As a visitor pushes open the doors to one of the spaces in the Ottawa Art Gallery, they are bombarded with rhythmic, pulsating electronic music that results in an environment that is somewhat akin to a dance club. On the walls, filmic clips such as an aboriginal powwow are juxtaposed on footage of Brad Pitt enforcing his demand of the collection of one hundred Nazi scalps in Inglorious Basterds.
The audiovisual installation, Assimilate This! is contribution by Ottawa-based artist and DJ Bear Witness to the exhibit “Decolonize Me.”
This blending together of humor and a calling on the viewer to reflect on practices of media consumption are two themes that are at the forefront of “Decolonize Me,” an exhibit of contemporary aboriginal artwork at the Ottawa Art Gallery.
On display until Nov. 20, the exhibit features six contemporary aboriginal artists whose works “challenge, interrogate and reveal Canada’s long history of colonization in daring and innovative ways,” according to current Carleton PhD candidate, Heather Igloliorte’s curatorial statement.
Artworks in the exhibit challenge viewers in different ways. At the end of a hallway is a teepee with the Status Indian Agreement handwritten in its entirety upon its canvas.
“The exhibition explores not only themes of past wrongdoings, but also strategies to reclaiming [aboriginal] voice,” Igloliorte writes in her curatorial statement.
According to Igloliorte, the exhibit “invites the visitor to consider ways in which they are also implicated in this history, not as perpetrators or victims, but as active participants with agency and a shared responsibility.”
Allan J. Ryan, a Carleton professor who teaches aboriginal art, expanded on the effects of “Decolonize Me.”
“You’re hearing aboriginal voices here that are contrasted in the past with a lack of voice . . . It’s not just that they’re now present, it’s an affirmation of presence with vitality and vigour.”
This sentiment of an affirmation of presence with vitality and vigour is one that Ryan revisited multiple times as he described how the concept is portrayed through art.
This use of humour is important in deconstructing past representations and stereotypes that have come to be associated with aboriginal culture.
“If you construct an image of a culture that doesn’t have a sense of humour, it’s not fully human. Then, if it’s not fully human, you’re fully justified in moving them out of the way to advance manifest destiny.”
“It’s taking things that could be offensive and neutralizing them,” he said. “Reclaiming what’s offensive, re-contextualizing it, giving it a new voice, a new perspective.”