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Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery

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2017 – 2020

Exterior of the Belkin

Marianne Nicolson: The Sun is Setting on the British Empire

  • Marianne Nicolson

    Artist

    Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka’wakw, Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations, b. 1969) is an artist and activist of the Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw Nations who are part of the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwak’wala speaking peoples) of the Northwest Coast. She is trained in both traditional Kwakwaka’wakw forms and culture and contemporary gallery and museum-based practice. Her practice is multi-disciplinary, encompassing photography, painting, carving, video, installation, monumental public art, writing and speaking. She works as a Kwakwaka’wakw cultural researcher and historian, as well as an advocate for Indigenous land rights. She holds a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design (1996), an MFA (2000), MA in Linguistics and Anthropology (2005) and PhD in Linguistics and Anthropology with a focus on space as expressed in the Kwak’wala language (2013) all from the University of Victoria. Solo exhibitions include the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (2008); Artspeak, Vancouver (2006); Esquimalt Municipal Hall (2004); Thunder Bay Art Gallery (2002); National Indian Art Centre, Hull (2001); Campbell River Public Art Gallery (2000) and Or Gallery, Vancouver (1992). Group exhibitions include the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2020); the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2020); the Vancouver Art Gallery (2019-20); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2018-19) and the National Museum of the American Indian, New York (2017-19), among others. Major monumental public artworks are situated in her home territory of the Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nation, Vancouver International Airport, the Canadian Embassy in Amman, Jordan and the Canadian Embassy in Paris, France.

    Following Nicolson’s Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always, a 2019 project with the Belkin that functioned as research, material, media, testimony and ceremony to challenge the western concept that the power of art as limited to the symbolic, This Is An Emergency Broadcast (2023) is another moment to amplify Indigenous tradition.

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Commissioned for the exhibition To refuse/To wait/To sleep (January 13-April 9, 2017), Marianne Nicolson reworks the British Columbia provincial flag by repositioning and inverting the Union Jack below a setting/rising sun that has been recreated with a Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous aesthetic. Nicolson references the flag’s original orientation (1895-1906); while the early version shows the sun atop the Union Jack and suggests a cooperative situation and mutually beneficial alliances between the crown and Indigenous nations, these emblems were reversed in1906 and symbolically reveal a relationship of oppression, theft and genocide. By righting the symbols of the flag back to their original relationship, Nicolson’s banner invigorates the hope for and assertion of Indigenous rights over the land, which today remain largely unresolved.

Marianne Nicolson’s banner was installed on the exterior of the Belkin Art Gallery from 2017 to 2020; it was removed in anticipation of a new banner as part of Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts (September 8-December 6, 2020), which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is still being researched. From 2011 to 2016, Luis Camnitzer’s The Museum Is a School (2010/11) was installed as part of the artist’s exhibition at the Gallery (September 30-December 4, 2011), with the words, “The Museum Is a School: The Artist Learns to Communicate, the Public Learns to Make Connections.” From 2005 to 2010, Jamelie Hassan’s Because … there was and there wasn’t a city of Baghdad (1991) hung on the exterior of the building, which originally was conceived in response to the Gulf War and featured a photograph Hassan took on her first visit to Baghdad in the late 1970s. Hassan’s work is part of the Belkin’s permanent collection. The Sun is Setting on the British Empire was commissioned and installed with the support of the Audain Foundation, 2017.

 

 

  • Marianne Nicolson

    Artist

    Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka’wakw, Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations, b. 1969) is an artist and activist of the Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw Nations who are part of the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwak’wala speaking peoples) of the Northwest Coast. She is trained in both traditional Kwakwaka’wakw forms and culture and contemporary gallery and museum-based practice. Her practice is multi-disciplinary, encompassing photography, painting, carving, video, installation, monumental public art, writing and speaking. She works as a Kwakwaka’wakw cultural researcher and historian, as well as an advocate for Indigenous land rights. She holds a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design (1996), an MFA (2000), MA in Linguistics and Anthropology (2005) and PhD in Linguistics and Anthropology with a focus on space as expressed in the Kwak’wala language (2013) all from the University of Victoria. Solo exhibitions include the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (2008); Artspeak, Vancouver (2006); Esquimalt Municipal Hall (2004); Thunder Bay Art Gallery (2002); National Indian Art Centre, Hull (2001); Campbell River Public Art Gallery (2000) and Or Gallery, Vancouver (1992). Group exhibitions include the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2020); the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2020); the Vancouver Art Gallery (2019-20); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2018-19) and the National Museum of the American Indian, New York (2017-19), among others. Major monumental public artworks are situated in her home territory of the Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nation, Vancouver International Airport, the Canadian Embassy in Amman, Jordan and the Canadian Embassy in Paris, France.

    Following Nicolson’s Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always, a 2019 project with the Belkin that functioned as research, material, media, testimony and ceremony to challenge the western concept that the power of art as limited to the symbolic, This Is An Emergency Broadcast (2023) is another moment to amplify Indigenous tradition.

    Read More

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