“PLAY LISTS: From Solitude to Solidarity”

“PLAY LISTS: From Solitude to Solidarity”

Running Dates: September 4 to October 10, 2015

(open late for First Fridays on September 4 from 12 until 9pm)

ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11:

Friday Lunch Project & Curatorial Talk 1-3pm (lunch & refreshments served); Artists & Curator’s Reception starts at 8pm; Performance by See Monsters…West Coast Wing of Skookum Sound System from 9-11pm

Location: Urban Shaman’s Main and Marvin Francis Media Galleries

Programmed in partnership with the Available Light Screening Collective (AL); Guest Curated by Julie Tucker from AL

Artists: Kent Monkman, Steve Loft and Skookum Sound System

(Csetkwe, Dean Hunt, Darwin Frost, Bracken Hanuse Corlett)

Curatorial Statement:

Out of the outmoded analogue technology of the mixtape the digital playlist was born in its various forms. In choosing videos for this exhibition, I was imagining the significance of playlists as cultural artifacts and our abilities to produce playlists as a personal and public practice. These lists shared through social networks become culturally binding. For instance, Twitter events are qualified such as the #rounddancerevolution with the 16 Best #IdleNoMore round dance videos.

The videos in this exhibition are documentations of performances from Kent Monkman, Steven Loft and Skookum Sound System. Additionally, I have commissioned playlists for this exhibition with instructions to share music that inspires solidarity. This exhibition is about the ways in which we can organize and share Indigenous culture.

Biographies:

AVAILABLE LIGHT SCREENING COLLECTIVE:

Available Light Screening Collective is an Ottawa, Ontario-based artists’ collective committed to the curated exhibition of experimental film and video art. Support for Available Light’s activities is received from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa.

http://galleryfinder.ca/available-light-screening-collective

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2710050297/

Guest Curator: Julie Rae Tucker is an Ottawa based artist, independent curator, cultural worker and a proud member of the Munsee-Delaware Nation. Her recent curatorial projects include get outta my dreams and into my car…,screening and performanceby Lisa Lipton for Available Light Screening Collective and Disney Made Me Do It, for the Ottawa International Animation Festival. In June of 2015, she participated in the Copycat Academy during the Luminato Festival in Toronto.

Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist of Cree ancestry who works with a variety of mediums, including painting, film/video, performance, and installation. He has had solo exhibitions at numerous Canadian museums including the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. He has participated in various international group exhibitions including: The American West, at Compton Verney, in Warwickshire, England, Remember Humanity at Witte de With, Rotterdam, the 2010 Sydney Biennale, My Winnipeg at Maison Rouge, Paris, and Oh Canada!, MASS MOCA. Monkman has created site specific performances at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, The Royal Ontario Museum, and at Compton Verney, he has also made Super 8 versions of these performances, which he calls “Colonial Art Space Interventions.” His award-winning short film and video works have been screened at various national and international festivals, including the 2007 and 2008 Berlinale, and the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. His work is represented in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Museum London, The Glenbow Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, The Mackenzie Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Vancouver Art Gallery. He is represented by Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain in Montreal and Trepanier Baer Gallery in Calgary.

http://www.kentmonkman.com

Steven Loft is a Mohawk of the Six Nations with Jewish heritage. A curator, scholar, writer and media artist, in 2010 he was named Trudeau National Visiting Fellow at Ryerson University in Toronto, where he is continuing his research into Indigenous art and aesthetics. Loft has held positions as Curator-In-Residence, Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada (2008-2010); Director/Curator of the Urban Shaman Gallery, Winnipeg (2002-2008); Aboriginal Curator at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (2000-2002) and Producer and Artistic Director of the Native Indian/Inuit Photographers’ Association (1993-1998). Loft co-edited Transference, Technology, Tradition: Aboriginal Media and New Media Art (Banff Centre Press, 2005) and is the editor of the forthcoming Coded Territories: Indigenous Pathways in New Media.

Skookum Sound System is an Indigenous audio-visual collective with members living on the west. Skookum has four members: Csetkwe (Vocalist/Song Carrier), Dean Hunt Aka DJ Deano And Darwin Frost Aka Impossible Nothing (DJ/Producers), and Bracken Hanuse Corlett Aka Amphibian14 (Live-Visuals/Lasers). Members have individually honed their skills as multimedia artists for many years. The collective formed in 2011 at the inaugural Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival. Since then they have traveled to numerous cities, towns, festivals, galleries, museums, and clubs to spread the Skookum bounce.

http://www.skookumsound.com

https://www.facebook.com/SkookumSoundSystem

https://soundcloud.com/skookumsoundsystem

Csetkwe is a multi-disciplined artist, with her roots in the Syilx (Okanagan) and Secwepmec (Shuswap) Nations. She primarily works in painting, weaving, jewelry, and performance art. She is a graduate of the En’owkin Centre of Indigenous Art, receiving a National Aboriginal Professional Artists Training certificate and Nsyilxcn Language Program certificate. She also received training in the Full Circle Ensemble program in Vancouver, B.C. Csetkwe is the lead vocalist for the Indigenous Audio-Visual collective, Skookum Sound System. She has performed at the Push Festival in Vancouver, Sakewewak Storytellers Festival and Where the Thunderbird Lives – Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Adaka Festival, Beat Nation (Kamloops Art Gallery). She has exhibited work at Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art in Kelowna BC, W2 Community Media Arts Centre, The Fall Gallery, UNIT PITT Projects and at the Grunt Gallery in Vancouver BC. She recently had her first solo exhibition at the Langham Gallery in Kaslo B.C.

Dean Hunt is a Producer, DJ and Visual Artist from the Eagle Clan of the Heiltsuk Nation in Waglisla (Bella Bella). He studied Studio Engineering and Music Production at Columbia Academy in Vancouver, and has applied his skills as a music producer and DJ with the audio-visual collective, Skookum Sound System. Dean comes from a family of artists, which includes his father Bradley Hunt and his older brother Shawn Hunt. He is also a practicing visual artist, creating imaginative works from the strong base of his traditional arts and culture including: carving, painting, and jewelry. He uses the tools his ancestors fought to hold onto through times of hardship and oppression, not only in his more traditional art practices, but also in his contemporary use of sound. Dean has shown his work at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Satellite Gallery, Spirit Wrestler, and the Lattimer Gallery. Some notable audio-visual performances include Vancouver’s PuSh Festival, Adaka Festival in the Yukon, Sakewewak Storytellers Festival and Where the Thunderbird Lives (Mackenzie Art Gallery) in Regina and 2 Worlds: Indigenous Media and Performance Festival in Victoria BC.

Bracken Hanuse Corlett is a multimedia artist hailing from the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose Nations. He got his start in theatre and performance 13 years ago and has since transitioned into a focus on digital-media, live-visual installation/performance and visual arts. He is the co-founder and co-coordinator of the Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival and over the last three years he has performed across the country as a member of the audio-visual collective, Skookum Sound System. He is a graduate of the En’owkin Centre of Indigenous Art and went to Emily Carr University of Art and Design for a B.F.A. in Visual Arts. He has also studied Northwest Coast art, carving and design from acclaimed Heiltsuk artists Bradley Hunt and his sons Shawn Hunt and Dean Hunt. Some of his notable exhibition/installations have been at Grunt Gallery, Gallery Gachet, Museum of Anthropology, Unit PITT Projects (Vancouver), Three Walls Gallery (Chicago) SAW Gallery (Ottawa), Royal BC Museum, Open Space (Victoria) and the Sâkêwêwak Artists’ Collective, Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Tidal Force – Independent Media Arts Alliance (Halifax).

D’Arcy O’Connor – Darwin Frost – Impossible Nothing -The child of art matriarch Wendy Frost, Darwin Frost grew up in New York City at the time Hip Hop music usurped mainstream music as the dominant sound in worldwide urban centers. Drawing on a wide palette of influences ranging from Toru Takemitsu to John Zorn, he has been active in the arts as a composer for a multitude of award winning films that have been featured at events such as the Sundance Film Festival. His evolution as a musician has led him to release a string of albums since his debut album “Bananas” came out late in 2010 under the flag of his band Impossible Nothing. Darwin has collaborated on projects with artists from around the world. Specifically during his time in Vancouver he has collaborated with Bracken Hanuse Corlett, Brian Gotro, Haydn Wazelle, Peter Morin, Leela Gilday, Kevin Burton, Nicole Mion, Jackson Crick, Helen Haig-Brown, Beth Aileen Lameman, Myron Lameman, Cease Wyss, Skeena Reece, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Terry Haines, Archer Pechawis, Rebecca Belmore, Daina Warren, Diane Gromala and Floyd Favel among many others. For the past 3 years he has collaborated with multimedia crew Skookum Sound System as a composer and audio performer. He has worked in media and film since he was 17 years old and has been an electronic music composer since he was 13.