Ruth Cuthand & Joi Arcand: Ē-kī-nakatamawacik (You) left something for them

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Ruth Cuthand, "Mark of a woman," 2018

video still, Videographer/editor Thirza Cuthand

Wanuskewin Galleries was pleased to present two prominent women as the artist in residents at Wanuskewin Heritage Park 2017-18. Ruth Cuthand an established contemporary artist held a yearlong residency through the support of the Saskatchewan Arts Board- Artists in Communities Grant. Joi Arcand through RBC Emerging Artist in Residencies fund received support for two three month residencies the last of which she will complete in 2020. For the first half of her residency Arcand worked in tandem with Cuthand. Cuthand began her practice in the seventies and eighties and through the traditional strategy of mentorship and transfer of knowledge through example –this became the premise of their combined residency.

The residency was designed to have a consistent theme where each artist was asked to engage the site at Wanuskewin Heritage Park, to engage with the land. Wanuskewin is an important site to First Nations people on the Northern Plains. The site itself I believe has a memory and that memory has left its traces on the land. This particular exhibition is a culmination of various projects by Joi Arcand and Ruth Cuthand and their interpretation of their own particular engagement with the site.  Cuthand and Arcand whose territory is the Northern Plains were directly connected to the site as it would have been a site likely utilised by their ancestors in the distant past. Many gathered at Wanuskewin over a period of thousands of years. Those traces on the land triggered memories, dreams, and a call to remember. The land left something for us. They, those who came before us, left something for us.