Barry Ace: Niibwa Ndanwendaagan (My Relatives)

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Barry Ace, "Bandolier for Niibwa Ndanwendaagan (My Relatives), Bandolier for Manidoo-minising (Manitoulin Island), Bandolier for Charlie (In Memoriam)," 2015

mixed media, installation view.

Niibwa Ndanwendaagan (My Relatives) presents a suite of contemporary Anishinaabe digital honouring bandolier bags or friendship bags, as these bags are traditionally gifted to strengthen friendship and family relations.

Each bandolier bag is richly embellished with electronic components (capacitors, resistors, light emitting diodes) and glass seed beads, replicating Great Lakes’ floral motifs and designs. Embedded into each bandolier bag is a digital tablet screening historical family photographs and archival silent film footage of Anishinaabe dance performances and re-enactments taken on Manitoulin Island, Ontario in 1925.

Biography

Barry Ace is a practicing visual artist and the recipient of the K.M. Hunter Visual Artist Award for 2015. Drawing inspiration from multiple facets of traditional Anishinaabeg culture, he creates objects and imagery that utilize many traditional forms and motifs. He then disrupts the reading of these works with the introduction of other elements and technology, endeavouring to create a convergence of the historical and the contemporary. His work can be found in numerous public and private collections in Canada and abroad. He is a band member of M’Chigeeng First Nation, Manitoulin Island (Ontario) and is represented by Kinsman Robinson Galleries in Yorkville (Toronto). 

Reviewed by Galleries West