From The Standoff
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New Gallery
Friday, June 27 - Saturday, August 2
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The New Gallery is visually sparse this month, with two projections playing on opposite walls.
In The Standoff, Jackson 2bears’s overwhelming soundtrack of voices, drumming, yelling and news clips floods the space. His projections are divided into three sections, like the Canadian flag — red, white, red — with an animated male figure in place of a maple leaf. Occasionally, the image flashes intermittently with a maple leaf or solarized photographs to create a strobe effect. This is an animated self-portrait of the artist himself, drumming to the beat over the loud soundtrack of political strife.
Text streams across the projected flag, also in red and white, making it barely legible. It’s moving too fast to read more than a few snippets:
“Six Nations residents blame all levels of government.”
“RCMP now on the scene in Caledonia.”
“Under the Indian Act, the government establishes….”
It’s enough information to recall a headline, but if you’re at all ignorant of the details, it also thwarts any attempt to find out more within the context of the exhibition.
As the news clips quickly zip across the projection, it’s virtually impossible to catch the whole meaning. News clips are abbreviated and cut up. Perhaps this mimics the way that most people become familiar with aboriginal issues in the news: a minute here, a sound bite there, footage that’s edited to present a specific viewpoint rather than a holistic perspective. Still, many Canadians develop their perspectives and knowledge of First Nations history through the CBC, mainstream news sources and even museums or historical sites, or worse, western movies. It’s obviously not 2bears’s intent or responsibility to educate people about aboriginal land claims, treaties or conflicts, but it becomes very clear that we know so little of the story, regardless.
The word “Kanata” flashes several times in bold, black capital letters, a reminder that even the name of our country is an appropriation of Huron language and that many Canadian towns, cities and landmarks are also named using words from aboriginal languages. Think of Chinook, Medicine Hat, Saskatchewan, not to mention Ottawa, Quèbec and Yukon, but still the native histories of these places and the peoples that named them remain largely unknown.
2bears’s synthesis of news footage, interviews and newspaper headlines recalls two pieces of recent news reported virtually back-to-back on the CBC evening news. The first was Stephen Harper’s apology and public acknowledgement of the human rights abuses of aboriginal children in residential schools. The second was the repatriation of remains of aboriginal ancestors from Vancouver Island that were housed in the archives of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The remains were brought home, transferred to cedar boxes and given a proper ceremonial burial that was closed to cameras and reporters. Both gestures attempted to heal hundreds of years of wrongs perpetrated against aboriginal people in Canada. The conflicts that 2bears refers to at Caledonia, Ontario, highlight the land claims disputes that continue to take place all over the country, no matter how many apologies, repatriations or public policies are put into effect.
Each time 2bears’s caricature beats on his drum, the video clip in the centre of the drum changes. Trying to keep up is an overwhelming task, but every once in awhile a familiar voice or person becomes discernable. The old westerns fade into the background when all of these sources are collaged together. The arguing voices sound like parliament, then there is Peter Mansbridge’s familiar husky tone, perhaps there’s a quotation from First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine, but for the most part, the voices of aboriginal leaders and activists are much more anonymous to the average person. Their voices sound sad and angry:
“There are thousands of our ancestors buried on this land, and I don’t want that forgotten.”
“The people of Six Nations respect the Earth, our Mother.”
“If they own the land, then they own the land, you’re God damn right.”
The beat is rhythmic, keeping the collage of words, video and audio moving along quickly. 2bears also performs as a hip hop artist. In other cities he has presented a performance version of this piece with a live remixing of appropriated video and sound. This sounds like a more engaging and artistically innovative way to see this work. Here the projections read as almost purely political and so have less visual interest and impact. Fortunately, the artist has an excellent website that offers documentation of his entire practice. Had The New Gallery exhibition included a broader range of works, or a performance, it may have also offered a more comprehensive view of how popular culture shapes perception of aboriginal identities and 2bears’s interest in addressing these forces.
