Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts

×

Expand

Tania Willard, "Surrounded/Surrounding," 2018

installed in Soundings at Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Gambier, OH (October 4-December 15 2019). Courtesy of Gund Gallery

Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts

Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts features newly commissioned scores, performances, videos, sculptures and sound by Indigenous and other artists who respond to the question, How can a score be a call and tool for decolonization? Unfolding in a sequence of five parts, the scores take the form of beadwork, videos, objects, graphic notation, historical belongings and written instructions. During the exhibition, these scores are activated at specific moments by musicians, dancers, performers and members of the public, gradually filling the gallery and surrounding public spaces with sound and action. Curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson, Soundings is cumulative, limning an ever-changing community of artworks, shared experience and engagement. Shifting and evolving, it gains new artists and players in each location. For this iteration on Musqueam territory, the Belkin has collaborated with UBC's Musqueam Language and Culture Department, School of Music, Chan Centre for Performing Arts, First Nations House of Learning and Museum of Anthropology to support the production of new artworks and performances by local artists.

Everyone is welcome and admission is free 

Rachel Iwaasa Performs Work by Camille Georgeson-Usher

Part of the Soundings exhibition, through, in between oceans part 2 by Camille Georgeson-Usher is a beaded installation, completed during the isolation of the Spring 2020 pandemic. The artist worked from home in Toronto, a departure from her intention to spend several months on Galiano Island, BC, where she was raised. Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, encountering the beadwork in the gallery, remarked on the Japanese Buddhist nenju, or prayer beads, and how she had learned that the set of nenju she inherited had sections missing. A shared experience of familial gaps, silences and ellipses informs Iwaasa’s interpretation of through, in between oceans part 2, developed in conversation with Georgeson-Usher and recorded at the School of Music's Roy Barnett Hall on  November 8. 

Jeremy Dutcher Virtual Performance

Online from Friday, September 25 at 7 pm

Presented as part of Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts at the Belkin, this virtual performance by composer, pianist and classically trained operatic tenor Jeremy Dutcher weaves a rich dialogue between the old and the new through vibrant reimaginings of the traditional songs of his ancestors. A member of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Dutcher says, “I’m doing this work because there’s only about a hundred Wolastoqey speakers left. If you lose the language, you’re not just losing words; you’re losing an entire way of seeing and experiencing the world.” This online event is presented by the Chan Centre in collaboration with the UBC School of Music and the Belkin as part of their Dot Com Series; visit their website for details on this and upcoming presentations of PIQSIQ on October 16 and Raven Chacon on November 20.

Emerge: Studio Visit with Tania Willard

Friday, October 2

As part of Emerge, join artist Tania Willard (Secwépemc Nation) for a virtual studio visit where Willard will introduce her art and practice with a particular focus on her work in the Belkin's Soundings exhibition. This marks the kick-off of the 2020/21 Emerge season, a series of talks, workshops and behind-the-scenes tours dedicated to introducing participants to the Vancouver art scene, with an emphasis on professional development. Each year, Emerge focuses around a key theme or set of ideas to guide discussions and events. The guiding themes of this academic year are Art, Community and Social Change. Emerge is organized by the Belkin in collaboration with the Art History Students’ Association, the Visual Art Students’ Association and the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at UBC.

PIQSIQ Virtual Performance

Online from Friday, October 16

Presented as part of Chan Centre's Dot Com Series and the Soundings exhibition at the Belkin, this virtual performance by sisters Inuksuk Mackay and Tiffany Ayalik encapsulates the joys and struggles of navigating mixed Indigeneity in a world where reclaiming one's culture can be a radical act. As PIQSIQ, the Inuit throat-singing duo perform both ancient songs and new compositions infused with haunting beauty and entrancing melodies.