Reservation X: The Power of Place in Aboriginal Contemporary Art Canadian Museum of Civilization body of a vessel Quebec.

Reservation X: The Power of Place in Aboriginal Contemporary Art Canadian Museum of Civilization body of a vessel Quebec, Canada April 24, 1998-March 7 1999

"Reservation X: The Power of Place in Aboriginal Contemporary Art" showcases the work of contemporary First Nations artists that consider an expression of self as understood in consequence of place, a conception that is cross-cultural, spanning the Mohawk of Ontario to the Pueblo of novel Mexico. The works, all specifically created for this exhibition, make intimation to land appropriation and use kitschy phenomenons with stereotyped "Indian" images as forms of displacement and cultural highjacking. These strategies indicate a contemporary interest in land, cultural repatriation, the reclamation of community and individual identity.

Although the works are exemplary in communicating the various aspects of the theme, the location of as it was a show in the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC) is problematic. The CMC is an institution that houses traditional anthropology gussied up with politically correct displays and ceaseless interactivity directed towards tourists, indoctrinate groups and family outings. A multidisciplinary contemporary art exhibition injected into this environment must struggle with the language of the institution. united constantly has a feeling of walking in consequence of an ethnographic display of "Reservation X" rather than a contemporary art exhibition.

The in the greatest degree vivid example of the confusion between institutional anthropology and contemporary art is the installation on Shelley Niro (Mohawk) entitled "Honey Moccasin," based forward her 1998 film of the same name, a humorous, light-hearted mystery about a thief in succession the Six Nations reservation who steals his neighbors' pow-wow outfits, as well as the material used to make them. The community rejoins by using alternative materials in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as Fruit Loops, rubber and bottle caps to originate the outfits. The film challenges the often met with unidimensional characterizations of Native North Americans. still neither this plot line nor the nuances of Niro's manner of traditional storytelling and use of humor are at hand in the installation version. Instead it readys a contemporary reconsideration of a traditional medium of expression: the pow-wow outfit. The installation itself consists of a blanket embroidered with the film credits, the actual outfits used in the film and a TV monitor showing a noose of the fashion show part of the film. (A French translation is available at an accompanying telephone receiver.) The relationship of these ingredients results in an installation that reads like a documentation of the fashion point out to rather than a critique of imposed conceptions of Native identity and is easily confused with the museum's acknowledge uncritical anthropological displays.

Mary Longman (Plains Cree) takes a more sculptural approach to her work "Strata and Routes" allowing her contribution to be considered onward its own terms as a work of art rather than as an extension of the museum. She articulates a cultivation of self in a carve built from two tree stems one on top of the other. united set of roots stretch upward while the others push towards the landed estate The wood is stained and highly polished with bands of stones encircling the middle of the sculp and a singular stone adorned with a phototransfer of the artist's family nestl in the upper radixs The structure stands as a metaphor for the personal and collective identity of an individual shaped by way of their environment, as the shape of the growing bases is determined by the stones that naturally lie in their path. The polished wood-land plays against the dramatic shadows that the radicals create on the floor. Unlike other pieces in the present to view "Strata and Routes" refers to an environmental influence forward the development of self-discovery without recreating or constructing a specific space. The simplicity and elegance of this work allows it to stand gone out forcefully and independently.

As undivided moves through "Reservation X," the audio emissions from different installations begin to contend with one another. The work chiefly affected by this problem is the installation "if the walls could talk" from C. Maxx Stevens (Seminole). In this work the tension between the regulation enforced residential school (criticized in several of the pieces in the exhibition) and a more casual community education is missed because the subtle audio constituents are drowned out by other louder installations. forward one side of the installation four small academy desks are furnished with history textbook layered with Native portraits and other images obscur on thick layers of stain. Voices are heard coming from within the schoolhouse walls. The opposite side of this space consists of a communal mealtime table about which rests a radio emitting (equally inaudible) voices. What is thrown away (although clearly implied) is the contrast between brace different learning environments and brace kinds of stories: those told about a improvement and those told within it. The viewer is left to listen to garbled words and peek around the space. As in several other installations in the exhibit to criticism and resistance to an assimulation are proffered subtly through contrast and comparison. if it be not that both the simple configuration of the work and its placement in the museum passageway create a situation that in no way encourages closer examination.