August 31/13

Today was a busy day with plenty of moments to share, but I'll try to narrow it down.

We're taking today in reverse order, and as you go, you'll see why.

This evening, we went to see The World's End with Brent and Cassie.  It was a fun little romp, and I really enjoyed Nick Frost's role in it.  See it, if you haven't already.

This afternoon, we went to the Star Wars: Identities exhibition at the Canadian Space and Aviation Museum.  I have to admit, the exhibition was a hit and a miss.  You get these electronic wrist bands, and as you go through, you stop at each station and answer questions.  At the end, you get a character made for you, based on the decisions at each station. 

While it was fun, and naturally, I chose to go to the dark side, it was also a serious distraction.  Throughout the show, there are replicas of costumes, characters and props from the movies, as well as back-work from the movies such as the conceptual sketches and story lines, which lets you see how different the ideas were at the start to the execution in the final products.  For instance, there were sketches of potential character mock-ups for Yoda, the beloved Jedi Master.  If you aren't a huge Star Wars nerd, you probably don't know how close we came to seeing a Yoda that resembled a kick-ass garden gnome in tall boots.  Sacrilege, I know.  But this detail, and others, almost get totally lost by the urge to get to the next station and answer your questions.  See what I mean?  Hit and Miss.

But our first outing of the day, just me and Etienne, is what I want to really get into.  After a slow start, we got up and moving.  We went to the National Gallery to catch the dying days of the Sakahan exhibition.  We've meant to see it since before it opened, but have pushed it off for a variety of reasons.  Well, we had to do it this weekend...it closes on Monday.

It's a brilliant exhibition.  For those who don't know, it's an International Indigenous Art exhibit, and the pieces cover indigenous artists from around the world.  The First Nations of Canada, the Sami of Northern Europe, the Maori of New Zealand, the Aboriginees of Australia, the Indigenous Hawaiians and so many more groups where represented.  There were several impressive pieces on display, but it was the words of Richar Bell, an artist from here in Canada, that struck a nerve for me. 

His piece, Life on a Mission speaks to the way Indigenous people are represented around the world.  The piece itself is a large canvas with a colourful, swirling image, but interspersed with that image are the worlds "I am not a noble savage."  And therein lies the problem.  This idea that Indigenous peoples are this romantic point of entry into the past because they maintain traditions. 

It's a problem I struggle with personally, and it's one that put me at odds with both sides of my cultural heritage, not to mention a Professor with whom I took personal issue in class while he railed on about the First Nations people adopting the hallmarks of white society instead of pushing to have white society adopt First Nations ways of life instead.  He seemed to be enamored with this ideal of the noble savage, and how we're being lost to the white ways.  I seethed openly (he knew I was half Aboriginal) and challenged him, as did others, but I gave up because he wasn't going to be persuaded that he sounded like an ass.  After class, he conferred with a friend of mine and fellow classmate as they walked across campus, and the Professor did speak with my friend about my reaction to the lecture.  I didn't hold out much hope that this Professor had gotten the message that he was being a white, Marxist, ivory tower intellectual, and talking out of his ass about his high ideal and judgments instead of listening and hearing the words of a member of the very group he was simultaneously idealizing and berating.  Jackass.

Anyway...

The other side of Richard Bell's work is this idea that Indigenous people are only considered "authentic" if they are living in the "traditional" ways, and if they aren't, they are deemed as having lost their culture.  The artist goes on to explain that this condemns Indigenous peoples to live in poverty due to the segregation caused by this way of living, and it frames the people as primitives with no place in contemporary society.  I absolutely take his point.  And I would add to it that it comes from both sides of the divide.

It's a struggle that is familiar to any First Nations person who leaves the reserve or community they grew up in, with no definite plan of returning.  Once we leave those communities, we start to become an outsider.  If we return quickly enough, the adjustments are slight, and it's becomes a period in our lives.  If we don't return quickly, our place in the community isn't that easy to return to.  It's a difficult struggle, walking that line between living our lives outside the community and maintaining the traditions because not all of us are successful at integrating our outside lives with our inside lives.  And it can even lead to charges that we've lost our way.

When you take both sides together, it seems we are damned if we do, and we are damned if we don't. 

I'm glad I saw this piece.  Art can be a powerful tool for provoking thought, but good art is a powerful tool for provoking empathy.

A busy day...

...Wish you were here.