Candice Hopkins is a curator and writer of Tlingit descent originally from Whitehorse, Yukon. She is Senior Curator of the Toronto Biennial of Art and co-curator of the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada. She was a part of the curatorial team for documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany and a co-curator of the major exhibitions Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, and the 2014 SITElines biennial, Unsettled Landscapes in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing is published widely and her recent essays and presentations include “Outlawed Social Life” for South as a State of Mind and Sounding the Margins: A Choir of Minor Voices at Small Projects, Tromsø, Norway. She has lectures internationally including at the Witte de With, Tate Modern, Dak’Art Biennale, Artists Space, Tate Britain and the University of British Columbia. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art and the 2016 the Prix pour un essai critique sur l’art contemporain by the Foundation Prince Pierre de Monaco. She is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation.
Opening Reception and Performance for Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art and Self-Determination Since 1969
Installation image from Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, June 24 – November 26, 2023. Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Photo: Olympia Shannon, 2023.
About
Join MacKenzie Art Gallery Executive Director & CEO John G. Hampton and exhibition curator Candice Hopkins as they share opening remarks for Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969. The evening will begin with a Land Acknowledgement and Opening Song by Eliza Sangwais, Kimberley OKeeweehow, Robyn OKeeweehow, Memphis Noname, and Layla OKeeweehow-Desnomie. A performance by Joseph Naytowhow and Cheryl L’Hirondelle called ē-kwēskimot (s/he/they transform) will follow the talk. After the performance, guests are invited to enjoy a reception and view the exhibition.
ABOUT THE LIVE PERFORMANCE
ē-kwēskimot (s/he/they transform) is a collaboration between interdisciplinary artist/songwriter Cheryl L’Hirondelle and storyteller/singer/knowledge keeper Joseph Naytowhow.
This ritualized storytelling and singing performance is an extension of both their community-engaged transformation exercise and their participatory gallery installation (of the same name). The event centres around paskwāw-mostos (buffalo), a ceremonial and life-affirming being with transformational qualities and abilities as told via a story of our elder sibling’s transformation into the buffalo family. The story teaches us to stick together and not be so concerned with individuating. It is about listening and respecting the ways of others to fit in and survive.
Programming for this event is supported by TD.
Installation image from Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, June 24 – November 26, 2023. Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Photo: Olympia Shannon, 2023.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 is the first large-scale exhibition of its kind to center performance and theatre as an origin point for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists, beginning with the role that Indigenous artists have played in the self-determination era, sparked by the Occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes in 1969. Native artists then and now are at the vanguard of performance art practices and discourse. As part of Indian Theater, their work uses humour as a strategy for cultural critique and reflection, parses the inherent relationships between objecthood and agency, and frequently complicates representations of the Native body through signalling the body’s absence and presence via clothing, blanketing, and adornment. In the exhibition, song, dance, and music are also posited as a basis for collectivity and resistance and a means to speak back to a time when Native traditional ceremony and public gatherings were illegal in both the United States and Canada. In addition to artworks, the exhibition includes important archival material documenting the emergence of the New Native Theater movement in Santa Fe in 1969 as well as materials directly related to the early self-determination era.
Featuring over 100 works by artists representing a range of perspectives and practices, as well as performances and activations throughout the summer.
ABOUT THE CURATOR, CANDICE HOPKINS
About the Performers
Land Acknowledgement / Opening Song by Eliza Sangwais, Kimberley OKeeweehow, Robyn OKeeweehow, Memphis Noname, Layla OKeeweehow-Desnomie (left to right).
Photo Credit: James Page
Joseph Naytowhow
Joseph Naytowhow is a gifted singer/songwriter, accomplished stage and screen actor, orator and storyteller. His work includes voice, music, and storytelling for on-air plays with CBC, MBC, APTN and SCN. He is passionate and committed to the arts including collaborations, film, television, theatre, advisory and teaching as his life’s work.
Naytowhow, uses his many talents to explore themes of traditional nehiyaw (Cree) culture and contemporary society. He is a much sought after presenter and guest speaker who explores a variety of subjects including the vital role Mother Earth has in sustaining life and our responsibility to protect her, traditional Indigenous culture and ways of being/knowledge, the treaties in Canada, Truth and Reconciliation and other topics with a focus on bringing people together. He is renowned for his unique style of Cree/English storytelling combined with contemporary music and traditional First Nations drum, flute and rattle songs.
He is the recipient of the Canadian Aboriginal Music Award’s Keeper of the Tradition Award and the Commemorative Medal for the Saskatchewan Centennial. He received a Gemini Award for Best Individual or Ensemble Performance in an Animated Program or Series for his role in the Wapos Bay TV series. He was awarded Best Emerging Male Actor at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival for his role in Run: Broken Yet Brave. He was awarded the Saskatchewan Arts Board’s Arts and Learning Award for his far-reaching work with many organizations, students and artists. He has performed for the Prince of Wales, the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan and many other notables.
Having earned a Bachelor of Education degree, studied with several traditional Elders as well as a Buddhist master for 15 years, and worked as an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and mentor, Naytowhow is committed to lifelong learning and sharing cultural knowledge. Most recently, Joseph was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws honoris causa (LLD).
Naytowhow, resides in Saskatoon and serves as Emerging Elder/Cultural Advisor at the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan. He is a member of the Sturgeon Lake First Nation Band, which is located approximately 30 kilometres northwest of Prince Albert.
Photo credit: Tenille Campbell
Cheryl L’Hirondelle
Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish) is an interdisciplinary artist and singer/songwriter with family roots from Treaty Six – Papaschase FN/amiskwaciy wāskahikan and Kikino Metis Settlement, AB. Her art practice investigates/articulates dynamism inherent in nēhiyaw itapisinowin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place and creates immersive environments/participatory engagement towards radical inclusion and decolonization. Her songwriting focus on nēhiyawēwin and Indigenous soundshapes, contemporary songforms and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies toward survivance. L’Hirondelle was a recipient of the 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art.