Respondent Series | Artist Talk with Bracken Hanuse Corlett
Saturday, January 20, 2018 – 2pm
Programmed as part of our winter solo exhibition Sweetgrass and Honey by Skeena Reece, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is extremely pleased to present interdisciplinary artist Bracken Hanuse Corlett, who will present an artist talk as part of our ongoing Respondent Series on Saturday, January 20 at 2pm.
For Sweetgrass and Honey, Corlett has been commissioned by Reece to paint a new mural, Stekyawden Syndrome, 2018. Created in collaboration with Reece, the mural reinterprets a Gitksan myth, The Mountain Goat, in which village people are punished for their poor treatment of mountain goats who they kill or harm cruelly without reason. For the mural, Corlett and Reece frame this myth within a psychological trauma (Stockholm Syndrome) that leaves captives overly sympathetic with their capturers. Contextualized within the frame of the exhibition, Corlett will give an introduction and overview of his most recent works, and upcoming projects, with insight into what drives him as an Indigenous person, writer and artist.
Working in a breadth of forms and media, including mural painting, animation, and VJing, for this talk, Corlett will speak about the mural at Plug In ICA, as well as his large-scale public art projects, such as Listening. On. Waking Terrain, 2017, a recent commission from the city of Vancouver; his animation Ghost Food, 2017; and SEE Monsters, an audio-visual collaboration with his cousin Dean Hunt.
Bracken Hanuse Corlett is an interdisciplinary artist who hails from the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose Nations, currently based in Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast. With formal training in theatre and performance, Northwest Coast art, and visual arts, Corlett’s work is a hybrid that incorporates Northwest Coast aesthetics and symbols, and fuses painting and drawing with digital media, audio-visual performance, animation and narration. He is a graduate of the En’owkin Centre of Indigenous Art, Penticton and has a B.F.A. from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver. He studied Northwest Coast carving, art and design with the acclaimed Heiltsuk artist Bradley Hunt, and his sons Shawn Hunt and Dean Hunt. In 2014 he was awarded the BC Creative Achievement Award for Aboriginal Art, and in 2017 he received a large-scale public art commission for the City of Vancouver, and the Vancouver Mural Festival. His work has been exhibited widely, including at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver; Museum of Anthropology (MOA), Vancouver; Urban Shaman, Winnipeg, and the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; and the ImagineNative and Toronto Film Festivals, Toronto. His work Electricity Blanket Protoype 004, 2017 is currently included in the exhibition INSURGENCE/RESURGENCE at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
This talk is available in our online video archive.
This artist talk is programmed in conjunction with Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey | January 19 – March 18, 2018.
Opening Reception:
Friday, January 19 | 7-11pm * artists in attendance
Performance:
Skeena Reece Looks Like a Suicide | Friday, January 19 | 7pm
Respondent Series artist talk:
Bracken Hanuse Corlett | Saturday January 20 | 2pm
Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth screening and panel discussion
Saturday, February 10 | 2pm
Respondent Series performance:
Darryl Nepinak | Thursday, February 15 | 7pm
Skeena Reece is best-known for her critically penetrating and humourous performances, in which she portrays a range of personas that are often driven by the potential of a raw exchange with audiences. For Sweetgrass and Honey, she builds on her lexicon of characters at times ramping up the clichés and emboldening stereo-types while sincerely trying to unearth their origins and stonewall their continued perpetuation. From Stockholm Syndrome to Indian Princesses, Reece uses various subjects in building a new lens with which to examine her personal history within a rereading of the displacement and continued disregard of indigenous people in North America.
Sweetgrass and Honey is a concatenation of works from a photographic series to mass-produced posters. This exhibition will feature several newly commissioned works, including a specific installation that challenges the racist history of the Hudson’s Bay, which sits across the street from Plug In. As well she will create a mural that offers a psychological look at the relationship between captor and captive; and another artwork that visualizes the ghosts in our history – buried in the land we occupy. Many of the artworks presented in this solo exhibition were produced in collaboration with other artists who Reece ignites as producers and translators.
Skeena Reece is a Tsimshian/Gitksan and Cree artist based on the West Coast of British Columbia. She has garnered national and international attention most notably for Raven: On the Colonial Fleet (2010) her bold installation and performance work presented as part of the celebrated group exhibition Beat Nation. Her multidisciplinary practice includes performance art, spoken word, humor, “sacred clowning,” writing, singing, songwriting, video and visual art. She studied media arts at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, and was the recipient of the British Columbia award for Excellence in the Arts (2012) and The Viva Award (2014). For her work on Savage (2010)in collaboration with Lisa Jackson, Reece won a Genie Award for Best Short Film, Golden Sheaf Award for Best Multicultural Film, ReelWorld Outstanding Canadian Short Film, Leo Awards for Best Actress and Best Editing. She participated in the 17th Sydney Biennale, Australia. Recent exhibitions include, The Sacred Clown & Other Strangers (2015) a solo exhibition of her performance costumes and documentation at Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Winnipeg and Moss at Oboro Gallery, Montreal (2017). An iteration of Sweet Grass and Honey will travel to the Comox Valley Art Gallery.
Parts of Sweetgrass and Honey were produced in collaboration with Oboro, Montreal exhibited as part of the exhibition Moss.
Plug In ICA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We extend gratitude to our Director’s Circle, valued members and dedicated volunteers.
All public programming is FREE and open to the public. Everyone welcome!
Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our artists, generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/supportor by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by telephone at (204) 942-1043.
Related exhibit: