EXHIBITION: Friday, January 18 2013 @ 7PM
ARTIST TALK: Saturday, January 19 2013 @ 2PM
Gallery Connexion is pleased to present an exhibition by Acadian artist Maryse Arsenault, titled Sanguine, terre brulée, et autres angoisses (sanguine, burnt umber and other sorrows). Aresenault’s installation is comprised of more than 800 re-interpreted photographs, and seeks to address continued disregard for the presence and cultural contributions of the First Nations people of “Acadian” territory.
The exhibition will run until March 8, 2013.
Sanguine, terre brulée, et autres angoisses was developed by Arsenault during a residency designed to consider formations of history and identity in Acadie – titled In the Shadow of Evangeline, organized by the Galerie d’Art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen, in Moncton.
The installation’s eight-pointed star can be found on traditional blankets and crafts in both Mik’maq and Acadian homes, and is meant to function as an entry point for the discussion of a shared history, often untold. Arsenault looks to her own bloodlines, and asks, what friendships, what alliances, what animosities have existed – and might continue to exist – between Acadians and First Nations people of New Brunswick?
Portraits of American Aboriginals taken by nineteenth century photographers such as Edward Curtis and C.S. Fly are appropriated, and re-presented. With silkscreen and digital print-making, Arsenault has both masked and adorned these portraits: interrupting any conventional ‘reading’ of these photographs and disrupting the discourse of ‘discovery’ they have been used to support.
As Idle No More gains momentum throughout Canada, Arsenault’s exhibition hopes to function as a venue for conversation, contemplation, and respectful discussion of not only the shared past, but also the shared present and the shared future of First Nations and non-first-nations people – in New Brunswick and in Canada, at large.
Connexion gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, The Province of New Brunswick, The City of Fredericton, and Picaroons Brewing Co.
