Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey
to
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art 460 Portage Ave, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 0E8
Skeena Reece, "Sweetgrass and Honey," 2018
Skeena Reece is best-known for her critically penetrating and humourous performances, in which she portrays a range of personas that are often driven by the potential of a raw exchange with audiences. For Sweetgrass and Honey, she builds on her lexicon of characters at times ramping up the clichés and emboldening stereo-types while sincerely trying to unearth their origins and stonewall their continued perpetuation. From Stockholm Syndrome to Indian Princesses, Reece uses various subjects in building a new lens with which to examine her personal history within a rereading of the displacement and continued disregard of indigenous people in North America.
Sweetgrass and Honey is a concatenation of works from a photographic series to mass-produced posters. This exhibition will feature several newly commissioned works, including a specific installation that challenges the racist history of the Hudson’s Bay, which sits across the street from Plug In. As well she will create a mural that offers a psychological look at the relationship between captor and captive; and another artwork that visualizes the ghosts in our history - buried in the land we occupy. Many of the artworks presented in this solo exhibition were produced in collaboration with other artists who Reece ignites as producers and translators.