Please join us at a Celebration of Life for Beau Dick on Sunday, April 30, 2017. This public event will take place from 2 to 4 pm at the Museum of Anthropology, with words and actions from Larry Grant, Chief Robert Joseph, Linnea Dick, Anthony Shelton, Scott Watson, Dana Claxton and others.
Beau spent his last years at UBC, working as artist-in-residence since 2013, teacher, colleague and mentor to many. This event is an opportunity for those he impacted on campus and further afield to come together to remember Beau.
This event would not have been possible without the guidance of Beau’s daughter, Linnea Dick and the contributions of Beau’s friends in the following University of British Columbia units: the Museum of Anthropology, Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory; the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery; St John’s College; First Nations House of Learning and the Faculty of Forestry. We are grateful to the Audain Foundation for supporting his residency.
Chief Beau Dick, acclaimed as one of the Northwest Coast’s most versatile and talented carvers, was born in Alert Bay, BC where he lived and worked. Reaching out beyond the confines of his own Kwakwaka’wakw culture, Dick explored new formats and techniques in his work, including painting and drawing. His work can be found in private collections as well as museums, including the Canadian Museum of Civilization (Gatineau, QC), the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), the Burke Museum (Seattle, WA), the UBC Museum of Anthropology and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Dick’s work has been exhibited most recently at Documenta 14, Athens (2017), Lalakenis/All Directions: A Journey of Truth and Unity (2016) and Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools (2013) at the Belkin Art Gallery, Sakahan: International Indigenous Art (2013) at the National Gallery of Canada, 75 Years of Collecting: First Nations: Myths and Realities (2006) at the Vancouver Art Gallery and Supernatural with Neil Campbell (2004) at the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver). In 2012, Dick received the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation’s VIVA Award for Visual Arts. From 2013 to his passing in 2017, Dick was Artist-in-Residence at the UBC Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, with his studio in the Audain Art Centre.
Photo: Michael R. Barrick
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On July 2, 2014, renowned Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw artist Chief Beau Dick along with 21 companions set out from the University of British Columbia on a journey to Ottawa which they called Awalaskenis II: Journey of Truth and Unity. Intending to raise awareness about the plight of the environment and to challenge elected officials to attend to the relationship between the federal government and First Nations people, the group brought with them many objects including a copper shield known as Taaw made by Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw, the Haida carver and former president of the Haida Nation. Guujaaw had encouraged Dick to make this journey, having been inspired by the 2013 Awalaskenis I journey from Quatsino on the northern tip of Vancouver Island to Victoria.
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Edited by Scott Watson and Lorna Brown, this richly illustrated hardcover book includes essays by Beau Dick, Chief Robert Joseph, Guujaaw, Gyauustees, Linnea Dick, Wanda Nanibush, Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Tarah Hogue and Shelly Rosenblum. The catalogue offers visual documentation of the belongings that were gathered together and displayed in the Gallery during the Lalakenis exhibition, along with images from the two journeys that culminated in copper-breaking ceremonies: Awalaskenis I (February 2013) beginning in Quatsino and ending in Victoria, BC and Awalaskenis II (July 2014) which saw Beau Dick and 21 companions setting out from UBC for Ottawa. The copper-breaking ceremonies marked ruptured relationships in need of repair, and passed the burden of wrongs done to First Nations people from them to the Governments of BC and Canada, reviving a shaming rite that once was central to a complex economic system and symbol of justice, a traditional practice that had all but disappeared. This publication reprints content from the exhibition guide in which Beau Dick comments on the significance and role of coppers and the motivating factors for the journeys; Guujaaw speaks of the Taaw copper he made to be broken in Ottawa; Linnea Dick reflects on instigating, along with her sister Geraldine, the earlier journey from Quatsino to Victoria; and Gyauustees speaks about the ceremonies he conducts as a pipe carrier. Added to these texts are new essays by Wanda Nanibush, Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Tarah Hogue and Shelly Rosenblum.
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Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools presents artists who have produced work arising from the history of Indian Residential Schools in Canada and coincides with, but is independent from, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada National Event that will take place in Vancouver from September 18 to 21, 2013. The exhibition features artists from British Columbia and across Canada, and is cross-generational to include those who directly experienced Indian Residential Schools as well as those who are witnesses to its ongoing impact.
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Exhibition catalogue from the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (6 September-1 December 2013). Texts by Scott Watson, Geoffrey Carr and Chief Robert Joseph; edited by Scott Watson, Keith Wallace and Jana Tyner.
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