtain drops, the Chinese wall is a gleaming mirror of the other. 

Here, the image itself is anecdotal, as are the identities of the competing actors. The images could easily be updated to include those illustrated in this exhibition, and the competitors refigured as Muslim and Indigenous, neither holding the truth, but both moving to the divine, be it the Creator or Allah. 

What the parable can teach us, then, is that a collaboration, much like a competition, is, in its very essence, a way of joining the other in the exploration of the unknown. Muslim and Indigenous artists, brought together to collaborate for this exhibition, exchange what it might mean to feel the spiritual realm through the material. 

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Nadia Sajjad (weaver) and Damian John (graphic designer), “The Other Side,” 2018

paint, mirror and embroidery threads on fabric, 45” x 23.5” (photo courtesy of Vancouver Biennale)

The results of these explorations are striking. One work that especially achieves this lucidity is The Other Side, by graphic artist Damian John and textile artist Nadia Sajjad. The design incorporates iconography from both the Tl’azt’en and Islamic-Persian visual repertoire. 

It features various animals found on totem poles on the Northwest Coast alongside references to minarets through the process of mirroring. Together with visualizing a kinship of two worldviews on a singular plane, Sajjad includes a dotting of small, rounded mirrors, thoughtfully inviting visitors’ reflections into the piece. 

In the end, Weaving Cultural Identities feels like a curtain drop – as if white-settler presence has temporarily dissolved so that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of colour are able finally to see and recognize each other. 

The now visible breach has become the space to cultivate shared visions for ourselves and our futures. We cannot hesitate at the surface. Using the threads and mirrors offered to us, we must respond through our own reflections and fulfill our worldly responsibilities to make all lives safe in this realm, before we make our departures. ■ 

Weaving Cultural Identities is on view at Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Winnipeg from June 19 to Aug. 1, 2020.

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