Buffalo Boy's heart on
Date
2005-09-16
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Type
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
Buffalo Boy’s 100 years of wearing his heart on his sleeve is the sum of my experience at the University of Saskatchewan. It is an exploration of or “coming to know” my worldview. I have come to know that history is a construction, fragments of memory told through the bias of time, place and privilege. Bison in the Bowl: This is Indian Land is a site of resistance. A layering of energy over matter through image projection over a colonizing space, the college building. I will place my family tipi in the bowl to honour the bison; the projected images will be of bison, buffalo boy and other contemporary aboriginal experiences. Through projection, I enlighten matter, a union of disparate histories that can be healed through the presence of an aboriginal healing device, the tipi. Happenings dependent on weather will occur September 21, 22 and 23. Crow Chief Plenty Coups refused to speak of the years after the last wild bison herds were gone, saying, “when the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them again. After this nothing happened.” Nothing Happened: Old Sun represents the reconstruction of cultural icons through bison fragments, manufactured steel and a light from the Old Sun Residential School on the Blackfoot Reserve. Shadows of the past interrogate traditional and contemporary ideas. I believe that objects hold energy; this light that once shone above the heads of many children within the school is a witness to cultural genocide. Illumination of our histories can bring us out of the shadows and enlighten our being. Time is the Western paradox; it is to be played with. It is a container, a crypt that fragments real time image. It is a space of introspection and the cosmic dance. Bison Heart connects me to the heart of my art practice. In the context of my aboriginal experience, this painting can be romantic, iconic and political. I invite the viewer to move between the values to uncover their own meaning and relationship with the subject and self. Gambling the Prairie Winnings is the construction of time through narrative, image and artifact. It is a serious and humorous view of how the west was dumb, it parodies the Western Development Museums centennial theme Winning the Prairie Gamble. The reinforcement of the colonial project occurs primarily through media, my intent is to subvert this medium. Mission Impossible: Buffalo Boy’s Wild West Peep Show is an altar and a stage based on the first Blackfoot Mission church. It is a video projection where Buffalo Boy can dream of missions past, play in the present and vision the future. This exhibition includes but is not limited to ideas within indigenous knowledge, meta/ quantum physics role in creating unity, the re-immergence of two-spirit peoples history, colonial or post -colonial critique, ecology, spirituality and healing modalities within the creative process. Through my art making I transcend the constructions of history, I heal myself for others to see, it is a new place from which to view the world.
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Buffalo Boy's 100 years of wearing his heart on hi
Citation
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A)
Department
Art and Art History
Program
Art and Art History