This catalogue of the LandMarks2017 is the homework assigned for this weekend by the professor in the course I’m taking this month. It begins (after greetings from funders) with a curatorial statement, co-authored by David Divney, Ariella Pahlke & Melinda Spooner, Natalia Lebedinskaia, Véronique Leblanc, Kathleen Ritter, and Tania Willard. “Landmarks are meeting places,” they begin, noting that landmarks can be natural features or part of the built environment that “define boundaries and echo multiple histories, stories and beliefs. They give shape to our collective memories. A landmark is a turning point for change and a legacy for future generations. Landmarks help us find our way. To mark is to act” (10). That statement describes the curators’ theme, the way they are defining the key term in the show.
LandMarks2017 was a network of collaborative, contemporary art projects installed in national parks on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Confederation. “The anniversary marks an occasion to reflect on a land much older than 150 years,” the curators state, “and to address the legacies of colonialism, the complex relationship to nationhood and cultural identity, as well as our relationship to nature in the face of present-day environmental and climatic crises” (10). The show looks at art “as a catalyst for discourse and social change,” and “provides an opportunity to imagine, to speculate and to invent our futures through the eyes of aratists, art students, communities, and through the spirit of the land” (10). Given the diversity of Canada, the show spoke “from multiple positions using difference, rather than unified national identity, as a starting point,” and it recognized “Indigenous Nations and relationships to land as foundational”: “Our shared stories are, at their heart, about land, belonging, languages and cultures that stem from our interconnectedness with the earth” (10). That curatorial position is rooted in Indigenous understandings of and relationships with land.
In her introduction, curator Candice Hopkins, a member of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, begins with the genocide of the Beothuk in what is now Newfoundland. She writes, “we know that one of the defining characteristics of the colonial frontier is its extraordinary imbalance of power and its incredible violence” (13). The history that Canada celebrates “is a distinctly settler history, borne out of the tenacity of those first non-Indigenous people who came to make their homes in these lands,” although even that history leaves out the experiences of many newcomers (13). It also, she implies, leaves out stories like the story of the Beothuk.
LandMarks2017, Hopkins continues, may have been “the largest exhibition to take place in Canada,” and for that reason, “it had the ability to engage with markedly different communities and landscapes, many of which were situated far from major urban centres,” far from the southern border where most Canadians live (13). “What does it mean to consider a nation, not only through its official narratives, but through its unofficial ones as well?” she asks. “How can an exhibition uphold those places and people whose histories and stories fly under the radar?” (13). The show “sought to make space to see beyond the celebratory acts undertaken in the country to recognize its 150th anniversary since Confederation, and mark instead those complicated and often lesser-known histories that inevitably accompany national formations,” she writes. “it did this by placing an emphasis not necessarily on people, but on the land, the water and the environment, and our relationships to it—however complicated and complicit” (13).
LandMarks2017 brought together works by 12 artists, “many of them collaborative, process-based, ephemeral and often made with the things of nature,” and it “made space for the questioning of official narratives and deeply held personal narratives as well” (14). She suggests that Rebecca Belmore’s sculptures included in the show, Wave Sound, which represented listening devices, “posit a necessary shift in our collective consciousness”: “We are at a tipping point ecologically and environmentally,” she writes, and Wave Sound suggests the importance of listening to the sounds of the land (14). Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Camille Turner also produced “something of an auditory work” in their collaboration, Freedom Tours, which “engaged a host of collaborators on a tour boat in the waterway of Thousand Islands national Park and as a procession in Rouge National Urban Park, situated near the borderlands of Canada and the United States” (14). That project “created a platform for the sharing of stories, knowledge and songs” from Indigenous people and people who are part of the African diaspora, descendants of those who fled north during the time of slavery (14). That project asked “Whose stories are missing when we speak about land and freedom?” and “What do we do with this new-found knowledge and these new-found stories?” Hopkins states (14).
Hopkins devotes a paragraph to Maureen Gruben’s metaphorical intervention, in which “she threaded hundreds of feet of bright red broadcloth across the ice in a precise zigzag,” where each ‘suture connected holes drilled in the ice, the kind made for thousands of years by people in the Univialuit region for fishing and sealing” (14). The work referred to the decorative trim on parkas, and was thus “a monument to women’s work, their skill and aesthetics,” skills that kept people alive in the arctic (14).
“Other projects were subject to the ever-changing conditions of the environment,” Hopkins continues. Michael Belmore’s sculpture of copper-inlaid stones remains in Churchill, Manitoba, although it was originally intended to be installed in parks in southern Manitoba (14). The stones couldn’t be transported south because the railway to Churchill was damaged by flooding (14).
Hopkins notes that LandMarks2017 “took place in the age of reconciliation,” which has changed this country, even if the emotional labour was carried out by Indigenous people and if Canada considers the reconciliation process concluded, rather than just begun (15). “In its deep questioning of official histories and national narratives, LandMarks did not replicate binary or reductive relationships between peoples, between settler (as one all-too-often reductive category) and Indigenous (an equally reductive category)” (15). Instead, it “demonstrated the potential of anti-colonial methodologies,” such as
L’Hirondelle and Turner’s insistence on giving voice to birds (the winged ones) as part of their project; Rebecca Belmore’s call to listen to the water; Ursula Johnson’s ‘gift’ of an image of the Cape Breton forest, one that can be used to decorate the home; Raphaëlle De Groot’s bringing people together to learn from the land, its narratives, and Innu and settler customs in the Côte-Nord region; Jin Me Yon’s haunting image of herself, an immigrant Canadian, disappearing into a hole in the sand; Chris Clarke’s and Bo Yeung’s emphasis not on what they had made, but on their ability to create a place for the sharing of knowledge of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people; Douglas Scholes’ call that we look deeply at the history of infrastructure like canals, which have radically transformed the waterways; and Jeneen Frei Njootli’s making place for the invention of tradition, though the creation of beautifully adorned blankets for the modern sled-dog, the Ski-Doo. (15)
Along with those works, the project shared knowledge and mentored younger artists and scholars. “Let’s hope that LandMarks is one template for future practices, not with regard to scale, but at least with regard to method,” Hopkins states (15).
Next, the catalogue presents descriptions and images of specific works included in LandMarks, beginning with Jeneen Frei Njootli’s short experimental film Being Skidoo, which in part, it seems, documents a trip into Vuntut National Park, a caribou calving ground co-managed by the Gwitchin First Nation. “The project profiles the art of ski-dog blankets, wherein traditionally adorned dog blankets were adapted by the artist for use on snowmobiles,” curator Tania Willard writes. “The ski-dog blankets were designed in collaboration with community members and given to elders and others as gifts, allowing the work to circulate in the artist’s home community and honouring the practice of gift-giving in Gwitchin culture” (21). So the blanket part of the project is collaborative, community art; the film, though, sets out to obscure “the colonial gaze of the landscape in Canada” through abstraction, constructing “an experience of movement, bodies and aesthetics as a journey through the land” (21). Rather than “profiling Indigenous communities through a lens of the past or as framed by the colonial experience,” Njootli’s film “presents an experience of being out on the land, an experience that speaks to Indigenous knowledge, tenacity and a land-rights-based relationship to traditional territories” (21). “The film is imbued with a continuum of tradition and relationship with the land that is opaque rather than overt; we have to look closely and with our hearts,” Willard continues. “In obscuring our gaze, Njootli asks us how we are entitled to see and how far we can see in what is offered to us” (22).
After that comes Weaving Voices, co-created by Chris Clarke and Bo Yeung, which was “a colaborative journey through Klondike National Historic sites on the traditional territory of Tr’onkëk Hwëchin,” consisting of a Truth and Reconciliation Walk and “two site-specific willow audio installations” (31). “Many hands and many hearts came together to reflect on the colonial roots of this community, and this country,” writes curator Kathleen Ritter (31). Clarke and Yeung are settlers who live in the Yukon, and in this work, they “acknowledge the deep ancestral roots of the land and reflect on the persistence of colonialism, the many privileges afforded and at what cost” (31).
The walk invited interpreters from both Parks Canada and the Dawson City Museum to speak about “the impacts of our colonial heritage as embodied in historic buildings” while leading community members through the area, “peeling back the layers of prejudice, segregation and discrimination, questioning the colonial attitudes that are still held” (31). The audio installations were the “other strand” of the project’s braid (31). One “living willow basked was planted by the Yukon River at Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre, and the other was placed in the rear of the Commissioner’s Residence” (31). Those willows were harvested, replanted, and “woven collectively with the intention to create space for Indigenous voices. Community members and visitors came to listen to Tr’onkëk Hwëchin people sharing their reflections on past, present and future relationships between settlers, the First Peoples and the land” (31).
Stitching My Landscape, Inuvialuit artist Maureen Gruben’s large-scale work of land art, is deeply tied to memory, family and healing,” writes curator Tania Willard. “The core visual element of the installation—bolts of red material stretched across the ice—is related to a memory of Gruben’s: as her brother harvested a seal, a long, vivid, red string of fresh gut was strung out taught against the white snow” (41). The work consisted of 111 ice holes connected with red broadcloth; it stretched for nearly 1,000 feet on the frozen ocean around Ibyuq Pingo (41). A pingo is an ice-filled hill created by permafrost; they “have functioned as navigational aids and hunting lookouts for generations of Inuvialuit people” (41). This particular pingo is part of the Pingo Canadian National Landmark near Tuktoyaktuk (41). “Ibyuq Pingo is a sentient and living being in the cultural memory and daily landscape of Inuvialuit, contrasting the many Indigenous places in the Canadian landscape whose names have become superimposed by settler histories,” Willard writes. “Stitching My Landscape as an installation was viewed mainly by Inuvialuit people and drew on community assistance to come to fruition” (41). Thus is was a collaborative, community-focused project. It was documented through an experimental film (41). It was also an example of what David Garneau calls “irreconcilable spaces of Aboriginality” (33).
“In cultural skills-based arts, the act of making something beautiful becomes about valuing what you have—the gifts and harvests from the land, and the safety and security of family and loved ones,” Willard continues. “Stitching My Landscape simultaneously evoked traditional clothing patterns, like the delta time pattern on parkas, as well as the importance of subsistence, the strength of community, and the potential for healing—and being healed by—the land” (42).
In Jin-me Yoon’s Long View, the artist, known for her introspective photography, video work and installations, “turned her gaze outward in a year-long investigation at Pacific Rim National Park Reserve,” creating a series of staged photographs in which the artist disappears into the sand (53). In the accompanying video, the artist’s family members dig a hole into which she steps (53). Then, viewers see “a montage of flickering archival images from the near and distant past”—fragments of the entangled military, cultural, and Indigenous histories that have shaped the history of this region (53-54).
The work “also resulted in a series of community-engagement events that brought into dialogue Indigenous conceptions of land and place within the context of inherited histories of colonialism, in both Canada and Korea,” the curator, Kathleen Ritter, states (54). “Long View invites us to project our gaze alongside the artist’s, at a point on the open ocean with a speculative view across the Pacific, a place to ponder past and future relations on Indigenous lands between Canada and Asia” (54).
Following is Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound project, “conceived as an invitation to listen to the land,” according to curator Kathleen Ritter. “Belmore created a series of temporary sculptures that were situated in national park sites across the country—Banff national Park, Pukaskwa National Park and Gros Morne National Park—and on Chimnissing Island, home to the Beausoleil First Nation,” Ritter writes. “The sculptures functioned as listening devices and took for form of large cones—a shape that allowed them to naturally amplify ambient sound in the surrounding locations” (63). Each sculpture “conformed to the shape of the different rock surfaces found on the land,” and each was situated “on the land facing out toward the water, positioned in such a way to invite people to approach” (63). “As people engaged with the artwork, they would take time to rest, be attentive and hear the sound of the land and, especially, the water,” Ritter explains (63). The sculptures were created over the course of a year, during which Belmore visited the sites and documented the shapes of the rocks at each one (63). Then these impressions were cast in aluminum cones at a foundry (63). “The artwork encompassed both an object and an action, mobilizing individuals and communities to listen to the land as an act of respect, commemoration and understanding,” Ritter concludes. “At the root of Belmore’s inquiry is the land itself and how we envision our relationship with it” (63).
Michael Belmore’s Coalescence is described next. It was “conceived as a single sculpture in four parts,” writes curator Natalia Lebedinskaia. “Sixteen stones, ranging in weight from 300 to 1,200 pounds, are fitted together and inlaid with copper, then situated to frame the vast distance between the southernmost boundary of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, near Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, to one of its points of drainage into Hudson Bay in Churchill, Manitoba” (81). Places in Riding Mountain National Park and The Forks National Historic Site “punctuate the stones’ migration” (81). Those four sites “mark meeting points between water and land: ancient shorelines, trade routes and meeting places, sites of annual mass migrations of animals and forced displacement of peoples” (81). Belmore uses copper to give the stones labour and value (81). They are shaped so that they fit together perfectly, and the surfaces where they meet are covered in copper, reflecting light (81). “Each crevice is filled with a fire that will be extinguished with age, turning brown, then black, and reaching a luminous green hue as it settles into the landscape,” Lebedinskaia continues. “The sculpture is a marker of how everything comes from the ground and returns to it, and how these processes stretch far beyond human understanding of time” (81). The work is “a moment of connection between deep geological time of stone and the linear human time of labour,” a reminder of “the timelines of the land” (81).
In response to Belmore’s installation, Leanne Zacharias’s Sounding the Wake of the Glacier is a sound work that weaves together the environments where the stones were located, “through field recordings, transcription of animal calls and musical interpretation of climatic maps of the four regions” (82).
Freedom Tours, a collaboration between Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Camille Turner, follows. It was “an intervention at and through the waters of Thousand Islands National Park and Rouge National Urban Park by land,” according to curator Tania Willard (97). The work centred Indigenous and Black “stories untold and songs unsung,” thus decentring white settler narratives (97). At Thousand Islands National Park, it began with the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving address, the Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, delivered by Janice Hill; then two cruise ships carried passengers while “the artists sought to address these lesser-known histories in public with restorative interventions” (97). At Rouge National Urban Park in Toronto, the work took the form of a walking tour “that asked members of the public to stand in for, and pledge their commitment to, the different species within the park ecosystem” and “to make freedom flags and to march to celebrate the park’s varied species and diversity, as well as their own identities and political contexts” (98). Both “actions and engagements” ended in round-dances (98).
Douglas Scholes Wander: (re)Marking, “a series of walks and interventions in the public space along 15 kilometres of the Lachine Canal National Historic Site,” was a “response to the canal’s environment, history, and current presence in the city of Montreal” (111). Scholes collaborated with writers, visual artists, sound artists, and videographers (111). According to curator Véronique Leblanc, “He approached the Lachine Canal as an entity, seen through the eyes of the character that he had created, the wanderer, and those of his contributor” (111). “In order to multiply ways to see, listen to and experience the site, Scholes endowed the canal with a necessarily plural conscience, which was left to blossom,” Leblanc continues. “His first intervention was sculptural: 100 replicas of bollards made of beeswax were placed on the site in June 2017. Their fragility embodied a posture of humility toward the territory through a dispersed, discrete and transitory presence” (111). The work also involved a musical composition, “a quadrophonic electro-acoustic piece,” an alternative tourist map, and “a series of photographs and films showing the wanderer’s activities from season to season”; those works were “presented in the public space through exhibitions, screenings, walking tours, readings and a floating concerts,” and were “collected in their most rudimentary forms (vinyl record, sheet music, flipbook and so on) in a time capsule” (111). “Allowing for the cohabitation of different temporalities, they offer multiple interpretations of invisible and inaudible phenomena of the canal, real or fictional,” Leblanc writes. “Through both their materiality and their evanescence, the works will now be propelled into the city of the future” (111).
Raphaëlle de Groot’s Subsistences, located in Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve, follows. That project was the result of a year of “conversations with people living in the region and explorations of the area’s unique natural phenomena,” and it took the form of “a ‘bivouac-exhibition’ that stopped over in seven villages” in the area (131). That bivouac consisted of a pickup truck and an Innu tent (131). In each community, de Groot “asked people to share their experience of the territory—defined as the Mingan Archipelago—the sea, or the land of forest and bog” (131). A film made of the journey “reveals relationships that de Groot created among the different elements, as well as stories, objects and images that she gathered over time” (131). The film thus “sketches out a documentary and a poetic path leading to the essential challenges of living in the region: exploitation of its resources, the cohabitation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, the impact of human activity on the environment and the transmission of cultures and practices” (131).
(re)al-location, by Ursula Johnson, located in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, “engaged in the Mi’kmaw philosophy of Netukulimk, or self-sustainability, in a shared examination of the natural and cultural ecologies” of the park’s past, present, and future, the co-curators, David Diviney, Ariella Pahlke and Melinda Spooner, tell us (147). The work “reflected upon the memory that the forest carries of interaction between species, and interaction between people” (147). “Through community engagement and self-directed research, Johnson sought to make visible the links between the park, its natural resources and the people living in the surrounding area,” the co-curators write (147). Johnson photographed the forest over a year, exploring its seasonal changes, and engaged in “several interactive forums that promoted a more sustainable relationship with the environment and one another” (147). “The resulting dialogue and photo documentation led to the design of a camouflage pattern—a gift to the community—based upon the unique forest ecosystem of the Cape Breton Highlands,” the co-curators state (147). Garments made with this pattern were worn “during a participatory performance event in the form of a celebratory feast at MacIntosh Brook titled The Festival of Stewards. In this context, the wearing of the clothing served as a physical embodiment of the artwork, as did the eating of food. In sharing a meal, a commonality was reignited and interpersonal connections emerged” (147). The Festival of Stewards was a collaboration with students from a local school (148). “By working in conversation with, and across, diverse communities, Johnson aimed to (re)locate local knowledge and traditions to collectively address concerns related to the stewardship of the land. Thus, (re)al-location can be looked at as a catalyst for discourse and social change,” the co-curators conclude (148).
In “Pedagogies of the Land,” Vladimir Spicanovic, the project’s lead advisor of curriculum and curatorial engagement, cites familiar names: David Garneau; Miwon Kwon; McCoy, Tuck, and McKenzie; and Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. He also notes that university and college courses came out of the activity—an interesting (and perhaps unusual) outcome. Those courses are described in detail over the following pages. One of those courses, taught by Megan Smith, happened at the University of Regina (183). Some of those courses commissioned professional artists to make work as well.
In “Epilogue: On Land and Time,” the curatorial team reflects on the event. They note that recalling 150 and more years of complex, contested history “is not simple. It is layered, complex, political, celebratory, empowering, contradictory and visionary all at once” (232). “It is not just artists making objects,” they continue. “It is collaborative and active, requiring dialogue, shared conversation and a deeper investment to explore the relationship with, and interconnectedness to, the land, Indigenous territories and diverse communities and cultures (232). They note that, collectively, they decided “to take a lead from Indigenous epistemologies, in which time is deep, land is central and rights are unresolved” and to “witness lesser-known stories and non-linear histories that connect us more strongly to the land and its multiplicity of voices” (232). The projects of LandMarks2017
propose intersections between bodies and territories, whether through the works themselves or by the artists being in or becoming the land. They draw on personal and familial histories as a valid way to think about the intersection of disparate identities. They inhabit the land, initiate movements and seek a coexistence of different temporalities. They care for and nurture sites on both concrete and symbolic levels. They consider nature as an interlocutor—the water, the plants and the animals (the winged and the swimmers). They allow for a sensorial experience of the land. They are presented to us in ways that are collaborative rather than singular, ephemeral rather than monumental, and process-driven rather than predetermined. They act as markers for the need for humility before nature and communities, and a consciousness of the circumstantial and partisan writings of history that can be challenged by many forms of social engagement. Discrete, subversive, accessible and thoughtful, the resulting works are extremely rich in the ways they come together conceptually, thematically and aesthetically. (232-33)
The curatorial team concludes with questions raised by the project, which include “What can we learn from the blood of a caribou on the ancient rocks of an ancient river?” and “What do we owe for our experiences within Indigenous lands and diverse communities?” (233). These are important questions for which answers are difficult and elusive. “Rather than concrete answers, what remains most important is that we centre our connection to the land, its veins—rivers and tributaries—its breath—the winds—our bodies and our waters,” they state. “Through this exchange, we can begin to re-examine our relationship with the land and with one another” (233).
This summary misses the many photographs, mostly (but I don’t think entirely) made by the project’s photographer, Kyra Kordoski. Those photographs are the point of the catalogue, of course; they are a more visceral form of documentation than the words I’ve summarized and quoted here. I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised at the predominance of social or relational aesthetics in the work included in the event, and in its pedagogical focus (which is, perhaps, another format in which relational aesthetics takes shape). I wonder if that’s the case throughout the art world now—if what was perhaps a marginal activity 30 years ago is now at the centre. What does that mean? Will relational aesthetics end up being itself decentred in favour of work that isn’t collaborative, that focuses on objects? Eventually, I suppose, that’s bound to happen. The wheel turns. In the mean time, I will have to get past the scars left by all those collaborative projects in school, the ones my students complain about, the ones where a small group does all the work while the others sit by and do nothing, the ones where everyone shares the outcome regardless of their effort or engagement, or where bullies demand an A—or else. Oh, I hated that. I’d rather work by myself. But in the contemporary art world, collaboration is everywhere and everything. Sigh.
Aside from that complaint, I also found it interesting that the project centred Indigenous ideas about land. To what extent can settlers engage in that kind of work without being accused of cultural appropriation? That’s always a question for me—mostly because I’ve been told that my walking practice appropriates Indigenous culture and land. So I’m cautious, at best. I might find that settler theoretical frameworks will end up being easier to manage for my project, if only to avoid that kind of accusation. And yet, I think that Métis anthropologist Zoe Todd’s suggestion that those theories refuse to engage with Indigenous thinking that goes further and pre-existed the Ontological Turn is probably correct. What to do, then? Engage—at least theoretically—with Indigenous thinkers and be accused of cultural appropriation? Or ignore those thinkers and, well, remain ignorant? There’s nothing like a Catch-22, is there?
Works Cited
Garneau, David. “Imaginary Spaces of Conciliation and Reconciliation.” West Coast Line, no. 74, 2012, pp. 28-38.
Partners in Art. LandMarks2017: Art + Places+ Perspectives,Magenta Foundation, 2018. https://partnersinart.ca/projects/landmarks2017-reperes2017/.
Todd, Zoe. “An Indigenous Feminist’s Take On The Ontological Turn: ‘Ontology’ Is Just Another Word For Colonialism.” Journal of Historical Sociology, vol. 29, no. 1, 2016, 4-22. DOI: 10.1111/johs.12124
