“2400 Indian Odyssey is about surviving the wait.”* In 2003 Secwepemc artist Tania Willard, Kwakwaka’wakw artist Gord Hill and Tsimshian/Cree artist Skeena Reece envisioned a space where Aboriginal voice could be safely be heard. Willard’s large scale paintings tell stories of political struggles from a Aboriginal perspective while referencing western style painting. The paintings are proof of Aboriginal contemporary history representing an alive peoples who are refusing western society’s label as a dying culture. Similarly, Gord Hill’s politically charged propaganda prints use a combination of political references and traditional Aboriginal references to demand recognition of injustices and the reclamation of sovereignty. Meanwhile, Reece’s split mask wrapped in a clear material, evidence of a performance, is a reminder of the trauma Aboriginal people have experienced at the hands of colonialism. A history that is often still repressed.

The exhibition is evidence of a language created and being developed by Aboriginal artists in contemporary art. Which allows for traditional and contemporary references of Aboriginal culture to be recognized as one history. In curator Peter Morin’s writings about the exhibition there is an idea about Aboriginal people surviving through this current state and struggling for voice and hoping for a safe self-determining future. I wonder, 519 years after contact, years after countless struggles for control of our own health and home, and 8 years after this idea embodied an exhibition, kohkum(grandma) are we there yet?

Artists
Tania Willard - http://www.redwillowdesigns.ca/
Gord Hill - http://www.firstvisionart.com/tania/gord.html
Skeena Reece - http://www.firstvisionart.com/tania/skeena.html



*References

N/A. Conundrum. Winter 2003.