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Western Art, Colonial Portrayals of First Nations Peoples and “The European Male.”
The Triumph of Mischief touring exhibition at Glenbow Museum
The Treason of Images solo show at Trépanier Baer Gallery
Canadian Cree Kent Monkman’s paintings, performance art, super-8 movies, antique tintypes, multimedia presentations, & mixed media installations poke fun at depictions of First Nations People in art and movies from the 19th century right up to modern times.
"Théâtre de Cristal" by Kent Monkman; multimedia tipi installation, with beads, fishing line, simulated buffalo hide, digitalized super-8 movie, "Group of Seven Inches", and video, "Robin's Hood", 2006. The Triumph of Mischief touring exhibition at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB, Canada, until April 25th, 2010.
George Catlin, Paul Kane and Cornelius Krieghoff were a few of many historical western artists who presented a view of North American First Nations’ peoples skewed by colonialism and self-importance, which Kent Monkman punctures with sharply pointed paintbrushes and sharply painted fingernails.
The ROW: Reflections on Water Exhibition at Touchstones Museum in Nelson, BC, and what is happening to BC’s regional museums?
By Simone Keiran
A lap cedar rowboat gleams in the centre of Gallery A at Touchstones Museum in Nelson, BC., crafted in the 1940s by Clarence W. Walton of the defunct Walton Boatworks, one of many owner-operated boat builders that thrived in the Kootenay-Columbia region.
“As a passenger, it is not always possible to see clearly what is immersed below the vessel, which emulates subconsciousness.” Deb Thompson, Curator-in-Residence spoke during the public gallery walk, on 08 October, 2009, for ROW: Reflections on Water, a nonlinear, thematic exhibition running from September 12 to November 22, 2009.
Waterspines, an installation by Tanya Pixie Johnson for ROW.
ROW is the latest Touchstones exhibition to eschew traditional chronological or culturally codified display paradigms for shows which embrace, among other things, activism at the community level with community input.
The Grand Forks Art Gallery and Boundary Museum Saga
The City of Grand Forks got a shiny new art gallery, the Boundary Museum acquired a fine pair of historical sites, and after the Furies finished running amok, everyone settled down to mend fences and ponder the true purpose of community museums and galleries.
By Simone Keiran
The New Grand Forks Art Gallery
Grand Forks is the largest urban center in the Boundary region of British Columbia’s south-central interior. As such, a showcase building for its heritage and visual arts community seemed in order. Unfortunately, few transitions could have been as fraught with difficulty as when the Old Courthouse on Central Avenue, an attractive brick Palladian-style landmark built in 1911, was transformed into a civic cultural centrepiece. Collections were seized, wrecking crews were called in, the City was taken to court, and it was mischief for everybody involved.
A Vast Inland Freshwater Passage:
David Thompson’s Exploration of the Columbia River
By Simone Keiran
Published December 2008,
Resolution, Magazine for the Maritime Museum of British Columbia.
Astrolab used to measure distance between celestial bodies and earth for navigation.
Never had mountain ranges been more underrated than when David Thompson first broached the Great Divide in his search for a route to the Pacific Ocean. Maps of the period distorted the reality and minimized the difficulties, showing a single line of mountains as opposed to dozens of ranges, highlands and plateaus. The NW Passage had lured explorers for centuries, drawing many deep into Canada’s wilderness—and many an explorer’s underwriters deep into their wallets—hoping to discover a network of easily navigable waterways such as the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes to transport loot cheaply across the continent. The Northwest Trading Company (NWTC), Thompson’s employer, didn’t hope too much, though, at least not enough to finance a proper one-time expedition by Thompson to find the river that emptied into the Pacific at the present-day Port of Astoria—first claimed by Captain Vancouver in the name of the British Crown in 1792—and to explore and chart its length from its source in the Rocky Mountains to its mouth. This was the Columbia River, the British Empire’s last great hope for a North West Passage. Thompson mapped the great western river in fits and starts over the course of 11 years, delayed by impassable winter terrain, arms disputes between the Blackfoot and Flathead nations, the necessity of pursuing the fur trade along the way, moderate interest from financiers, and even a lack of game to feed the expedition.
FORT LANGLEY NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA:
Family Fun Includes Activities, Demonstrations, Exhibitions & Tours
Original log trading post and depot at Fort Langley, photo by Simone KeiranBC’s birthplace provides children with many early Canadian things to see, learn and do at this beautifully restored and preserved fur-trading fort on the Fraser River.
By Simone Keiran
published 13 August, 2008
Trained guides, well-planned activities and an interesting variety of interactive exhibits make Canadian history an entertaining and educational experience for the whole family at this fully restored Hudson’s Bay Co. fort and fur trading outpost first established by James McMillan in 1827 on the Fraser River. The desire to please and impress visitors, however, extends past the spiked walls of the palisade.
A blacksmith from the local Kwantlen tribe tempers a hook from iron. She holds the red-hot metal with tongs over the edge of the anvil, and calls an eight-year-old from the audience to help finish. He dons a thick apron, safety glasses and gloves. A few strikes with the mallet puts a right-angle kink into the spike. After it sizzles in its cooling tub, she hammers it into a chink in the wall to show how it works. Excited, the boy pulls his parents over to the sluice-box set up by the heritage-seed vegetable garden, where they pan for gold.
A volunteer docent greets visitors and explains the workings of an old-fashioned frontier cooperage. Photo by Simone Keiran
Fort Langley’s attractions also include:
- The depot filled with different furs; trading goods like guns, blankets, or cooking pots; and an authentic fur press where visitors can watch and even take part in demonstrations of how pelts were bundled for their long voyage back to Britain. The storehouse is arguably the oldest European-built structure remaining in BC.
- A cooperage where a barrelmaker planes the slats of wood for the barrels which packed the popular dried salmon once shipped all over the world. Strings of dried salmon hang from the ceiling as well as oolichan, or candle-fish, tiny sardine-like fish so saturated with oils that they were literally substituted for the valuable and hard-to-get candles. Little oddities like this make the experience memorable.
- The Big House, comfortable living quarters for the chief traders, as well as Servants’ Quarters, the spartan dwelling where lower status employees lived, both fully furnished with items appropriate to their time period and purpose. The contrast is a provocative subject for children.
- A large, sturdy wooden boat used by fishermen on the Fraser, and canoes, like the sort used by the courier-de-bois and Sto:Lo people, the Upper Coastal Salish nations who populated the riverbanks. Visitors were involved in the boatmaking process.
- The palisades and lookout, which surrounded the outer perimeter of the fort in the event of an attack, are perfect places for children to run and climb over.
- A gift-shop and café.
Countless Klondikers streamed through Fort Langley during the Gold Rush of 1858. For fear it would be annexed by Americans, the British government signed a Treaty officializing their claim to the territory, and an RCMP garrison was set up to enforce it. Fort Langley is the birthplace of British Columbia.
Dried salmon and oolichan, or ‘candlefish.’ These oily fish were burned as candles when stores of wax were unavailable. The salmon which used to be caught in the Fraser River was once long enough that it reached from a man’s shoulders to his feet. Photo by Simone Keiran
Visitor information, including ticket prices, hours and days of operation, and detailed instructions of how to get there are all available online at the Fort Langley National Historic Site website.
The Heritage Townsite of Fort Langley
Fort Langley is full of pleasant boutiques and coffee shops designed to appeal to visitors. Photo by Simone Keiran
Cafés, boutiques and antique stores line the streets. Attractions include a fully restored CN Railway Station, the Fort Wine Co. and the Langley Centennial Museum. Fort Langley should not be confused with the City of Langley, however, west of the historic townsite.
The Albion ferry crosses the Fraser and connects the TransCanada Highway with the old one-lane Highway 7 route on the north side of the River, a pleasant and slower-paced trip along the Fraser Valley to Hope. Photo by Simone Keiran
Visitors Touring by Car
Highway 7 which bypasses the Transcanada’s heavier traffic at Hope, BC, is more scenic and sedate. This route swings closer to Harrison Hot Springs, and the Albion Free Ferry, on the river bank between Mission and Maple Ridge, offers sweeping panoramas of the Fraser River.
CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL:
Lighting up Fantasy Gardens in Richmond, BC, Canada.
The 2008 Greater Vancouver International Chinese Lantern Festival, with its scenes from Chinese history, science, folklore, mythology, and cartoons, combines fluff with fact in the oddest style.
By Simone Keiran
published 03 August, 2008
Western Canadian Travel: Suite101.com
At night, the two dragons which tower at the corner of Richmond’s Fantasy Gardens seem to come alive, glowing like movie screens in a theatre. Their purpose: to generate more appreciation for Chinese culture in Canada.
The gateway is through another lantern, a pastiche of traditional architectural detail which evokes impressive entranceways from the Forbidden City to the Great Wall, except topped with rodents. These cartoon creatures, which look like Steamboat Willie, puzzle visitors, but they refer to Chinese astrology; 2008 is the Year of the Rat. They aren’t mice at all.
Traditionally, lantern festivals are held at Chinese New Years when the year honouring one of the twelve legendary animal companions of the Buddha progresses to the next. This means they light up the seasons’ darkest hours. The middle of the Canadian summer means long days and late shows, and the astrological significance of the rat goes astray. All the same, its scale, colour, variety and invention present quite a spectacle.
It’s as though organizers couldn’t quite decide what they wanted to do. A stunning tableau of Kylin—mythical creatures which bring good fortune, fashioned from tens of thousands of tiny coloured apothecary bottles which glow like jewels and impress visitors with the ingenuity and artistry of their creation—is positioned next to a kitschy scene of nylon turtles, swans and other cutesy pond critters. This abrupt shift to the absurd with no transition happens throughout the exhibition.
There are breathtaking moments. “Carp Leaps through the Gate of the Loong” features sculptures built entirely out of china—blue-&-white porcelain bowls, cups and spoons intricately strung together. They form fish, dragons, lanterns, and rime the waves like sea-foam. Not only is the piece a novel play on China, quite literally, but its beauty and cleverness stays with viewers.
The sheer scale and diversity of the enterprise is impressive. It covers acres of park. At the heart is a life-sized pagoda stretching up for three fiery tiers into the darkness, its mannequins of court musicians the only nod to China’s ancient dynasties. There are scenes from Journey to the West, the legend of the Monkey King, Taoist legends, and even the Loong, a mysterious deity from whom the Chinese descended.
Some dioramas sport science-y names like “The World of Insects.” Except, a dinosaur world where T-Rexes feasted on prey from different epochs, while unconcerned Duckbills grazed five feet away, never existed. Not even in China. This is the child’s eye on nature, not science itself. Often the lanterns contain clever riddles for children to decipher, although some of them can leave adults stumped.
These anachronisms are key: to fully appreciate the lantern show, disbelief must be suspended. Science gives way to make-belief, since facts complicate fantasies. Those who look for the sublime in external nature through art or intellect will be grounded by grinning rats.
The cartoon RCMP Musical Ride, speaking of anachronisms, is bizarre. This includes the row of columns topped by RCMP officers interspersed with sparkly rats like a psychedelic Appian Way. Elsewhere, glowing totem poles are derived from native art in the Pacific N.W. This is Canadian culture reflected back to us, both ridiculous and sublime.
How strangely fitting that show is set within Fantasy Gardens, the loss-leader amusement park with its heritage Dutch-Christian themes of farmhouses, churches, windmills and castles, which brought down the Social Credit government of British Columbia back in 1991. Some things are best enjoyed by not looking too deeply past the first layers of fluff.
Fantasy Gardens Lantern Festival website
Steveston and No. 5, Richmond, BC, Canada
Night show: 8:30 – 11:30 pm ($25 per adult; children over 12/seniors $20)
Day show: 11 am – 2 pm ($15 per adult; $10 per child/senior)
family passes, season passes and discounts available online
Until 21st September, 2008
Published ARTiculate Magazine, Fall/Winter 2007
What would happen if a couple of artists, a professional photographer and a scribe were let loose in Touchstones Museum’s permanent collection of artifacts to not only curate, design and create their own show, but record and lift the veil on the creative process for the exhibition’s viewers?
Janus Series finds beauty in yesterday’s buildings.
Published ARTiculate Magazine, Summer 2005.
Blink and you’ll miss them, Cranbrook’s historical buildings. By contrast, the noise, dust, traffic, and competing signage along the city’s main thoroughfare is unavoidable, a full-frontal onslaught of visual and aural saturation which almost overwhelms everything else.
Porch Book Club Feature at Christmastime.
Published Porch Magazine, November/December 2004.
“Feast of Fools? Sounds like Christmas at our house,” my friend grins to show that his family celebrates the festive season with the same indulgence many North Americans enjoy.
Commentary, published ARTiculate Magazine, Fall 2004 / Winter 2005.
“It was just a normal house in the middle of the city — no farmhouse element left to it.”
I spoke to Mitch Miyagawa, who had returned with his father to the site of his grandfather’s farm and homestead in Mission, 50 years after it was taken from his family. “We didn’t end up knocking. My dad went back a little later and did knock on the door and ask, but it didn’t seem like it meant anything necessarily. My imagination was disappointed by that. That’s where it had to kick in and imagine a more exciting story.”
So Miyagawa, the playwright-in-residence at the Nakai Theatre in Whitehorse, Yukon, wrote a play, The Plum Tree, which deals with the impact of the Japanese-Canadian internment and the 1988 national redress.
