Our ongoing series of artists in conversation featuring 2020 #GGArts recipients continues! Dana Claxton is an artist featured in the ‘Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts 2020′ exhibition at your AGA. Watch Dana in conversation with Vancouver-based artist and studio manager Pauline Petit as they discuss the artist’s collaborative process.
#AGAlive is presented with the support of the EPCOR Heart + Soul Fund.
This conversation was a live event and some of the themes are political in nature. The AGA supports the artists’ freedom of imagination and expression as well as our audience’s right to form their own opinions and reactions. We aim to spark respectful conversation and dialogue.Our ongoing series of artists in conversation featuring 2020 #GGArts recipients continues! Dana Claxton is an artist featured in the ‘Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts 2020’ exhibition at your AGA. Watch Dana in conversation with Vancouver-based artist and studio manager Pauline Petit as they discuss the artist’s collab …
Key moments
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Dana Claxton and Pauline Putin
Dana Claxton and Pauline Putin
4:13
Dana Claxton and Pauline Putin
4:13
10 Little Poems from the Pitt Gallery
10 Little Poems from the Pitt Gallery
9:42
10 Little Poems from the Pitt Gallery
9:42
My Winnipeg
My Winnipeg
12:45
My Winnipeg
12:45
Text for Winnipeg
Text for Winnipeg
13:04
Text for Winnipeg
13:04
Geronimo and Sitting Bulls
Geronimo and Sitting Bulls
25:24
Geronimo and Sitting Bulls
25:24
Dirt Worshiper
Dirt Worshiper
39:51
Dirt Worshiper
39:51
The Heartbeat of Mother Earth
The Heartbeat of Mother Earth
40:36
The Heartbeat of Mother Earth
40:36
Headdress
Headdress
48:33
Headdress
48:33
Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript.
0:05
good evening everyone and thank you for joining us for the sec for the third artist conversation that
0:10
we’re organizing to complement the exhibition of the recipients of the 2020 governor general’s awards
0:15
in visual and media arts currently installed at the art gallery of alberta my name is catherine croston and i’m the
0:22
executive director and chief curator of the aga i would like to begin by acknowledging that we are hosting the exhibition and
0:28
this webinar from treaty 6 territory the traditional land of diverse indigenous peoples
0:34
including the nihoawak cree anishnabe soto nisitapi blackfoot nakota soo
0:41
danae and metis peoples we also acknowledge the many indigenous first nations and inuit people who make
0:47
alberta their home today this acknowledgement is just one very small step on the path towards
0:52
reconciliation and there is critical work that we must continue to do to address the ongoing impacts of colonization
0:59
the governor general’s award in visual and media arts is a lifetime achievement award that recognizes an artist’s career
1:05
body of work and contribution to the visual and media arts and fine craft in canada
1:10
this year eight artists are being honored in recognition of their exceptional careers and remarkable contributions to the visual arts
1:17
media arts and fine craft the 2020 winners are deanna bowen dana claxton ruse cut hand michael
1:24
fernandez jorge lazano-lorsa ken lam anna torma and zainab ferci this evening we are
1:31
very pleased to welcome dana claxton dana claxton is a critically acclaimed artist who works in
1:37
film video photography single and multi-channel video installations and performance art
1:43
born in yorkton yorktown saskatchewan of hong kong lakota heritage dana grew up in moose jaw her practice
1:51
investigates beauty the body the socio-political and the spiritual combining her multi-layered world view
1:57
with indigenous issues both past and present her work has been shown internationally at institutions such as
2:03
the museum of modern art in new york and the museum of contemporary art in sydney australia and is held in public
2:09
and private and corporate collections across canada including the vancouver art gallery the art gallery of alberta
2:14
and the national gallery of canada dana has received numerous awards in her career including best experimental film
2:21
at the imaginative film festival the natician award for outstanding achievement and most recently the 2020
2:28
scotiabank photography award dan is head of an associate professor in the department of visual art art history
2:35
and theory at the university of british columbia where she teaches theory about love performance art and studio practice
2:41
she lives in vancouver on unseated salish territory tonight dana is in conversation with
2:47
pauline petty a fellow artist former student and anna studio manager pauline is a vancouver-based artist and
2:54
owner of studio 26 artist services a business that caters to the needs of the contemporary artistic practices
3:01
pauline was born and raised in france and moved to canada in 2007. she received her bachelor of arts in
3:08
visual arts from the university of british columbia in 2013. her work focuses on the mediation of
3:14
language spoken and visual she concerns herself with the historical cultural and often unacknowledged
3:20
narratives inherent to language through her business pauline has the privilege of working and consulting with
3:26
award-winning artists such as dana claxton christos di chiakos barry jones and
3:32
terry lynn williams davidson in 2017 she was one of the winners of
3:37
the magenta foundation flash forward competition pauline would like to acknowledge that she lives and works on the traditional
3:43
ancestral and unseated territory of the coast sandish peoples swamish stollow slaywatus and muslim
3:51
nations before i turn things over to dana and pauline just a few notes dan and pauline will be talking for
3:57
about 45 minutes following which we will answer questions please answer your questions using the
4:02
chat function i would also like to take this opportunity to thank epcor who support aga online programming
4:09
through their heart and soul fund please join me now in welcoming dana claxton and pauline putin
4:20
hello oh i think you’re on mute
4:27
goodness there we go thank you of course of course pauline to the
4:33
rescue right thank you everyone and thank you uh catherine for that lovely introduction um i’ve had a few technical
4:41
difficulties so now i’m i’m using my cell phone so i’ll try not to be uh too um in too much movement here
4:49
um so thank you everyone for being here uh i guess i just will give a bit of context is that
4:56
i thought it would be so great to have a conversation and acknowledge that i the work that i
5:02
do with pauline petit and that um of course artists are never working
5:07
you know solo and the more and more i uh create work the more and you know
5:13
the bigger and bigger sort of my circle of people who i work with become
5:19
and certainly in the last 10 years um it’s been uh i suppose imperative
5:25
and uh foundational that i have a studio assistant and then actually uh as uh
5:32
late uh as of late uh pauline’s been promoted to studio manager so excited about that and helping me
5:39
with some sort of the some of the you know and you know the business aspects of of art and the demands that are put on an
5:47
artist um so i also wanted to think about sort
5:53
of the sort of some of the foundational um teachings and influences of my own
5:59
practice and of course it starts with spirit song and spirit song was the native indian
6:04
theater group in vancouver and i attended it in the early 80s to the mid 80s and it was like this as i
6:11
always would call this clearing house for urban indians and anybody who had an inclination of creativity
6:18
and so you could go and you could study traditional theater practices or storytelling
6:26
or arts administration so i studied a bit of everything and you would get certificates
6:31
and um i wrote some of my first uh plays there that i later developed
6:38
into films one being the red paper and you know also first and foremost i’m
6:44
actually a poet is is my first artistic practice has been as a poet and then as a
6:50
photographer i’ve had a camera since i was about 16 my first canon ae1 so
6:57
um you know over the years i’ve sort of melded these things these things but spirit song was so
7:04
instrumental in sort of providing me a space
7:10
where what was you know sort of my inner world of creativity could
7:15
could come about but then also the administrative tasks that
7:20
you know that were that that i had to do and that they also put me through training of course have contributed so
7:27
much to my filmmaking to budgets and those kind of things and then also ultimately to
7:33
the administrative work that i’m doing at ubc and at ubc is where i met pauline so i
7:41
wanted to say that and she was in one of my uh 300 level uh studio theory classes
7:49
and i think we might have been reading michelle voco of course we were reading michelle foucault
7:57
and pauline would come to class and she was so you know she always had something to say
8:02
i want to say she was outspoken because you know it was a quiet class it was nine o’clock on friday mornings but she always had something to bring to
8:09
class and i remember at one point i thought i think she’s like an older person stuck in this young woman’s body like you know
8:16
just thinking because i would always i was thinking who is this person who is this person so we met in the classroom and then over
8:23
the years we got to know each other and then i was looking for a studio assistant and one of her colleagues in the department one
8:30
of her cohorts suggested that said that pauline was
8:38
really great number of skills so that’s um then we started to work together that’s
8:44
right it was actually right after i graduated i think it was the same summer um and i know we’ll talk about it a
8:51
little bit more at length like when i came into your career uh later in the in the talk so uh so
8:58
maybe we can skip that for now okay i’m gonna press this next button
9:04
sounds good oh text work yes yes
9:09
go ahead well i was just thinking i know that you were really keen on talking about your text word because for some reason
9:15
some people seem to to not realize that it’s such an integral part of your practice right and so it’s so important
9:20
that you mentioned that yes one of the first things you did was being a poet along with being um uh
9:28
an essay an essay writer and a playwright uh and then when you actually look back
9:33
through all your practice with that lens it all comes into place like of course text has always been there
9:38
absolutely and thinking about this work so this is called 10 little poems from
9:43
the pitt gallery also very foundational teachings for me
9:49
have been within the artist run center movement um with the pitt gallery videowind the
9:55
western front the grunt gallery and then some other spaces in canada
10:00
but those were foundational for me to uh be taught the role of art in society and
10:07
the uh value of artists in society and that artists can be initiators and
10:13
administrators and and create their own essentially create their own opportunities
10:18
um and make their own space so this was at the pit gallery and it was called little indians and so
10:25
it’s lovely because i couldn’t find some pictures of spirit song but in the background there it’s daryl gus
10:30
and he i met him at spirit song and so um i was this was tell a poem so
10:37
i was reciting you know it was a multimedia performance with my poetry
10:43
and sam bob was in this as well and so sam bob who i’ve had a you know 30-ish year or more
10:51
working relationship with us he is an actor currently we are writing a script
10:57
together and so those days that spirit song um you know i uh
11:05
became part of a creative milieu of people who i still work with russell wallace for instance the composer
11:12
i still work with him we met at spirit song and um archer pachalas and
11:18
evan adams i’m hoping to work with him soon one day as an actor and so um some of us
11:25
from spirit song went into you know um traditional kind of acting
11:31
theater and film and television and others through that creative
11:36
uh place um uh went into performance art so i this was sort of one of my this was
11:42
this was a collapse of um it was interdisciplinary multimedia
11:49
uh performance this work
11:58
somebody’s cutting trees outside so this was text for winnipeg and i did
12:04
a residency in winnipeg at women artists mentoring women
12:10
artists and um i wrote all it was all poems uh that i had written about
12:15
winnipeg and it was such an extraordinary place winnipeg it was you know it was it had major energy
12:22
there and i actually have to say i had a number of profound spiritual experiences in winnipeg
12:28
so i wrote about the works and then uh whatever i think it was seven years
12:33
later was invited to urban shaman another artist on center to um to create a work and and
12:40
they were having this i think it was called my winnipeg the whole city was doing uh works around my winnipeg and so this
12:47
was my winnipeg so it was a two channel video installation with text
12:52
of um i actually have a question for you on
12:58
this work because that’s something that came up more recently in one of your recent works as well
13:03
so the the title for this one is text for winnipeg but essentially all of the vowels are
13:09
dropped right and uh you use that that style uh with indian iron workers where indian
13:16
is just ndn so i was wondering if this is something that is particularly meaningful in any way like we never actually got to
13:23
talk about this thanks for asking me that i get right so
13:30
indian indian um you know of course which is a fraught word and a contested word and people love it or there’s
13:36
there’s all kinds of conversations around it so there’s the spelling of it ndn indian and because it’s like the the
13:43
when indians say they say it’s so fast indian so it’s indian indian and so the reason why i’ve used
13:49
that but text txt is just also you know sometimes the english language
13:56
gets in the right in the way so it’s also not allowing the english language to have complete
14:03
uh you know um say over how words should always be spelt or
14:08
said or even in sentences and of course we should always be making up new words and it’s all in capital
14:16
too it’s like you’re not being subtle about it at all it’s just taking ownership of those
14:22
words again it’s pretty great and also i think sometimes capitals just look really good together
14:28
not necessarily that i’m shouting this but that they just you know
14:33
aesthetically they looked good together yeah yeah there’s another image of
14:39
text for winnipeg i can’t read that oh can i oops oh it says neil young lived there he said you’re
14:47
ah you’re kidding i said neil young lived there i love him but have never brought one
14:53
about one of his records okay you know you would get you know
14:59
people would point things out so that was one thing about neil young
15:04
can you read what that one says i tried a slice of maple sugar pie and sent boniface
15:10
those irrequests sure know a lot about the maple tree
15:16
thank you i’m glad you can read them so some more work this is an outdoor
15:23
digital video digital billboard work and um you know sort of working with images
15:30
from my photography from from the mustang suite and then adding text to it
15:38
yeah so i guess that was in 2010 question mark i think it was and i know we’ve had this
15:45
discussion before where it felt like at least for me from coming from the outside and coming after the facts right how mustang sweet was such a pivotal
15:51
moment like you can um identify several pivotal moments in your career and i feel that
15:57
mustang suite was really one of those so it’s really neat to see it being being used um
16:03
in that context with the text on top of it because uh it was just so powerful on its own
16:10
but it feels like it doesn’t actually detract from that strength at all to have that text on it
16:21
and thinking about how the borrowing of texts and we’ll get to it with gramsci
16:26
but also i should say is that so with the mustang suite is that um and and
16:34
you know i guess my love and devotion and commitment to artists run center culture like i will
16:40
always want to show an artist run centers you know forever and so
16:45
that that that was actually a commission from the um alternator in kelowna
16:53
right right and it was a big commission it was a very generous commission and and for a smaller artist run center
17:01
to um to invite me to to do that it was it was uh it was great
17:10
i agree now we have this beautiful uh series of work that we get to all enjoy
17:17
and so this love me okay so thinking about the everyday and uh and and working with materials
17:24
this was one of those kooky black velvet artworks actually that paul wong gave me
17:30
of this indian papoose and you know he he gives me kitsch stuff
17:37
when he finds it and the last time he gave me some things and he said i know you’ll make art with this
17:42
so um i was thinking about you know all the conversations around reconciliation were happening canada is
17:49
in this state of reconciliation right as we know also a problematic term some
17:54
people like conciliation some people don’t even know that canada’s in a state of reconciliation or
18:00
what that might mean and so i was going to a conference
18:06
there was a symposium in saskatchewan at the u of s and um and so i i made this this
18:13
this work was inspired by the idea of reconciliation
18:19
and that’s love me in that you know can people uh you know love indigenous people is
18:26
the question that’s being asked here um what i also really like about quite a
18:31
few of the pieces that you made in indian candy because this is part of the indian candy series from 2013 is that we’re kind of finding
18:39
that um uh i don’t want to say collage but multi-layered approach to medium right
18:46
so there’s the text and there’s this image and there’s the appropriation but then is it actually appropriation when you’re basically
18:52
uh using an image that is so fraught with history and and that is like so
18:59
just going back to spirit song you know basically taking all of these things and and
19:04
creating this piece that ends up having that it’s more than just
19:10
a photo it’s more than just an uh a borrowed image and it’s more than just a text piece
19:15
right and that’s something that is quite strong in in in indian candy yeah sort of the
19:24
multiple layers of meaning multiple layers of histories
19:29
uh multiple entry points tonto uh i think this one says i i don’t have
19:36
a full image of it it says tonto pray for you which i think is actually something that the character
19:41
says in the in the movie right behind the series yeah so there’s a whole bunch of of
19:47
course tonto fans out there and um jay silverfield’s mohawk actor
19:54
and so they would have him in this series sort of speak broken indian you know
20:01
and he kind of spoke in this monotone and you know it was all problematic but it was all amazing as well
20:07
people loved him you know and so there’s a number of um sites that list all of the work
20:15
all of the uh the sentences that he would say and so that you know if and if those
20:22
sites were all true um so the i i borrowed some of those sayings
20:27
uh from from him and put them on you know he he comes from another generation
20:33
right you know he wasn’t he was before uh that tv series was before you know
20:40
wasn’t well i was a child but a little bit before before me but people
20:46
would have what has been interesting is that when people have seen this of the generation who watched him
20:52
they melt because they loved him people loved character i don’t know is it is it
20:59
where it’s kind of bringing up what happened when this went on the billboard because this whole series ended up being on billboards across canada
21:05
as part of the contact festival right and tonto pray for you ended up in winnipeg
21:10
and there was like such a backlash which was so interesting and i think that you even
21:15
got to do a bit of an interview about that and i wonder if it’s like i do you want to talk a bit about it because i thought that was so
21:21
interesting when it happened i will um so yes so it’s
21:28
it was again it was a public art commission from works that had already been created from the indian candy series and there
21:36
was 28 billboards but this particular one it was when it was in when it was in this one was it when it was in saskatoon saskatoon
21:44
and somebody saw it and um uh one person as a christian was
21:50
offended that it said tonto pray for you and so and and then and then somebody else was
21:58
offended because they wanted to know if an indigenous person had created these images
22:03
so i remember how i just i and this is where i decided i’m not just going to grant anybody a television interview and
22:11
because you know you can get turned into a little sound bite and taken out of context and um but they
22:18
you know it was national air time that they gave just due to the topic and but yeah that was
22:24
also it was the first time that i did such a big outdoor work and
22:32
and and where i didn’t feel then after that is safe going outside the gallery space
22:40
safe in the gallery to some capacity you know i’m used to being in the gallery i love being in the gallery it’s the home of
22:47
art i mean heart art should have a home in all kinds of places but the gallery
22:52
is the home of art and i feel safe there so then to you know go and and have
22:57
these billboards which are really quite tame to be so controversial was the first time i was in in
23:05
in the situation as being deemed that it was that something i had made was
23:10
controversial well especially when you consider that so much of what makes this work is
23:16
already existing at large you know so isn’t it fascinating that it’s just
23:24
the slight rearranging of those those images and words that again already
23:30
exist at large and that’s all it took you know to create that conversation
23:37
it’s lively for sure but it doesn’t take much to get people talking which is nice in many ways i
23:44
would say when it comes to art anyway yeah i mean it was great that these
23:49
people were looking and responding to something that they had seen sort of visual culture you know
23:54
uh out in the public so this was just another image of indian candy with uh maria told sheep mm-hmm
24:05
and this one actually um was in multiple locations but it was also
24:10
in winnipeg in a particular neighborhood and some people uh were uncertain about
24:17
the meaning of it because in one of the neighborhoods it was um uh there were sex workers
24:26
so they did it oh this is i don’t think i got interviewed for that one but they did a news story
24:32
on it and they interviewed people who were looking at it and it was so lovely there was a man in
24:38
his children and the man said but he said but it’s just asking you do you
24:44
love do you love this the person in the picture it was lovely what he said he didn’t look at
24:49
being that you know that we we weren’t putting i didn’t this was another thing is i didn’t
24:54
select where these works go you know yeah the free billboard space sometimes
25:00
right sort of non-profit billboard space and so i happened to be in an area with sex workers and
25:06
people were sort of wondering that meaning within seeing love me you know over top
25:12
of an indigenous uh image that is so successful that it ended up being there it’s almost uh
25:19
serendipity okay now this one i think was in vancouver
25:24
geronimo and sitting bulls so those again were mined from the internet signatures of native americans and just
25:31
thinking of these two fellows who uh who were you know uh
25:36
sort of uh liberation uh really liberty they were key liberation
25:43
uh people who who did a lot for indigenous people white buffalo of course that was in
25:49
vancouver geronimo again that was in vancouver
25:56
and also color working with indian candy of course you know playing with that term indian
26:01
candy which for some people might not know it but on the west coast it’s it’s it’s candied maplized
26:09
maple syrup kind of uh wild salmon dried wild and so i was playing with that term
26:15
indian candy and then and then these were initially very colorful
26:21
uh metallic prints with a high-gloss laminate on them so they were these
26:28
in in the gallery you feel like you could you felt you could go and lick them it was just crazy i actually got to see them when they first came out
26:35
so especially on the white wall right has just popped so much yeah and there’s another
26:43
one in vancouver and then just some more text based work uh dirt worshiper
26:50
um uh that was from a residency initially that i had done in concordia
26:56
with the uh communications department there and um watched that terrible series that was so
27:05
amazing uh forgetting the name of it that western series oh westwood no it was
27:13
it’s slipping my mind will come back to me it was a it was a period piece of cowboys and one or two indians there
27:21
was not very many indians in it physically that you could see them but they were the term to call native
27:27
americans dirt worshipers and i just loved that term so then as you know
27:32
made some works of uh different sayings and then this one keep your nose close
27:37
to the buffalo grass a lakota elder told me this and she an elder had told her
27:43
uh when she she told me this when she was about 83. and a lakota elder had told her this
27:51
when she was about 18. so i just loved that uh
27:57
that teaching basically and so we painted the walls turquoise
28:03
and um i can’t remember where this one was now so this was all in santa fe and the the
28:10
show was called you are on indian land and yeah it was a commission i think
28:17
and then it was lovely when we were picking out that uh font yes yeah we tried different things for
28:23
sure this is like some of my personally as somebody who helped with the production rather than pre-production these are my
28:30
most favorite assignments just having to get to play with all the fonts
28:39
oops and i might have to plug in my phone here
28:45
yeah this is um more recent works as well you’ve been like very interested in gramsci recently
28:52
and um what’s so interesting with the way that you actually put those things together it was like even putting the work
29:00
together was a performative act that we only get to see the trace of
29:06
now um so you had all these quotes uh printed on two cards
29:13
i actually have the cards if i can grab some at some point to show them if
29:18
there’s time but uh and then you threw them essentially and so that was
29:24
like a very like performance gesture because then they were all on the ground and then uh you randomly picked two at a
29:31
time to make those collages of gramsci uh sayings almost
29:39
yes and the this one is what does that say luxury mammoth gorilla
29:46
so just so terms that he would use thinking about what a luxury mammal is in terms of
29:51
privilege in class and uh but then also the thinking guerrilla of the proletariat on the assembly line
29:58
and so and they were you know there were you know chapters and chapters apart in the in the notebooks but just the idea of
30:06
those two ideas of the sort of you know the gentry privileged woman you know being with the thinking
30:12
gorilla i just thought it was so great and that’s you know sort of thinking about a personal ad and then also switching out materials
30:19
as you know when we were thinking about you know not always privileging the
30:25
sort of rectangle surface of photography um so this is when i started looking at
30:30
printing on uh linens and silk that was like right after you had um
30:38
actually done the win box buffalo woman one and two
30:43
right yeah yeah definitely getting into that uh different support and material at the
30:49
time and just you know thinking about yeah just not always printing on paper and
30:57
bringing photography into more of a sculptural form
31:03
and so these are the banners from uh inspired by grimshi as well and um these are the the mysteriously
31:11
missing banners aren’t they are they still missing well i know that
31:18
you want those works to be at large in the world and you actually want them disseminated so in a way that is i think
31:24
it is perfect for them to be missing
31:30
oh oh no you broke out completely
31:37
can you can you hear me yes yes now i can hear you okay sorry it’s i also have somebody
31:43
cutting down trees in the yard thinking about it’s perfect that they’re that they’re in italy and um yes that’s right where was this
31:52
now i forgot this is the museum of the modern art and balloon
31:57
lovely that he you know just you know close to uh where graham she was from
32:04
okay i’m gonna go on here let the poem limp so i loved this
32:10
and that the idea that you know i mean in terms of perfection and uh you know allowing things to be
32:18
or allowing things to you know to be imperfect and he said let the poem limp i mean
32:24
there was a number of times reading antonio gramsci where which is i would just melt with some of his ideas
32:31
you know okay i’ll go into the next one here and there they are the bag so that we’ve
32:39
had these in various iterations of these banners perform them they’ve been in galleries
32:45
and they’ll continue to circulate
32:56
and so this is it um at the urban screen at emily carr so
33:02
that’s when you did the the more you know more bigger version of all of those sayings
33:08
with many more quotes i think there was like a thousand cards that you printed or something like that
33:13
and then you got to pick many combinations out of and they were all random so it was so
33:20
wonderful printing them up and then just throwing them all up in the air and never would grab and i’d grab one
33:26
and grab another one and i’d read them out loud and we’re like oh my god oh my god put two random thoughts
33:34
together and always worked it was amazing and with profound ideas
33:41
it’s like you know just about every word you know that you know this man was thinking
33:46
so yeah so that was fun to uh to do those and thinking about chance
33:52
you know chad’s narrative and and seeing what would come together i can’t
33:58
read that can you the proletariat the peasants and the new bourgeoisie intellectualized form
34:11
well this is really a homage to a few people
34:16
and uh um but just again working with color indian
34:22
candy really allowed me a space to work with color and uh and then text and thinking about tupac
34:31
as well as um you know incarcerated indigenous people and so
34:38
that’s what this work was inspired by
34:47
so i’ll print press next there we go
34:53
yeah so that was um i think what you alluded to earlier red paper which so you know i
35:00
keep mentioning pivotal moments in your career but that was really one of them where you moved from um the uh performative stage and and
35:09
spirit song and really moved into the gallery um using the same teachings essentially
35:16
but totally just recontextualizing the work in the gallery mm-hmm
35:22
yeah and so um i think that is that at topography is
35:28
that the vag it could be i cannot remember off the
35:34
top of my head to be honest i can’t quite see the whole slide but that was the first time that the red
35:39
paper was shown was um at topographies at the veg and where i actually
35:45
had um you know made it as an installation so it was my first
35:50
installation to take then my filmmaking into the gallery space and this has always been a
35:55
film for the gallery space as opposed to screening in a theater and yeah that was
36:02
topographies that uh monica gang young and grant arnold and
36:08
during together and um so again working with somebody who i
36:15
had worked with that spirit song and from a play that i had written the red paper and then turning it into a
36:22
to a film script and there’s the uh the installation and
36:27
uh aspect of it as well with like all those chairs like the red chairs and they’re all very you know um uh early 20th century uh
36:36
going to the cinema chairs that was pretty great and then i said yeah and i painted
36:43
them golden this is a production shot of samaya who is a woman
36:48
also who i’ve worked with for 30 years and i’ll continue to work with her both as a uh her as an
36:54
actress as well as somebody who i photograph
37:00
oops and that’s just another sort of production still from the red
37:06
paper and then buffalo bone china
37:13
so another one of those sort of a multimedia moment where you moved it into the
37:20
gallery and that was actually uh again remnants of one of your performances
37:25
uh where there was first the performance where you brought out buffalo bone china so uh china
37:32
porcelain’s made out of all the buffaloes uh essentially uh the buffalo bones and then you broke
37:39
it uh and then those remnants are here i mean is it these are the same right these are the
37:44
same pieces that you broke in that 97 performance yeah right and then you had like this uh
37:50
beautiful uh collage like i keep saying collage i’m sorry montage of the buffalo herds
37:56
uh i guess in the prairies in canada or these from uh uh in in the us they’re from different
38:03
sources different resources okay it all seems like they’re all the same you know that you actually you went out there and did it
38:09
yourself and again sort of uh found found
38:15
some of the found and appropriated footage of buffalo um but also as you mentioned a
38:23
uh doing the performance of smashing the the fine bone china it was it was probably
38:29
goat or cow bone it wasn’t it was in buffalo bone at this point in history but in the
38:35
day they did use you know when with the extermination of the buffalo used buffalo so but this would have been goat or cow
38:42
and but taking those performance actions and then uh making the performance
38:49
installation and the video so it was also uh a foundational work of uh bringing those
38:55
elements into the gallery space too
39:07
oh are you still here okay you are oh and some more performance works just
39:13
want to look at that dirt worshiper yes so that’s before and then there’s
39:19
the after picture
39:24
there it is gotta love that fringe oh yeah we have to get into the fringe
39:30
we absolutely have to get into the fringe like basically i think what you’re trying to to um the story you’re trying to say
39:38
here is like there’s so many things that we’ve throughout all of your work that just keep coming back like you know uh that
39:46
just all throughout and so the fringe it’s amazing so this one you you so you
39:52
had dirt worshiper which again was already kind of another iteration of the work that you
39:57
did in santa fe and you hung it in the in the gallery
40:02
and it was this very rhythmic uh shredding of that word almost
40:10
and he just yeah it went like it’s very rhythmic it was almost like a song
40:15
you know almost like the rattle song from from your peace rattle uh and you end up with this
40:22
gorgeous fringe this colorful oh i just don’t know i just can’t say
40:28
anything anymore it’s just beautiful i really liked it and we’re thinking of
40:33
the this when i was ripping i was you know sort of wanting to emulate the heartbeat of mother earth
40:40
yes so there it is
40:45
where is that i can’t quite see it this isn’t the bag it said the bag and so there’s a video on the
40:51
yeah this is a steal from uh from the performance that we recorded
40:57
and so there’s the the gramsci uh banners in action [Music]
41:03
at a book launch uh for uh jalae mansour
41:10
there’s the smashing yeah low bones of the fine bone china rather
41:19
oh i mean i just kind of pressing next yeah so basically um
41:26
i think the way that we were talking about these two sections performances and
41:31
fireboxes is to kind of show that there’s some pillars almost in your practice that’s like directly stemmed
41:38
from spirit song and so how it sort of manifested itself uh in
41:44
different ways later on in your career so now we’re into the firebox where
41:49
uh in order to create these works it’s these massive productions where you have to be on set and there’s props and
41:55
there’s costumes and there’s uh actors and there’s uh all these things that you basically learned and
42:02
took from your time making uh movies and films uh and being again that spirit song but also
42:08
uh when you were creating those um tv series with apt and i believe right
42:16
and so now it’s manifesting itself into these like big big tableau like productions uh creating
42:22
those fireboxes and i think that’s when i came actually when you made your first firebox that’s when we met
42:29
and we started working together and i think that’s actually the first picture i worked on with you
42:34
it is yeah and also just thinking about how you know the amount of uh uh
42:43
support that fireboxes not only from the mining of
42:50
the aluminum to make the box itself or the led lights and um but also
42:56
you know just the you know being on that and and the studio and just the yeah
43:03
that i don’t work uh other than of course the paris series where i just go around you know went
43:10
walk uh taking photographs but where this particular these particular works uh you know take a
43:16
great deal of uh collaboration for many people mm-hmm well and you kind of
43:21
mentioned it both when they i like to say premiered uh where they premiered at the odainus if
43:28
you and at the vag you said you know i started counting how many hands uh touch these works right to make them
43:34
happen and i stopped counting up to a hundred right it was just so many people came
43:39
into it yeah because then also just even the the fellows at abc
43:45
you know to make the the duratran and you know the kind of labor goes into that and yeah so it the the kind of
43:53
labor that goes into making uh fire boxes or even films as we know
43:58
but takes a lot of people and so just looking at her image here of course the
44:03
continued fringe and her elk robe
44:10
yeah and so of course everybody i’m sure everybody here has seen your latest work but
44:15
this was the original headdress yes nice to see her
44:22
and i should say this la so this that samajar day again who i’ve photographed for over 30 years and
44:29
i will photograph her more
44:35
yeah here’s cowboy so that was um i think you made it in
44:42
time for the vancouver art gallery show um and
44:49
i think really looking at it and i mentioned this before as well i kept thinking about how one of your
44:56
hallmark you know like the signature style most of your work um photography work when that whenever
45:04
there’s an indigenous body it is in an empty space
45:09
and i asked to point blank i’m like is there a meaning behind it because i have an idea but it might be totally different than what your idea is
45:15
and so we talked a little bit about this i’m going to let you sort of say where they are because i don’t want to steal your thunder
45:22
steal my thunder no well you said you said come on you have
45:28
to say it okay well i think i said i mean i can’t completely paraphrase myself i’m paraphrasing
45:34
myself but i think i was saying that i’m thinking about infinity yes and and you know the
45:40
vastness of uh the prairie the plains landscape where i grew up like even though i’ve
45:45
been in vancouver for 35 years you know my home place is still uh saskatchewan and it’s still
45:54
the plains and whether that’s in saskatchewan or or south in north dakota but um you know
46:00
so when you when you’re images of life or you know as far as you can see you know you’re that
46:07
you you can you can see you know thinking of the in the enormous sky
46:13
and then all of our lakota sky teachings but just just that impact of uh
46:19
being able to see as far as you can see there’s no in the there’s no you know nothing
46:25
stopping you from looking uh for a long long ways so when i think
46:31
about these works and because also my you know my black and white films have all been
46:36
in a fairly sparse studio space and but i’ve always been
46:42
thinking that they would they’re in in infinity when i’m shooting them yeah and i think that’s particularly
46:48
true with this work because you literally were there on set saying you know you’re suing the infinity you’re suing the endless right
46:55
now and then that’s where it came to be that it had to be more than one lasso right it’s this uh
47:01
sort of endless task almost right exactly yeah i forgot i said that to him
47:08
thank you oh of course for being for remembering that on set
47:16
so now we have the indian iron workers which again is so interesting they’re
47:21
removed from their environment because they built the city you said [Music]
47:27
and you know i just didn’t want them in a construction site and not that i didn’t appreciate the construction site
47:32
but the idea of having um you know these men in a studio space
47:39
that’s quote this site of glamour right you know we think you know that the sight of glamour and
47:45
just you know showing their beauty i just i love the idea of having them come to
47:52
that we shoot in the studio and they liked it as well it was a lovely reciprocal
47:57
uh exchange that was going on yeah and also thinking okay
48:06
um not you know the usual sets props and costumes uh when we invited them it was like you
48:13
know i wanted to photograph iron workers and wear whatever you like to wear but i
48:18
wanted iron workers so some came in with all their gear and others came in uh with their civilian wear
48:32
and so now we get into a headdress addresses the headdresses so there was five in
48:41
that series which um so janine was the first one out
48:46
of that series and then you created another four as well
48:52
and it’s kind of funny because actually like most of them you create you created them at the same time they got released like a little bit at different times
48:59
so janine came out first for the vancouver art gallery show survey show fringing the cube and then
49:05
the five as a set um first were shown together uh in toronto for the
49:14
biennial yeah like this so that’s that the
49:20
biennial in toronto so there’s the fire box in the wind box
49:29
that are part of uh fringing the cube i want your thoughts come up soon and so
49:35
i was thinking about how you know when we have a working relationship with you
49:41
and um how you know we’re in the studio and it’s and and the studio at ubc is
49:46
the first time that i’ve had a you know bonafide studio that wasn’t you know in the living room in
49:52
the kitchen yeah or or rented space to take photographs so it’s my first time having
49:57
a studio where i can go and just you know maul and play and that kind of thing so but just riffing off each other when we
50:04
were getting to the point of firebox and and win box that was as a
50:09
result being in the studio riffing together and then when i was having my show at
50:14
the vag and uh you know we’re thinking of titles
50:20
for the show that’s just that’s a studio picture of is that the one
50:25
with yeah so just i think it shows maybe there’s 10 people in there but that was not about a
50:30
full day and also i mean it could be me too it
50:35
could be my process that i like to feed everybody you know my sister comes and cooks
50:41
that was great i was not hungry for 10 days
50:47
her apron on she loves to cook and i mean we just you know it’s like to feed people and
50:52
you know sometimes the first thing to do is after every after the studio is set up then to break and we eat together and
50:58
then we start to make and so um got it gotta be nourished
51:04
i’d like to just very very quickly go back to the firebox because uh we don’t have to go back in time but
51:10
um specifically because a there’s you know you mentioned
51:16
that your home is still saskatchewan and of course when you’ve lived there and that expense will always impact you
51:22
but then you mentioned in our conversations before that you can’t ignore the uh influence that the vancouver art
51:29
scene has had on you and so it’s funny because when it actually came time to make the firebox it it you were so worried about making
51:36
it you were like oh no but the guys they already made it the guys the vancouver guys who made it
51:42
should i make it and i think it was danielle gaiden i believe that or was it kathleen that no
51:50
it was dino guys that you know talked with you and convinced you no no you’re allowed to make
51:55
a box and so that’s when it came to be the firebox so it’s just not just a light box it was a firebox
52:04
thanks for for bringing that up is that you know i’ve been completely influenced by vancouver
52:10
um from just you know being a passive observer uh watching people make art and then
52:17
eventually making my own art but you know being certainly certainly aware of um you know
52:22
the vancouver school and the role of the of the lightbox but i was relieved when i thought i can call
52:30
mine fireboxes and then i sort of had a relief from all of that history
52:35
exactly and you know when there’s been conversations around culturalizing it and those kind of things
52:40
so here’s back in the studio where i love to be i love to be in the studio i love to be
52:46
in the sundance circle and i love to be in the classroom these are places that for me in terms of creativity and
52:54
teaching and learning and spirit there’s you know so much of that is all within those those three places
53:01
and so um this is a great photo of uh being in the studio
53:07
and just looking at work with the team more people with the team
53:15
that’s a great studio that space so henry have worked with some great photographers as well
53:23
but yeah it’s like a real production it’s it is like the same as being on a movie set
53:35
and i just feel like i’m your little shadow in the background i’m just kind of following i’m like
53:50
that’s the dressing shade it just takes lots of hands so i liked
53:55
this i found this when i was looking through images it was again you know having the privilege to have a
54:01
studio space at ubc you know i recognize that and uh and then you know riffing with my studio
54:07
assistant and i can’t read them all but will you read a few i think it says fringing self
54:13
let’s get fringed dana claxton fringed becoming fringe i fringe fringing the
54:19
image long sway the fringe oh that’s that was a good one longest way the fringe i like it oh wow oh long sway the fringe
54:27
you know like the fringe but long sway the fringe instead right um and so fringing the gallery fringing
54:33
space fringing the walls yeah and then pauline jumps up
54:39
out of her studio and screams out what did you scream out
54:45
pauline fringing the cube [Laughter] was such a beautiful moment we’re like
54:53
yes that’s what i’m doing here i’m finishing the cube so these are some installation shots at
55:00
the vag and i’ll just quickly uh wrap this up but also also have the at the invitation of the
55:06
vancouver art gallery to curate other works within my exhibition and that was such a uh uh an amazing gift and
55:15
opportunity to go through their collection and to select these works that um that i thought were that you know you
55:22
can create conversations maybe we didn’t create them at the same time to have a dialogue but we were you know to create to create
55:29
new conversations and then we hung some of the banners and then this was lovely working with
55:35
the exhibition space that was already there and thinking about the face thinking about the face in the head uh
55:42
with that section i apologize for my cat oh i can’t see
55:48
him that’s okay he’s off the side do anything
55:59
thank you i’m back hi hi that was fun thank you
56:06
there have been no questions in the chat so i just let you keep checking thank you but we’re now
56:14
approaching a couple minutes before the scheduled end and i don’t know dana are there more
56:19
slides that we no i think that’s the last one i think that’s the last one
56:25
i see your cat now yeah i’m sorry you know when the cat comes just can’t
56:31
push him off he’ll come back um you know i think we had also
56:38
hoped to just touch upon when in dennis career i came um
56:44
and it wasn’t a very very dynamic time uh in in her career in your career dana
56:50
because you know you had been at ubc for about four years and you were starting to make these inc
56:57
like magnitudes bigger pieces you know the firebox and and and then you know you had just
57:03
started to do the billboards across canada and that was at a time where you had to be so flexible and just wear so many
57:10
hats to actually see that production come to fruition that it allowed
57:15
our relationship to be very dynamic as well and so i think that’s why it sort of like evolved so organically to
57:22
you know what i feel like having a hand in everything
57:28
but correct me if i’m wrong no i mean it was it was it was a a pivotal
57:34
moment and uh for for me for to to create works and also to um
57:41
you know have the studio but also to have somebody supporting those those things that go on
57:46
in and outside of the studio you know i mean it’s it’s terrible not
57:52
terrible but it’s the reality of you know some of the sort of administrative business aspects
57:59
of being an artist that you know you have to wear all of these hats and so
58:04
um you know studio managers can handle you know take take on some of those
58:10
administrative duties and you know as well as you know you’re you’re an artist and you’re creative and
58:16
you have your own practice right so
58:21
being able to create with another artist as opposed to you know somebody with an
58:28
mba or something and not dissing them you know it’s it it makes
58:33
um i think a relationship between an artist and their studio assistant studio manager when they’re an artist and
58:40
and are engaged in the creative process and you know you’re a political thinker
58:46
you’re a spiritual being and um so it’s and you have this
58:51
you know enormous sense of humor it just i would make it it makes the job of an artist uh
58:58
that much more pleasant well thank you i think i’m the very very lucky one
59:05
i guess we both are yes this is love all around
59:12
yay thank you so much both dana and pauline i mean it’s been wonderful to hear not
59:17
just about downer the incredible work that you’ve made over many many years but the relationship that you have with your
59:23
assistant studio manager former student um and how those relationships kind of helped
59:29
to build the work and to build um you know build a career that you have been so i think honored for and
59:36
um i think the governor general’s award is just one of those small kind of recognitions that i think you deserve as
59:43
one of our most interesting important canadian artists so thank you very much for
59:49
sharing this with us tonight thank you thank you thank you so much for having us
59:54
yes now for those of you who don’t know we’re doing a series with our governor general award-winning artists all of
1:00:00
them are super fantastic and uh contributing their time to these conversations so
1:00:06
uh next monday we have a conversation with anna torma uh in conversation with shawna thompson
1:00:11
who is the curator at the isper foundation in calgary i will be doing that next monday at 1pm
1:00:18
and i want to thank everybody for being here today and also acknowledge the canada council for the arts for their support of the governor
1:00:25
general’s awards and the exhibition here at the art gallery of alberta so thank you again everybody and i hope to
1:00:32
see you next monday thank you it can also you can also look
1:00:37
at the exhibition online through an online video walkthrough at the aga website if
1:00:42
someone wants to actually see the show itself anyway thank you
1:00:54
okay
1:01:32
you
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