Mi’kmaw artist Ursula Johnson will perform L’nuwelti’k (We Are Indian) at Carleton University on June 20, 2014. In this durational performance, Johnson will use traditional Mi’kmaw basketry to create portraits of selected individuals in order to memorialize Indian registration and membership codes.
When: Friday, June 20, 2014 from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Where: Carleton University campus quad, adjacent to the MacOdrum Library and Ojigkwanong, Carleton’s Aboriginal centre in Patterson Hall.
This event is free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome to drop by between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Media are invited to attend.
Johnson will follow up the performance with a public conversation with local artist Cara Tierney about L’nuwelti’k (We Are Indian) and artistic practice.
Where: Friday, June 20, 2013 at 6 p.m.
Where: Carleton University Art Gallery, St. Patrick’s Building, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa
This event is part of Carleton University Art Gallery’s exhibition, Making Otherwise: Craft and Material Fluency in Contemporary Art, which began in May and continues until September 2014. The exhibition presents the work of six Canadian artists who merge the material and conceptual approaches of craft and art: Richard Boulet (Edmonton, Alta.), Ursula Johnson (Eskasoni, N.S.), Marc Courtemanche (L’Ange-Gardien, Que.), Paul Mathieu (Vancouver, B.C.), Sarah Maloney (Halifax, N.S.) and Janet Morton (Guelph, Ont.) Drawing on their fluency in ceramics, basket weaving, furniture making, stitchery, bronze casting, woodworking and knitting, these artists think through materials, forms and ideas to make things differently or “otherwise.”
This event is also an early celebration of National Aboriginal Day, which takes place on June 21, 2014. These events are generously supported by Carleton University; the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario; and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Johnson’s solo exhibition, Mi’kwite’tmn, runs from June 7 until August 3, 2014 at the Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery in Halifax, N.S., and will be followed by a tour of Canada.
About Ursula A. Johnson:
Johnson is a Mi’kmaw artist based on the Eskasoni First Nation in Cape Breton, N.S. Her practice fuses traditional ash splint basketry techniques with performance in order to explore Aboriginal identity, as well as the shifting status of Mi’kmaw basketry, including everyday use, gifts marking occasions, tourist wares, museum artifacts and art objects. Johnson graduated with BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2006. She has presented performances and exhibited her work across Canada, and participated in residencies at the Cape Breton University Art Gallery, University of Edinburgh, Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Klondike Institute for Arts and Culture, Debajehmujig Creation Centre and the Banff Centre. In 2011, she curated a retrospective of her grandmother Caroline Gould’s basketry at the Mary E. Black Gallery in Halifax.
About Cara Tierney:
Raised in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que., Cara Tierney is a multi-disciplinary artist with a background in performance art. Using the body as a point of departure, Tierney often foregrounds issues of sexuality and gender to question how society impacts our relationship to our own bodies and ultimately our identities, both private and public. Tierney has an MA in Art History from Carleton University and an MFA from the University of Ottawa. A major solo exhibition of her photographs, Cara Tierney: Go Forth and Multiply, was presented at CUAG in 2012.
For more information:
Chris Cline
Media Relations Officer
Carleton University
613-520-2600, ext. 1391
christopher_cline@carleton.ca
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 in Media Advisories
Share: Twitter, Facebook
