SHEENA GIBSON, KABLUSIAK, TANIA LARSSON, TANYA LUKIN LINKLATER, CHARLENE MENACHO, MELAW NAKEHK’O, KALI SPITZER AND JOSEPH TISIGA
Generous Acts
September 25, 2021 to December 4, 2021
Ociciwan Contemporary Art Centre 10124 96 St Edmonton, AB
Calling together 8 artists from various communities across Northwestern Turtle Island, Generous Acts gives a glimpse to the introspective process of thinking through the notion of self-care during a global pandemic.
Stepping outside the parameters of traditional exhibition processes, Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective begun the developing Generous Acts by (virtually) gathering with the artists to facilitate conversations in regard to the direction that the exhibition would take. This divergence from colonial methodologies of curation allowed for the artists to have an equal say in the path that we would take together on this journey. The artists shared not only their struggles and personal experiences as creators during a tumultuous global pandemic, but also their pre-pandemic experiences of hailing from remote and often overlooked communities. We connected, laughed, and grew closer through our talks. We were given input and feedback about practices that they would like to see more of within the North American Art world.
We are excited to share with you the result of these conversations and the work created by these incredible artists.
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Exhibition run: September 25, 2021 to December 4, 2021
Gallery Hours: Friday 12-7pm, Saturday 12-4pm (no appointment necessary on Friday and Saturday.) Wednesday and Thursday, open 12-5 by appointment only (book here).
Accessibility notes: Ociciwan Contemporary Art Centre is barrier-free and is equipped with a lift to reach upper floors and lower floor gallery. Single stall and wide stall washrooms available on every floor. Children are welcome! Change tables available in select washrooms.
ETS stops at 96 Street and Jasper (routes 2, 5, 88, 120, 308, 309), 97 Street and Jasper Avenue (3, 14, 100, 109, 161, 162). Paid city street parking and paid Impark lots available.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Edmonton Arts Council.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Sheena Gibson
Born in Inuvik, NWT, lived only 5 months in Tuktoyaktuk NWT. I was adopted to a family in Kelowna BC. My entire life I was fortunately in touch with my biological family up north. I found that expression through art was a key to keeping a relationship with my traditions. I like to paint people who could represent my ancestors. My work is lively and colorful, attempting to make uplifting feelings when viewing it. I completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2012 from University of British Columbia, Okanagan.
Kablusiak
Kablusiak is a renowned multidisciplinary Inuvialuk artist and curator who uses Inuk ingenuity to create work in a variety of mediums including, but not limited to, lingerie, white flour, soapstone, permanent marker, bed sheets, felt, acrylic paint, and words. Their work explores the dis/connections between existence in the Inuit diaspora while maintaining family and community ties, the impacts of colonization on Inuit gender and sexuality expressions, as well as on health and wellbeing, and the everyday. Kablusiak holds a BFA in Drawing from the Alberta University of the Arts in Mohkinstsis, where they are currently based. In 2021, Kablusiak was part of a team of 4 Inuit curators who curated the inaugural exhibition for Qaumajuq, entitled INUA. In all of their creative work Kablusiak seeks to demystify Inuit art and create the space for Inuit-led representation of the diverse aspects of Inuit cultures. Kablusiak’s work can be found in the collections of the Indigenous Art Centre, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Art Gallery of Alberta, Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity and Global Affairs Visual Art Collection among others.
Tania Larsson
Tania Larsson is a dedicated Gwich’in Fine Jewellery designer who creates innovative pieces with land-based materials. Originally born in France, Larsson relocated to Yellowknife, NT Canada as a teenager with her family to actively reconnect with her culture and Gwich’in homelands. She was able to ground herself during those formative years with a deep understanding of how vital culture is to the sustainment of the land and vice versa, working to reclaim and revisit designs of her people’s memories while shaping history for our future generations.
She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, at the Institute of American Indian Arts in May 2017. Apprenticing under renowned Kiowa jeweler Keri Ataumbi for two years, Larsson was able to gain strong fundamentals in jewellery design while finding her voice as a Gwich’in maker. She is one of the founding members of Dene Nahjo, an Indigenous collective in Denendeh (Northwest Territories) working to advance social and environmental justice for northern peoples and promote Indigenous leadership.
Currently an EntrepeNorth Mentor, Larsson works towards Indigenous business sovereignty and has led a resurgence of interest in Northern Indigenous Adornment. She has been featured in various documentaries by: Vice, The Narwhal, and APTN. Her work continues to be internationally distinguished, by way of countless publications such as: Vogue, The New York Times, Brides Magazine, and the Globe and Mail. Larsson continues to be at the forefront of ethical and traditional practices of material sourcing, refining Gwich’in adornment in a contemporary aesthetic.
Tanya Lukin Linklater
Tanya Lukin Linklater's performances, works for camera, installations, and writings have been shown at SFMOMA, Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019, EFA Project Space + Performa, Art Gallery of Ontario, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Remai Modern, Winnipeg Art Gallery, and elsewhere. She will participate in Soft Water Hard Stone, the 2021 New Museum Triennial. Her collection of poetry, Slow Scrape, was published by The Centre for Expanded Poetics and Anteism in 2020 with a second printing in 2021. Tanya studied at University of Alberta (M.Ed.) and Stanford University (A.B. Honours). In 2021 Tanya received the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Visual Art and was long listed for the Sobey Art Award. She is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies at Queen's University. Her Alutiiq homelands are in southwestern Alaska where much of her family continues to live.
Melaw Nakehk’o
Melaw Nakehk’o is a Dene/Denesuline artist who lives and works in Yellowknife, Denendeh. Melaw expresses her creativity in many forms, she studied painting in various institutions, worked as a muralist, public art, an actor, filmmaker - digital artist, currently drifting toward installation. The underlying thread that inspires her world is her love for the land and land based art practices. She is a moose hide tanner and educator, a love that influences every aspect of her life.
Charlene Menacho - She/Her
She is Dene from Tulít’a, Denendeh. She is a part-time artist who connects beads, porcupine quills, and moose/caribou hide into her work. She is inspired by the generations before her especially her grandmother Charlotte, the people she walks along-side and the generation to come. She is a learner and teacher in different capacities, such as tanning her first moose hide with her grandmother and teaching beading classes. She has a deep love for the land which continues to inspire, heal and guide her. May you find your way back to the land.
Kali Spitzer
Kali Spitzer is a queer photographer living on the traditional unceded lands of the Tsleil-Waututh, Skxwú7mesh and Musqueam peoples. Kali’s work embraces the stories of contemporary queer and trans bodies and BIPOC creating representation that is self determined. Kali’s collaborative process is informed by the desire to rewrite the visual histories of indigenous bodies beyond a colonial lens. Kali is Kaska Dena from Daylu (Lower Post, British Columbia) on her father’s side and Jewish from Transylvania, Romania on her mother’s side. Kali’s heritage deeply influences her work as she focuses on cultural revitalization through her art, whether in the medium of photography, ceramics, tanning hides or hunting. Her work includes portraits, figure studies and photographs of her people, ceremonies, and culture.
Kali’s work has been featured in exhibitions at galleries and museums internationally including, the National Geographic’s Women: a Century of Change at the National Geographic Museum (2020), and Larger than Memory: Contemporary Art From Indigenous North America at the Heard
Joseph Tisiga
Joseph Tisiga maintains a multidisciplinary practice that is rooted in painting and drawing and includes performance, photography, sculpture and installation. His work reflects upon notions of identity and what contributes to this construct -community, nationality, family, history, location, real and imagined memories – questions that have become all the more relevant in the current climate. Tisiga’s works look at cultural and social inheritance, the mundane, the metaphysical and the mythological, often all at once and on the same surface. This conflation of interests and perspectives plays itself out in the artist’s narratives that are non-linear, cross cultural and supernatural.
Joseph Tisiga was born in 1984 and is a member of the Kaska Dena Nation, he studied at the Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design. Recent exhibitions include those held at the Audain Art Museum (Whistler, BC), the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (Kitchener, ON), Yukon Art Centre, the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, ON), the Winnipeg Art Gallery (Winnipeg, MB), MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA, USA), the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, (Santa Fe, NM, USA), the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa, ON) and at the West Vancouver Museum (Vancouver, BC). Tisiga’s work is found in institutional collections as well as in numerous private and corporate collections. Joseph Tisiga was named a REVEAL Indigenous Art Award winner in 2017. Joseph Tisiga currently has a solo exhibition at the Musée d’art de Joliette (Joliette, QC).
Born in Edmonton, Canada, 1984
Lives and work in Montreal, Canada