Jeneen Frei Njootli: Bushed Theories: ReMatriation of Images and Performativity | Artist Talk

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Jeneen Frei Njootli, "She made me realize what i had done, or what i have been doing," 2015

sculpture and performance

This Saturday, April 1, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art presents an artist talk by Jeneen Frei Njootli. As an emerging interdisciplinary artist Frei Njootli is known for her performative sound pieces, sparse sculptural forms, community engagement and material sensitivity.

For this talk, she will introduce us to her practice and forthcoming project for LandMarks2017. She will speak to the consumption of the northern landscape, Indigenous bodies, and their labour in visual culture as an ongoing set of problematics and politics that her work engages with.

Frei Njootli is an interdisciplinary artist of the Vuntut Gwitchin self-governing Nation, whose home community is in Old Crow, Yukon. Her practice takes a critical approach to the materials she uses, which often reflect her investigations of the history of trade and intercultural exchange with a particular focus on “Bush Theory.” This term defines a way of navigating relationships to colonial power from a knowledge situated in the Arctic. Frei Njootli is co-creator of the ReMatriate Collective, a community located primarily on social media dedicated to Indigenous womxn’s self-determination. Her advocacy in this field is evident throughout her practice, unfolding in her work as a cultural tattoo practitioner and facilitator of skill sharing workshops.

Jeneen Frei Njootli received her BFA from Emily Carr University, and is currently pursuing her MFA on unceded Musqueam territory at the University of British Columbia. Her work is gaining national recognition with exhibitions at the Macaulay & Co Fine Arts, Vancouver; the Vancouver Art Gallery; Trinity Square Video, Toronto; Art Mur, Montreal; and the Ottawa Art Gallery. In 2016, she won the William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists from the Hnatyshyn Foundation. She is currently featured in the exhibition wnoondwaamin: we hear them at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon where she will have a solo exhibition in September 2017.

This artist talk is presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba.