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Three indigenous female artists find new ways to explore identity, experience and place
There's no pretending the map of Canada was drawn with indigenous rights or needs in mind. There's no need to hold a press conference to remind us that few in positions power give much credence to indigenous knowledge and perspectives (our current government clearly never got the memo).
It's no surprise, then, that Memory Keepers: Methodologies of Memory, Mapping and Gender, which opened recently at Urban Shaman, might forgo conventional mapmaking altogether. Instead, the three indigenous female artists brought together by curators Erin Sutherland and Carla Taunton work to develop new ways of understanding and categorizing identity and place, vocabularies that honour traditional knowledge and personal experiences that defy classification.
Ursula Johnson's L'nuwelti'k (We AreIndian) consists of upturned baskets displayed reverently on plinths. Gradually, these reveal themselves to be smooth, featureless busts. In place of typical title cards, the sculptures are captioned "Female,...