LAND BACK

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Open Space, "Land Back," 2020

LAND BACK, a group exhibition curated by Open Space Indigenous Curator, Eli Hirtle and featuring the work of artists Nicole Neidhardt, Lacie Burning, Chandra Melting Tallow, and Whess Harman.

The installation schedule for LAND BACK is as follows:

Oct 9 - Nicole Neidhardt

Oct 21 - Lacie Burning

Nov 4 - Chandra Melting Tallow

Nov 18 - Whess Harman

LAND BACK is many things to many people, but at the root of this project are our responsibilities to and relationships with the land, and our work to (re)connect with our territories and waterways in meaningful ways. We come from the land. Our teachings, laws, and stories come from the land. We are the land. The land is our home, our mother, our caregiver. 

From the Wet’suwet’en solidarity occupations and blockades, to 1492 Land Back Lane, to the Mi’kma’ki fight to assert fishing rights, we are witnessing a heightened period of solidarity and momentum to protect our lands and waters. Through sculpture, photography, poetry, painting, and sound the participating artists will each speak to their own interpretations of LAND BACK from their unique perspectives, lived experiences, and lineages.

As Indigenous peoples, we have relationships with our plant, animal, and supernatural kin that we must uphold and respect—through these acts of presencing and reclamation, we can renew and repair these sacred bonds that have been ruptured in a myriad of ways by the settler-colonial project that is Canada. LAND BACK is a demand for the return of jurisdiction over our lands and waters, and an assertion of this responsibility. It is not theoretical or metaphorical. It is a rallying cry to protect the lands and waters that took care of our ancestors, sustain us today, and that will nurture the generations to come. 

To accommodate the realities of the pandemic, each artist will install their work one at a time, unfolding the exhibition over the coming months. As they do so, their work calls to the ever-changing, fluid, and responsive nature of land-defense occupations and blockades, where bodies come and go in waves as needed.

The exhibition will be presented in person and online through a dedicated website launching mid-October, as well as a publication to be released in 2021. Stay tuned for a comprehensive calendar of associated programming.