Krista Belle Stewart
VANCOUVER
Potato Gardens Band
Site-specific installation and live performance
*This project took place as part of STAGES 2017 and is no longer on display
Location: basement, Hudson’s Bay, 450 Portage Ave, access through in-store elevators
Hours: 12 – 6pm, * Last day September 3rd because of labour day weekend
Performers: Krista Belle Stewart, Jeneen Frei Njootli and Laura Ortman
Performance Schedule: Friday, September 1st, 9pm
*For performance, regular and wheelchair access through Vaughan Street entrance
Krista Belle Stewart’s practice regularly makes precise and meaningful use of archival material and relies on juxtaposition to expose colonial erasure and foreground Indigenous identity. Stewart is known for her ability to draw out the complexities of found material that allow for both intimacy, coincidence, and a temporal meeting of histories across time. For STAGES, Stewart worked with digitized wax-cylinder recordings of her great-grandmother’s (Terese Kaimetko) music which was originally recorded in the early 1900’s by anthropologist James Alexander Teit. Using the abandoned basement of The Hudson Bay building, she has constructed a set for a sound performance that will interpret the early music arrangements. She has invited multi-disciplinary artist Jeneen Frei Njootli and musician Laura Ortman to collaborate in the transformation of the source material into a performative soundscape.
Working with video, photography, design, ephemera and textiles, Stewart straddles the gaps between personal and institutional histories through transparent mediation. Her work has been exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery; Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Mercer Union, Toronto; and the Esker Foundation, Calgary. Stewart holds an MFA from Bard College, New York. She is a member of the Upper Nicola Band of the Okanagan Nation and is currently based in Vancouver, BC.
La pratique de Krista Belle Stewart s’oriente régulièrement vers l’utilisation précise et judicieuse de matériels d’archives et repose sur la juxtaposition pour exposer l’effacement colonial et mettre l’identité autochtone au premier plan. Pour Stages: Drawing the Curtain Stewart va travailler avec des enregistrements sonores sur des cylindres de cire du groupe de son arrière grand-mère le Potato Garden Band. Pour son projet, elle va inviter les artistes sonores Jeneen Frei Njootli et Laura Ortman à interpréter ces anciens enregistrement dans une série de performances. Stewart est connue pour sa capacité à éliminer les complexités du matériel d’archives afin de permettre à la fois l’intimité, la coïncidence et une rencontre des histoires au travers du temps. Travaillant avec des vidéos, des photographies, des dessins, des documents éphémères et des textiles, Stewart parcourt les histoires personnelles et institutionnelles au travers d’une médiation transparente.
Ses oeuvres ont été exposées à la Vancouver Art Gallery; Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Mercer Union, Toronto; et à la Esker Foundation, Calgary. Stewart détient une Maîtrise es Beaux-Arts du Bard College, New York. Elle est membre de l’Upper Nicola Band de la Nation Okanagan et habite actuellement à Vancouver, BC.