Raven Chacon, American Ledger (No. 1), 2018, vinyl transfer. Collection of the artist.
The following is a list of resources related to Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts. The list of resources compiled here is not an official recommendation, but is rather a list of suggested readings compiled by Public Programs and graduate student researchers at the Belkin Art Gallery. These readings are intended to provide additional context for the exhibition and act as springboards for further research or questions stemming from the exhibition, artists, and works involved.
Resources are arranged by artist, listed alphabetically by last name.
Parmela Attariwala
The following are additional information and writings about Parmela Attariwala.
The following are additional information and writings about Parmela Attariwala.
- Visit Parmela Attariwala’s website
- Read Parmela Attariwala’s creative statement
- Watch Parmela Attariwala’s violin performance of Requiem by Otto Joachim
- Watch Parmela Attariwala’s viola performance with Tommy Babin (bass) and Melissa Hubert (flute)
Suggested Further Reading
Attariwala, Parmela, and Soraya Peerbaye. Re-sounding the Orchestra: Relationships between Canadian orchestras, Indigenous peoples, and people of colour. Orchestras Canada, 2019. https://oc.ca/en/resource/re-sounding-the-orchestra/.
Attariwala, Parmela. “The Ethical Responsibility of Orchestras in Contemporary (Multicultural) Societies.” In Encyclopedia of Business Ethics, edited by Deborah C. Poff and Alex C. Michalos. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019.
Attariwala, Parmela. “The Implications of Multiculturalism and Decolonization on Music Curricula in Canadian University Music Programs.” Lecture at the Brandon University School of Music, Brandon, Manitoba. Published online on November 2, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CaMSyeOamg.
Attariwala, Parmela. “Time to Change the Curriculum: Revaluating Improvisation in Twenty-First-Century Canada.” In Improvisation and Music Education: Beyond the Classroom, edited by Ajay Heble and Mark Laver, 111-130. New York: Routledge, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315737393.
Attariwala, Parmela. “Re-imagining Creative Music-making: Creative Music Series #8.” In Critical Studies in Improvisation Special Issue: Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic. November 2020.
Leadbeater, Naomi. “Canada 150 & A Canadian Ethnomusicologist: An Interview with Dr. Parmela Attariwala.” The Canadian Music Educator 58, No. 3 (Spring, 2017): 12-15.
Raven Chacon
The following are additional information and writings about Raven Chacon.
The following are additional information and writings about Raven Chacon.
Cris Derksen
The following are additional information and writings about Cris Derksen.
The following are additional information and writings about Cris Derksen.
Sebastian De Line
The following are additional information and writings about Sebastian De Line.
The following are additional information and writings about Sebastian De Line.
For the presentation of Walking Ohénton Karihwatéhkwen (walking + words before all else) (2018) at the Belkin, Sebastian De Line offered the following words to gallery visitors, since travel was prohibited due to the COVID-19 pandemic and he was not able to attend the installation and opening of the Soundings exhibition.
She:kon. What I can share is like one rain drop touching the expanse of Lake Ontario and all the waterways in connection. The way the Ohen:ton Karihwatéhkwen (words before all else) was taught to me (as a Haudenosaunee way of knowing and doing) by my cousin Deadiy’do:we (Stewart Deline) and my Elder, Te howis kwûnt (Allen Doxtator) is that they are words of gratitude, ideally spoken at sunrise to all our relatives or who some people refer to as “all our relations.” Al says that they are spoken whenever any gathering of two or more people come together. This is not a prayer and that is why you may commonly know of it in English as the Thanksgiving Address. But not only is it an address, it’s also a greetings to our relatives and an acknowledgment of the reciprocal relationship with all living beings: the waters, lands, grasses, bushes, trees, medicines, swimmers, crawlers, flyers, all of human kind, the winds, the thunderers, the four beings, our celestial Ancestors (moon, sun, stars), and the Creator. Something else that is special about the Ohen:ton Karihwatéhkwen is that when we call our relatives to offer our thanks, we also bring our minds together as one. Some people might call this collective consciousness. This collective responsibility is also mentioned when we end the Ohen:ton Karihwatéhkwen by stating that if we forgot something or there is something further needed, we ask that you finish these words for all of us. Again, this is both an acknowledgment that we all make mistakes and are forever learning, and that no one person carries all the gifts that come from the Creator – we need to rely on each other as one good mind. This is an aspect of natural law in our necessity for reciprocity. When we come together as one good mind, we are maintaining a balance of natural law. Since the words before all else were first spoken at the start of Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts which opened at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, Ontario, the artworks and some of the artists in the show are still traveling together as one good mind to each of the territories visited throughout this traveling exhibition. While this exhibition visits xʷmθkʷy̓m unceded lands, I offer my greetings and thanks to the xʷmθkʷy̓m Nation for hosting all of us in Soundings and those who participate in various capacities. Since I will not have the chance to visit one of your Elders in person and offer tobacco to ask for permission to play my piece on your territories, I put tobacco down here in Lake Ontario for you all to receive. Niawen:kowa.
- Listen to Sebastian De Line’s piece Walking Ohénton Karihwatéhkwen at KWAG
- Read an essay written by Sebastian De Line about Posthumanism and Decolonization
- Read an essay by Sebastian De Line on Museology and Rematriation
Suggested Further Reading
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. “Indigenous Queer Normativity.” As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp 119-144.
Jeremy Dutcher
The following are additional information and writings about Jeremy Dutcher.
The following are additional information and writings about Jeremy Dutcher
- Read an article detailing Jeremy Dutcher’s process for developing his album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, his response to winning the 2018 Polaris Prize, and his influences
- Read an article describing Jeremy Dutcher’s archival research, working with wax cylinder recordings of Wolastoqiyik music from the early twentieth century.
- Watch Jeremy Dutcher perform songs from Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, singing, playing piano, and projecting digital recordings of Wolastoqiyik music from the early twentieth century.
- Watch a Q&A titled “In Conversation with: Jeremy Dutcher” produced by the Chan Centre at UBC.
- Watch Jeremy Dutcher perform from Montreal, Quebec as part of the Fall 2020 Chan Centre Dot Com Series.
Suggested Further Reading
Dutcher, Jeremy. “To the Archive.” C : International Contemporary Art, Winter, 2018, 30-33.
Camille Georgeson-Usher
The following are additional information and writings about Camille Georgeson-Usher.
The following are additional information and writings about Camille Georgeson-Usher.
- Visit Camille Georgeson-Usher’s website
- Watch Camille Georgeson-Usher’s presentation at the Digital Arts Services Symposium 2019
Suggested Further Reading
Georgeson-Usher, Camille. “All that Moves us: Bodies in Land.” Museums, Sexuality, and Gender Activism. Edited by Amy K. Levin and Joshua Adair. London, UK: Taylor and Francis Group, 2018. 145-153.
Georgeson-Usher, Camille. “If the Body is an Assembly, how does it Assemble?” Canadian Art 36, no. 4 (Winter, 2020): 72.
Maggie Groat
The following are additional information and writings about Maggie Groat.
The following are additional information and writings about Maggie Groat.
- Read Maggie Groat’s Artist/Research Statement (August 2020)
- Read an exhibition review by Teresa Carlesimo
- Read an article on Maggie Groat’s practice by Tanya Lukin Linklater
- Read about Maggie Groat’s public art by Sarah Ratzlaff
Suggested Further Reading
Ainsworth, Kendra. “Suns also Seasons.” C: International Contemporary Art, October 2017, 61-62.
Fitzpatrick, Emily. “Maggie Groat: The Difficult Thing.” Carousel Magazine 37, Fall 2016.
Lockyer, Jonathan. “The Lake.” C : International Contemporary Art, July 2014, 68-69.
Silver, Erin. “Mending Walls: Imagining the Sovereign Subject in Contemporary Exhibition Practices.” In Langford, Martha, and Martha Langford. Narratives Unfolding: National Art Histories in an Unfinished World. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017. 306-324, 388-390. https://books.scholarsportal.info/en/read?id=/ebooks/ebooks3/upress/2017-07-19/1/9780773550810#page=343
Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa
The following are additional information and writings about Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa.
The following are additional information and writings about Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa.
- Visit Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa’s website
- Listen to Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa’s performance at the Peter Wall Institute International Roundtable, “A Biocultural Hinge: Theorizing Affect and Emotion Across Disciplines” in 2013
- Read Jason Van Eyk’s Review on Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa’s CD, Cosmophony
Suggested Further Reading
Coale, Rebecca Wiegand. “Kasahara and Iwaasa in Conversation.” Women & Music 22, (2018): 141-148.
Kite
The following are additional information and writings about Kite.
The following are additional information and writings about Kite
- Read Kite’s recent artist statement (August 2020)
- Read Kite’s research on how to build an ethical AI
- Read a conversation between Kite and Kristina Baudemann
- Read about indigenous kinship with machines written by Jason Edward Lewis, Noelani Arista, Archer Pechawis, and Suzanne Kite
- Read about Kite’s practice by Nicole Kelly Westman
Suggested Further Reading
Kite, Suzanne, and Mahpíya Nážin, “It’s Not Done Through Our Mind, It’s Done Through Our Spirit.” South as a State of Mind, no. 11 (Fall/Winter 2019): 12-21.
Germaine Koh
The following are additional information and writings about Germaine Koh.
The following are additional information and writings about Germaine Koh.
- Read an interview with Germaine Koh on alternative modes of housing
- Read a review of Germaine Koh’s solo show “Weather Systems” at the Kamloops Art Gallery, 2013
- Read a transcript of a conversation between Germaine Koh, Gillian Jerome Leanne Coughlin and Jason Starnes
Suggested Further Reading
Koh, Germaine. Germaine Koh : Overflow. Vancouver: Vancouver International Center for Contemporary Asian Art, 2007.
Barnett, Pennina. “Small Gestures and Acts of Grace: An Interview with Germaine Koh.” Women: A Cultural Review 13, no. 3 (2002): 356-369.
Cheryl L’Hirondelle
The following are additional information and writings about Cheryl L’Hirondelle.
The following are additional information and writings about Cheryl L’Hirondelle.
- Read a short article on L’Hirondelle’s performance “Cistemaw Inyiniw.”
- Watch an interview with Cheryl L’Hirondelle as she travels to London to discuss the history of instruments, sound, and the animation of objects that are considered inanimate by Western viewpoints. 3
- Read an essay on L’Hirondelle’s work through surveyed through Marshal McLuhan’s methodologies on media and mediation
Suggested Further Reading
Goto, Ayumi. “Cheryl L’Hirondelle: Nikamon Ohci Askiy (Songs because of the Land).” C : International Contemporary Art no. 121 (2014): 45.
Nagam, Julie and Kerry Swanson. “Decolonial Interventions in Performance and New Media Art: In Conversation with Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Kent Monkman.” Canadian Theatre Review 159, (2014): 2.
Nanibush, Wanda. “Pirates of Performance: Wanda Nanibush in Conversation with Cree Performance Artists Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Archer Pechawis.” Fuse Magazine 32, no. 1 (2008): 24.
Tanya Lukin Linklater
The following are additional information and writings about Tanya Lukin Linklater.
The following are additional information and writings about Tanya Lukin Linklater.
- Read an article on Linklater’s first solo exhibition at ma ma projects in Toronto.
- Read a feature of Linklater’s performance He was a poet and he taught us how to react and to become this poetry, Parts 1 and 2 (2016) at the 2015 Biennale de Montreal.
- Watch a public lecture by Linklater as part of The Audain Visual Artist in Residence program for the School of Contemporary Arts at SFU
- Watch Linklater in conversation Catherine Wood, Senior Curator, International Art (Performance) at the Tate Modern, during a virtual studio visit
- Read an essay by Candice Hopkins titled “Repatriation Otherwise: How Protocols of Belonging are Shifting the Museological Frame” which discusses Linklater’s project “We wear one another”
Suggested Further Reading
Foster, Susan Leigh. “Watching Woman and Water.” Theatre Survey 51, no. 1 (2010): 121-125
Shea Murphy, Jacqueline. “Gathering from Within: Indigenous Nationhood and Tanya Lukin Linklater’s Woman and Water.” Theatre Research International 35, no. 2 (2010): 165–71. doi:10.1017/S0307883310000076.
Cristóbal Martínez
The following are additional information and writings about Cristóbal Martínez.
The following are additional information and writings about Cristóbal Martínez.
- Read a writing by Postcommodity, an artist collective Cristóbal Martínez is a part of
- Read about recent work done by Postcommodity
- Visit Cristóbal Martínez’s website
Ogimaa Mikana
The following are additional information and writings about Ogimaa Mikana.
The following are additional information and writings about Ogimaa Mikana.
- Visit Ogimaa Mikana’s website
- Visit Susan Blight’s Website
- Read Hayden King’s articles published in Yellowhead Institute.
- Listen to Susan Blight talks about the Ogimaa Mikana project
Suggested Further Reading
King, Hayden, and Shiri Pasternak. Canada’s Emerging Indigenous Rights Framework: A Critical Analysis. Toronto: Yellowhead Institute. June 2018. https://www.deslibris.ca/ID/10097309
“Hayden King and Susan Blight Part of Ogimaa Mikana Project with Billboards in Parkdale.” The Parkdale Villager, Mar 29, 2016.
Peter Morin
The following are additional information and writings about Peter Morin.
The following are additional information and writings about Peter Morin.
- Watch Peter Morin’s reflection on the 2013 performance, Cultural Graffiti in London and what performing Tahltan Nation’s knowledge means to the artist.
- Read Helen Gilbert and J.D. Phillipson in dialogue with Peter Morin about singing performance and embodying the digital document.
- Read Peter Morin’s writing on visual autobiography in relationship to land, museum space, and performance in the contemporary culture.
Suggested Further Reading
Morin, Peter. “Land Collaborations.” In Museopathy Revisited: Artist Interventions in Canada and Beyond. Edited by Andrea Terry and Anne Korval. McGill-Queens University Press. 2019. (Forthcoming).
Morin, Peter and Goto, Ayumi. “Writing. First. Contacts?” In Performing Utopias in the Contemporary Americas. Edited by Kim Beauchesne, Alessandra Santos. 89-98. New York: Palgrave McMillian. 2017. DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56873-1_5.
Morin, Peter. “This is what happens when we perform the memory of the land.” In Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action In and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Edited by Keavy Martin, Dylan Robinson. pp. 67-92. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. 2016.
Diamond Point
The following are additional information and writings about Diamond Point.
The following are additional information and writings about Diamond Point.
- Watch an Interview with Diamond Point about her involvement in the Claiming Space exhibition
- Read about Diamond Point’s Fraser River Families
- Learn about Canoe Journeys through the All Nations Paddles Up Website
Suggested Further Reading
Daehnke, Jon D. “A Heritage of Reciprocity: Canoe Revitalization, Cultural Resilience, and the Power of Protocol.” The Public Historian, vol 41, no 1 (2019): 64-77.
Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen
The following are additional information and writings about Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen.
The following are additional information and writings about Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen.
Suggested Further Reading
Marshall, Mariel and Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen. “The Doing that can Undo: Decolonizing the Performer-Audience Relationship in Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen’s Citation.” Canadian Theatre Review 179, (2019): 80-82.
Ravensbergen, Lisa Cooke. “Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen: Rethinking the Practice and Performance of Indigenous Land Acknowledgement.” Canadian Theatre Review 177, (2019): 29-30.
Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk
The following are additional information and writings about Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk.
The following are additional information and writings about Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk.
- Read an encyclopedia entry in which Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk details conditions that unite Circumpolar Indigenous communities in their musical practices.
- Watch Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk present her research on Indigenous musics of the Arctic
Suggested Further Reading
Perea, Jessica Bissett. The Politics of Inuit Musical Modernities in Alaska. PhD Diss. University of Los Angeles. 2011.
Senungetuk, Heidi Aklaseaq. “Introduction,” Creating a Native Space in the City: an Inupiaq Community in Song and Dance. PhD Diss. Wesleyan University. 2017.
Senungetuk, Heidi Aklaseaq. “Pagmapak: In Modern Times.” In Music and Modernity Among First Peoples of North America, edited by Victoria Lindsay Levine and Dylan Robinson. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2018. xiii-xviii.
Greg Staats
The following are additional information and writings about Greg Staats.
The following are additional information and writings about Greg Staats.
- Visit Greg Staats’ website
- Read Greg Staats’ artist statement (August 2020)
- Watch Greg Staats’ interview in the 2014 artist-in-residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario
- Read about Greg Staats’ work in liminal disturbance
- Read about Greg Staats’ practice by Philip Monk
- Read an article about Greg Staats’ practice by Andrea N. Walsh
Suggested Further Reading
Berson, Amber. “Unspoken Loss: Greg Staats.” Montréal: articule, 2011. Exhibition Essay.
Hill, Richard (Rick) W., Sr. Greg Staats: liminal disturbance. Hamilton ON: McMaster Museum of Art, 2011. Exhibition Catalogue.
Houle, Robert, Sheila Staats, and Alf Bogusky. Greg Staats: Reciprocity. Kitchener, Ontario: Kitchener–Waterloo Art Gallery. 2007. Exhibition Catalogue.
Kelly, JP. “it dropped down their minds / for at least one day you should continue to think calmly.” Toronto: Trinity Square Video. 2013. Exhibition Essay. http://www.trinitysquarevideo.com/greg-staats/.
Western, Jenny. “Greg Staats: Condolence.” Winnipeg: Urban Shaman Gallery. 2009. Exhibition Essay.
Tsatsu Stalqayu (Coastal Wolf Pack)
The following are additional information and writings about Tsatsu Stalqayu (Coastal Wolf Pack).
The following are additional information and writings about Tsatsu Stalqayu (Coastal Wolf Pack).
- Read an interview with Tsatsu Stalqayu done for Indigenous History Month in 2020
- Read about and watch a performance by Tsatsu Stalqayu at Vancouver Folk Music Festival
Suggested Further Reading
Dangeli, Mique’l. “Dancing Chiax, Dancing Sovereignty: Performing Protocol in Unceded Territories.” Dance Research Journal 48, no. 1 (2016): 74-90.
Olivia Whetung
The following are additional information and writings about Olivia Whetung.
The following are additional information and writings about Olivia Whetung.
Suggested Further Reading
Myers, Lisa. “Tibewh/Water is Land, Land is also Water.” C : International Contemporary Art, Summer, 2017, 52-57
Smith, T’ai. 2016. “The Problem with Craft.” Art Journal 75 (1): 80-84.
Toulouse, Léa. “I Am Woman: The Decolonial Process of Indigenous Feminist Art.” Esse 90, (Spring, 2017): 52-59.
Tania Willard
The following are additional information and writings about Tania Willard.
The following are additional information and writings about Tania Willard.
- Read about Surrounded/Surrounding, Tania Willard’s piece in the exhibition
- Read THE BUSH MANIFESTO, a writing about BUSH gallery, located on Tania Willard’s land
- Read about Beat Nation, a website project begun in 2008 by Tania Willard and Skeena Reece
- Visit Tania Willard’s website
Suggested Further Reading
Martineau, Jarrett. “An interview with Tania Willard on Beat Nation, Indigenous curation and changing the world through art.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 3, no. 1 (2014): 218-224.
Willard, Tania. “Casting Light to Fill Shadow: A Decolonial Aethesis in Secwepemcúl’ecw.” Master’s thesis, University of British Columbia Okanagan, 2018.
Related
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Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts features newly commissioned scores, performances, videos, sculptures and sound by Indigenous and other artists who respond to the question, How can a score be a call and tool for decolonization? Unfolding in a sequence of five parts, the scores take the form of beadwork, videos, objects, graphic notation, historical belongings and written instructions. During the exhibition, these scores are activated at specific moments by musicians, dancers, performers and members of the public, gradually filling the gallery and surrounding public spaces with sound and action. Curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson, Soundings is cumulative, limning an ever-changing community of artworks, shared experience and engagement. Shifting and evolving, it gains new artists and players in each location. For this iteration on Musqueam territory, the Belkin has collaborated with UBC's Musqueam Language Program in partnership with the Musqueam Indian Band Language and Culture Department; School of Music; Chan Centre for Performing Arts; First Nations House of Learning and Museum of Anthropology to support the production of new artworks and performances by local artists.
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Forming two continuous lines on this part of the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people, wəɬ m̓i ct q̓pəθət tə ɬniməɬ by Diamond Point presents two images repeating in a sequence hung on the lampposts along UBC’s Main Mall from James Hart’s Reconciliation Pole to the plaza just beyond the Belkin.
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Germaine Koh’s drum is made from one of the cedar tree stumps she first brought to site for use as physical distancing stations. She worked with Belkin staff during Summer 2020 to develop COVID-19 safety and visitor interaction protocols that recognized the importance of collective care and teamwork.
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In Part One of NDN Love Songs, Peter Morin offers a score of instructions to musicians presented alongside seven video portraits. Part Two presents videos of recordings of previous iterations of the Soundings exhibition at Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Gund Gallery and Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery. In Part Three, Parmela Attariwala performs the score on the violin at the Belkin.
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Around the corner from the Belkin Gallery, Raven Chacon's score American Ledger (No. 1) hangs on the exterior of the Music Building at 6361 Memorial Road, UBC. The score incorporates a traditional musical score with Navajo iconography and is to be performed by "many players with sustaining and percussive instruments, voices, coins, axe and wood, a police whistle and the striking of a match."
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In response to Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, a group of Creative Writing graduate students at the University of British Columbia have made a series of activities for visitors to take part in during their visits to the gallery. Thinking through the idea of a score as a call to respond, these activities range from sound walks to reflective worksheets to small group workshops.
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through, in between oceans part 2 by Camille Georgeson-Usher is a beaded installation, completed during the isolation of the Spring 2020 pandemic. The artist worked from home in Toronto, a departure from her intention to spend several months on Galiano Island, BC, where she was raised.
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Whetung invites gallery visitors to pour different coloured beads from individual small jars into one large vessel, creating a layering of sounds as each bead joins the growing pile. Once the container is filled, the artist turns the amalgam of beads into an entirely new piece – a rectangular beadwork unique to the Belkin’s iteration of the exhibition.
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Surrounded/Surrounding includes a wood-burning fire bowl, etched leather camp stools and a life-sized rendering of the artist’s wood pile in a graphic score. Written on the split logs and the spaces between them are references to the breathing, beating labour that creates what a fire needs, as well as the trees, sun, sky and ground that surrounds and creates all else.
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In lieu of a public concert at the Belkin as has occurred in recent years, musicians from UBC Contemporary Players chose a work by a Canadian composer to perform in an empty gallery, responding to the works of Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts. Videos of these performances are shared here for reference, research, and enjoyment in perpetuity. Soundings asks how a score can be a call and a tool for decolonization. The exhibition's corresponding investigations take at their centre questions of embodiment and subjectivity, of calls and responses. What are the practical matters of embodied decolonization, and how can we practice them? How does embodiment facilitate unlearning, unknowing, and the visioning of Indigenous ontologies?
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