Edward Poitras

×

Expand

Edward Poitras, "Mistaseni," 2001-2002

wooden chair, wool, horn, electrical cord, plywood, sandpaper, wood, wire, whitewash, paint, adhesive, vinyl, glue, wax paper, electrical fittings and light bulb, dimensions vary (collection of Saskatchewan Arts Board, courtesy the artist and the Art Gallery of Swift Current, Sask.; photo by Heather Benning)

Treaty Four, a historic land agreement between Indigenous Peoples and the federal government, was signed Sept. 15, 1874 at Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask. The agreement ceded a wide swath of land in southern Saskatchewan, along with small portions of what would become Alberta and Manitoba, in exchange for certain payments and the creation of reserves.

Two witnesses to the agreement were Pierre Poitras, who served in the provisional government of Métis leader Louis Riel, and Kijikawpinès, which translates from Saulteaux as Day Bird. Both men are great-great-grandfathers of Saskatchewan artist Edward Poitras, who lives in Treaty Four territory at George Gordon First Nation in the Touchwood Hills, north of the Qu’Appelle Valley. Poitras is perhaps best known nationally for representing Canada at the 1995 Venice Biennale. Treaty Four is deeply personal for him because of his family’s history, as well as his own lifetime in the territory. Now in his late 60s, he has created much multidisciplinary art that explores the racism, colonialism and broken promises he sees harming Indigenous people.

Many of these works will be exhibited in what he calls four “Treaty Four art actions” that will unspool over the next two years. The first instalment is on view until May 24 at the Art Gallery of Swift Current in southwest Saskatchewan. Subsequent venues include the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, the Godfrey Dean Art Gallery in Yorkton, Sask., and the Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre in Medicine Hat, Alta.

Collectively, the four art actions are called Revolution in the Rock Garden. Each venue will have a somewhat different show of work in a range of media. Some works, but not all, will travel to more than one venue. Poitras, himself, is largely deciding what will be shown. The Swift Current gallery discovered the works it was to exhibit only a week or so before opening day, when several crates arrived. 

Dance performances related to the art actions will be held at or near each of the four venues by the Regina group Rouge-gorge. Poitras and his ex-wife, Robin Poitras, are co-artistic directors of the group. The first performance will be April 24 in Swift Current. Edward Poitras was not available to discuss his project.

×

1 of 2

Expand

Edward Poitras, "Rez Girls (detail)," 1998

transparency photo print and book pages in frames on shelf, each 6" x 4"  (collection of the University of Saskatchewan; courtesy the artist and the Art Gallery of Swift Current, Sask.; photo by Heather Benning)

×

2 of 2

Expand

Edward Poitras, "Rez Girls," 1998

transparency photo print and book pages in frames on shelf, each 6" x 4", installation view, dimensions vary (collection of the University of Saskatchewan; courtesy the artist and the Art Gallery of Swift Current, Sask.; photo by Kent Archer)

Prev

Next

The Swift Current show includes Rez Girls, a tribute to Indigenous girls who attended often-abusive residential schools. About 60 framed photos of girls are printed on book pages and lined up like books on a shelf. The cheeky Pile of Cars features 12 images of heaped animal bones displayed in light boxes. Each image carries the name of a First Nation also associated with the name of an automobile, such as Cherokee, Pontiac and Thunderbird. The work’s title plays on the former name of Regina – Pile O’ Bones – which got that moniker from the bones left by buffalo hunters.

The second art action is scheduled for Moose Jaw from Sept. 30 to Dec. 31. Jennifer McRorie, the gallery’s director and the project’s main co-ordinator, expects the centrepiece to be 2000 Pounds of Rope. These 25 coils of sisal rope, acquired by the National Gallery of Canada, refer to the unrealistic amount of rope supposedly used to hang Louis Riel, and later offered, in pieces, as souvenirs. The RCMP museum in Regina exhibited a supposed segment of the hangman’s rope until at least the 1960s, when Riel started being seen as a misunderstood Father of Confederation rather than a traitor.

×

Expand

Edward Poitras, "Pile of Cars," 1994

12 black-and-white images on Mylar with vinyl type, 30" x 42" x 7" each (collection of Saskatchewan Arts Board) and "In Memory," 2022, (foreground) installation of 18 book works by Clifford Weins, posthumous collaboration, variable dimensions (collection of Robin Poitras; courtesy the artist and the Art Gallery of Swift Current, Sask.; photo by Kent Archer)

The Moose Jaw gallery is also expected to exhibit Sirius Takes a Bite, a skeletal coyote made from real coyote bones. The coyote is considered a shape-shifting trickster in Indigenous lore. Poitras is so identified with these coyotes he has become known as a trickster himself.

“For many Indigenous peoples today, Coyote has become a symbol of defiant survival in the face of the tragic effects of colonial imperatives,” Gerald McMaster, a prominent Indigenous artist and curator wrote in the guide to the artist’s Venice exhibition. “Using Coyote as his mask or alter ego, Poitras focuses our attention on crucial questions of identity – particularly the impact of space and place on our sense of self.”

Another important work at Moose Jaw, 1885, is an archival photo, enlarged to billboard size, showing a group of Indigenous people sitting on a hillside in the Qu’Appelle Valley that overlooks the Lebret Indian Residential School, where the artist's parents met. Words added to the photo proclaim: “The Amazon is burning while you play bingo.” This work, held by the Canada Council Art Bank in Ottawa, connects the Northwest Rebellion of 1885 and the displacement of Indigenous peoples from their traditional lands to ongoing social and environmental crises around the world.

The project moves on to Yorkton in the fall of 2023 and Medicine Hat the following summer. Like the exhibitions in Swift Current and Moose Jaw, the works will engage in what McMaster calls Poitras’s “revisionist history” – an attempt to rewrite errors in Canadian history books.

In 2002, when Poitras received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Lee-Ann Martin, a prominent Indigenous curator, made a key observation in an essay about his work: “Imagine that your personal and cultural history has been misinterpreted for hundreds of years. Then imagine that this history exists fully in your contemporary identity and actively interacts with the present. Finally, imagine that your insights into these everyday histories contradict well-known accounts of an official history. Such complex realities shape the multi-dimensional artistic practice of Edward Poitras.” ■

Edward Poitras: Revolution in the Rock Garden is at the Art Gallery of Swift Current from March 26 to May 24, 2022. 

PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.