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good evening everyone and thank you for joining us for the sec for the third artist conversation that

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we’re organizing to complement the exhibition of the recipients of the 2020 governor general’s awards

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in visual and media arts currently installed at the art gallery of alberta my name is catherine croston and i’m the

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executive director and chief curator of the aga i would like to begin by acknowledging that we are hosting the exhibition and

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this webinar from treaty 6 territory the traditional land of diverse indigenous peoples

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including the nihoawak cree anishnabe soto nisitapi blackfoot nakota soo

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danae and metis peoples we also acknowledge the many indigenous first nations and inuit people who make

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alberta their home today this acknowledgement is just one very small step on the path towards

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reconciliation and there is critical work that we must continue to do to address the ongoing impacts of colonization

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the governor general’s award in visual and media arts is a lifetime achievement award that recognizes an artist’s career

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body of work and contribution to the visual and media arts and fine craft in canada

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this year eight artists are being honored in recognition of their exceptional careers and remarkable contributions to the visual arts

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media arts and fine craft the 2020 winners are deanna bowen dana claxton ruse cut hand michael

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fernandez jorge lazano-lorsa ken lam anna torma and zainab ferci this evening we are

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very pleased to welcome dana claxton dana claxton is a critically acclaimed artist who works in

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film video photography single and multi-channel video installations and performance art

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born in yorkton yorktown saskatchewan of hong kong lakota heritage dana grew up in moose jaw her practice

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investigates beauty the body the socio-political and the spiritual combining her multi-layered world view

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with indigenous issues both past and present her work has been shown internationally at institutions such as

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the museum of modern art in new york and the museum of contemporary art in sydney australia and is held in public

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and private and corporate collections across canada including the vancouver art gallery the art gallery of alberta

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and the national gallery of canada dana has received numerous awards in her career including best experimental film

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at the imaginative film festival the natician award for outstanding achievement and most recently the 2020

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scotiabank photography award dan is head of an associate professor in the department of visual art art history

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and theory at the university of british columbia where she teaches theory about love performance art and studio practice

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she lives in vancouver on unseated salish territory tonight dana is in conversation with

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pauline petty a fellow artist former student and anna studio manager pauline is a vancouver-based artist and

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owner of studio 26 artist services a business that caters to the needs of the contemporary artistic practices

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pauline was born and raised in france and moved to canada in 2007. she received her bachelor of arts in

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visual arts from the university of british columbia in 2013. her work focuses on the mediation of

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language spoken and visual she concerns herself with the historical cultural and often unacknowledged

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narratives inherent to language through her business pauline has the privilege of working and consulting with

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award-winning artists such as dana claxton christos di chiakos barry jones and

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terry lynn williams davidson in 2017 she was one of the winners of

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the magenta foundation flash forward competition pauline would like to acknowledge that she lives and works on the traditional

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ancestral and unseated territory of the coast sandish peoples swamish stollow slaywatus and muslim

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nations before i turn things over to dana and pauline just a few notes dan and pauline will be talking for

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about 45 minutes following which we will answer questions please answer your questions using the

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chat function i would also like to take this opportunity to thank epcor who support aga online programming

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through their heart and soul fund please join me now in welcoming dana claxton and pauline putin

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hello oh i think you’re on mute

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goodness there we go thank you of course of course pauline to the

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rescue right thank you everyone and thank you uh catherine for that lovely introduction um i’ve had a few technical

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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

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um so thank you everyone for being here uh i guess i just will give a bit of context is that

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i thought it would be so great to have a conversation and acknowledge that i the work that i

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do with pauline petit and that um of course artists are never working

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you know solo and the more and more i uh create work the more and you know

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the bigger and bigger sort of my circle of people who i work with become

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and certainly in the last 10 years um it’s been uh i suppose imperative

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and uh foundational that i have a studio assistant and then actually uh as uh

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late uh as of late uh pauline’s been promoted to studio manager so excited about that and helping me

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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

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artist um so i also wanted to think about sort

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of the sort of some of the foundational um teachings and influences of my own

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practice and of course it starts with spirit song and spirit song was the native indian

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theater group in vancouver and i attended it in the early 80s to the mid 80s and it was like this as i

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always would call this clearing house for urban indians and anybody who had an inclination of creativity

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and so you could go and you could study traditional theater practices or storytelling

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or arts administration so i studied a bit of everything and you would get certificates

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and um i wrote some of my first uh plays there that i later developed

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into films one being the red paper and you know also first and foremost i’m

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actually a poet is is my first artistic practice has been as a poet and then as a

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photographer i’ve had a camera since i was about 16 my first canon ae1 so

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um you know over the years i’ve sort of melded these things these things but spirit song was so

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instrumental in sort of providing me a space

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where what was you know sort of my inner world of creativity could

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could come about but then also the administrative tasks that

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you know that were that that i had to do and that they also put me through training of course have contributed so

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much to my filmmaking to budgets and those kind of things and then also ultimately to

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the administrative work that i’m doing at ubc and at ubc is where i met pauline so i

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wanted to say that and she was in one of my uh 300 level uh studio theory classes

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and i think we might have been reading michelle voco of course we were reading michelle foucault

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and pauline would come to class and she was so you know she always had something to say

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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

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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

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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

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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

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of her cohorts suggested that said that pauline was

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really great number of skills so that’s um then we started to work together that’s

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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

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little bit more at length like when i came into your career uh later in the in the talk so uh so

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maybe we can skip that for now okay i’m gonna press this next button

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sounds good oh text work yes yes

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go ahead well i was just thinking i know that you were really keen on talking about your text word because for some reason

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some people seem to to not realize that it’s such an integral part of your practice right and so it’s so important

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that you mentioned that yes one of the first things you did was being a poet along with being um uh

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an essay an essay writer and a playwright uh and then when you actually look back

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through all your practice with that lens it all comes into place like of course text has always been there

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absolutely and thinking about this work so this is called 10 little poems from

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the pitt gallery also very foundational teachings for me

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have been within the artist run center movement um with the pitt gallery videowind the

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western front the grunt gallery and then some other spaces in canada

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but those were foundational for me to uh be taught the role of art in society and

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the uh value of artists in society and that artists can be initiators and

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administrators and and create their own essentially create their own opportunities

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um and make their own space so this was at the pit gallery and it was called little indians and so

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it’s lovely because i couldn’t find some pictures of spirit song but in the background there it’s daryl gus

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and he i met him at spirit song and so um i was this was tell a poem so

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i was reciting you know it was a multimedia performance with my poetry

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and sam bob was in this as well and so sam bob who i’ve had a you know 30-ish year or more

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working relationship with us he is an actor currently we are writing a script

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together and so those days that spirit song um you know i uh

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became part of a creative milieu of people who i still work with russell wallace for instance the composer

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i still work with him we met at spirit song and um archer pachalas and

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evan adams i’m hoping to work with him soon one day as an actor and so um some of us

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from spirit song went into you know um traditional kind of acting

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theater and film and television and others through that creative

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uh place um uh went into performance art so i this was sort of one of my this was

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this was a collapse of um it was interdisciplinary multimedia

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uh performance this work

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somebody’s cutting trees outside so this was text for winnipeg and i did

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a residency in winnipeg at women artists mentoring women

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artists and um i wrote all it was all poems uh that i had written about

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winnipeg and it was such an extraordinary place winnipeg it was you know it was it had major energy

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there and i actually have to say i had a number of profound spiritual experiences in winnipeg

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so i wrote about the works and then uh whatever i think it was seven years

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later was invited to urban shaman another artist on center to um to create a work and and

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they were having this i think it was called my winnipeg the whole city was doing uh works around my winnipeg and so this

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was my winnipeg so it was a two channel video installation with text

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of um i actually have a question for you on

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this work because that’s something that came up more recently in one of your recent works as well

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so the the title for this one is text for winnipeg but essentially all of the vowels are

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dropped right and uh you use that that style uh with indian iron workers where indian

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is just ndn so i was wondering if this is something that is particularly meaningful in any way like we never actually got to

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talk about this thanks for asking me that i get right so

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indian indian um you know of course which is a fraught word and a contested word and people love it or there’s

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there’s all kinds of conversations around it so there’s the spelling of it ndn indian and because it’s like the the

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when indians say they say it’s so fast indian so it’s indian indian and so the reason why i’ve used

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that but text txt is just also you know sometimes the english language

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gets in the right in the way so it’s also not allowing the english language to have complete

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uh you know um say over how words should always be spelt or

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said or even in sentences and of course we should always be making up new words and it’s all in capital

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too it’s like you’re not being subtle about it at all it’s just taking ownership of those

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words again it’s pretty great and also i think sometimes capitals just look really good together

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not necessarily that i’m shouting this but that they just you know

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aesthetically they looked good together yeah yeah there’s another image of

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text for winnipeg i can’t read that oh can i oops oh it says neil young lived there he said you’re

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ah you’re kidding i said neil young lived there i love him but have never brought one

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about one of his records okay you know you would get you know

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people would point things out so that was one thing about neil young

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can you read what that one says i tried a slice of maple sugar pie and sent boniface

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those irrequests sure know a lot about the maple tree

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thank you i’m glad you can read them so some more work this is an outdoor

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digital video digital billboard work and um you know sort of working with images

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from my photography from from the mustang suite and then adding text to it

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yeah so i guess that was in 2010 question mark i think it was and i know we’ve had this

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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

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moment like you can um identify several pivotal moments in your career and i feel that

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mustang suite was really one of those so it’s really neat to see it being being used um

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in that context with the text on top of it because uh it was just so powerful on its own

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but it feels like it doesn’t actually detract from that strength at all to have that text on it

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and thinking about how the borrowing of texts and we’ll get to it with gramsci

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but also i should say is that so with the mustang suite is that um and and

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you know i guess my love and devotion and commitment to artists run center culture like i will

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always want to show an artist run centers you know forever and so

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that that that was actually a commission from the um alternator in kelowna

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right right and it was a big commission it was a very generous commission and and for a smaller artist run center

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to um to invite me to to do that it was it was uh it was great

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i agree now we have this beautiful uh series of work that we get to all enjoy

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and so this love me okay so thinking about the everyday and uh and and working with materials

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this was one of those kooky black velvet artworks actually that paul wong gave me

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of this indian papoose and you know he he gives me kitsch stuff

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when he finds it and the last time he gave me some things and he said i know you’ll make art with this

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so um i was thinking about you know all the conversations around reconciliation were happening canada is

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in this state of reconciliation right as we know also a problematic term some

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people like conciliation some people don’t even know that canada’s in a state of reconciliation or

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what that might mean and so i was going to a conference

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there was a symposium in saskatchewan at the u of s and um and so i i made this this

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this work was inspired by the idea of reconciliation

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and that’s love me in that you know can people uh you know love indigenous people is

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the question that’s being asked here um what i also really like about quite a

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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

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that um uh i don’t want to say collage but multi-layered approach to medium right

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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

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uh using an image that is so fraught with history and and that is like so

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just going back to spirit song you know basically taking all of these things and and

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creating this piece that ends up having that it’s more than just

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a photo it’s more than just an uh a borrowed image and it’s more than just a text piece

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right and that’s something that is quite strong in in in indian candy yeah sort of the

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multiple layers of meaning multiple layers of histories

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uh multiple entry points tonto uh i think this one says i i don’t have

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a full image of it it says tonto pray for you which i think is actually something that the character

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says in the in the movie right behind the series yeah so there’s a whole bunch of of

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course tonto fans out there and um jay silverfield’s mohawk actor

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and so they would have him in this series sort of speak broken indian you know

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and he kind of spoke in this monotone and you know it was all problematic but it was all amazing as well

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people loved him you know and so there’s a number of um sites that list all of the work

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all of the uh the sentences that he would say and so that you know if and if those

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sites were all true um so the i i borrowed some of those sayings

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uh from from him and put them on you know he he comes from another generation

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right you know he wasn’t he was before uh that tv series was before you know

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wasn’t well i was a child but a little bit before before me but people

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would have what has been interesting is that when people have seen this of the generation who watched him

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they melt because they loved him people loved character i don’t know is it is it

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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

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as part of the contact festival right and tonto pray for you ended up in winnipeg

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and there was like such a backlash which was so interesting and i think that you even

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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

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interesting when it happened i will um so yes so it’s

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it was again it was a public art commission from works that had already been created from the indian candy series and there

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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

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and somebody saw it and um uh one person as a christian was

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offended that it said tonto pray for you and so and and then and then somebody else was

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offended because they wanted to know if an indigenous person had created these images

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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

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because you know you can get turned into a little sound bite and taken out of context and um but they

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you know it was national air time that they gave just due to the topic and but yeah that was

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also it was the first time that i did such a big outdoor work and

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and and where i didn’t feel then after that is safe going outside the gallery space

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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

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art i mean heart art should have a home in all kinds of places but the gallery

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is the home of art and i feel safe there so then to you know go and and have

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these billboards which are really quite tame to be so controversial was the first time i was in in

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in the situation as being deemed that it was that something i had made was

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controversial well especially when you consider that so much of what makes this work is

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already existing at large you know so isn’t it fascinating that it’s just

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the slight rearranging of those those images and words that again already

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exist at large and that’s all it took you know to create that conversation

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it’s lively for sure but it doesn’t take much to get people talking which is nice in many ways i

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would say when it comes to art anyway yeah i mean it was great that these

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people were looking and responding to something that they had seen sort of visual culture you know

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uh out in the public so this was just another image of indian candy with uh maria told sheep mm-hmm

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and this one actually um was in multiple locations but it was also

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in winnipeg in a particular neighborhood and some people uh were uncertain about

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the meaning of it because in one of the neighborhoods it was um uh there were sex workers

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so they did it oh this is i don’t think i got interviewed for that one but they did a news story

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on it and they interviewed people who were looking at it and it was so lovely there was a man in

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his children and the man said but he said but it’s just asking you do you

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love do you love this the person in the picture it was lovely what he said he didn’t look at

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being that you know that we we weren’t putting i didn’t this was another thing is i didn’t

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select where these works go you know yeah the free billboard space sometimes

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right sort of non-profit billboard space and so i happened to be in an area with sex workers and

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people were sort of wondering that meaning within seeing love me you know over top

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of an indigenous uh image that is so successful that it ended up being there it’s almost uh

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serendipity okay now this one i think was in vancouver

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geronimo and sitting bulls so those again were mined from the internet signatures of native americans and just

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thinking of these two fellows who uh who were you know uh

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sort of uh liberation uh really liberty they were key liberation

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uh people who who did a lot for indigenous people white buffalo of course that was in

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vancouver geronimo again that was in vancouver

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and also color working with indian candy of course you know playing with that term indian

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candy which for some people might not know it but on the west coast it’s it’s it’s candied maplized

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maple syrup kind of uh wild salmon dried wild and so i was playing with that term

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indian candy and then and then these were initially very colorful

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uh metallic prints with a high-gloss laminate on them so they were these

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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

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so especially on the white wall right has just popped so much yeah and there’s another

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one in vancouver and then just some more text based work uh dirt worshiper

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um uh that was from a residency initially that i had done in concordia

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with the uh communications department there and um watched that terrible series that was so

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amazing uh forgetting the name of it that western series oh westwood no it was

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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

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was not very many indians in it physically that you could see them but they were the term to call native

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americans dirt worshipers and i just loved that term so then as you know

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made some works of uh different sayings and then this one keep your nose close

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to the buffalo grass a lakota elder told me this and she an elder had told her

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uh when she she told me this when she was about 83. and a lakota elder had told her this

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when she was about 18. so i just loved that uh

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that teaching basically and so we painted the walls turquoise

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and um i can’t remember where this one was now so this was all in santa fe and the the

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show was called you are on indian land and yeah it was a commission i think

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and then it was lovely when we were picking out that uh font yes yeah we tried different things for

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sure this is like some of my personally as somebody who helped with the production rather than pre-production these are my

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most favorite assignments just having to get to play with all the fonts

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oops and i might have to plug in my phone here

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yeah this is um more recent works as well you’ve been like very interested in gramsci recently

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and um what’s so interesting with the way that you actually put those things together it was like even putting the work

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together was a performative act that we only get to see the trace of

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now um so you had all these quotes uh printed on two cards

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i actually have the cards if i can grab some at some point to show them if

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there’s time but uh and then you threw them essentially and so that was

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like a very like performance gesture because then they were all on the ground and then uh you randomly picked two at a

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time to make those collages of gramsci uh sayings almost

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yes and the this one is what does that say luxury mammoth gorilla

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so just so terms that he would use thinking about what a luxury mammal is in terms of

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privilege in class and uh but then also the thinking guerrilla of the proletariat on the assembly line

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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

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those two ideas of the sort of you know the gentry privileged woman you know being with the thinking

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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

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as you know when we were thinking about you know not always privileging the

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sort of rectangle surface of photography um so this is when i started looking at

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printing on uh linens and silk that was like right after you had um

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actually done the win box buffalo woman one and two

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right yeah yeah definitely getting into that uh different support and material at the

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time and just you know thinking about yeah just not always printing on paper and

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bringing photography into more of a sculptural form

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and so these are the banners from uh inspired by grimshi as well and um these are the the mysteriously

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missing banners aren’t they are they still missing well i know that

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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

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it is perfect for them to be missing

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oh oh no you broke out completely

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can you can you hear me yes yes now i can hear you okay sorry it’s i also have somebody

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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

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now i forgot this is the museum of the modern art and balloon

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lovely that he you know just you know close to uh where graham she was from

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okay i’m gonna go on here let the poem limp so i loved this

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and that the idea that you know i mean in terms of perfection and uh you know allowing things to be

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or allowing things to you know to be imperfect and he said let the poem limp i mean

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there was a number of times reading antonio gramsci where which is i would just melt with some of his ideas

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you know okay i’ll go into the next one here and there they are the bag so that we’ve

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had these in various iterations of these banners perform them they’ve been in galleries

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and they’ll continue to circulate

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and so this is it um at the urban screen at emily carr so

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that’s when you did the the more you know more bigger version of all of those sayings

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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

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wonderful printing them up and then just throwing them all up in the air and never would grab and i’d grab one

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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

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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

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read that can you the proletariat the peasants and the new bourgeoisie intellectualized form

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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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