The new Indigenous public art works reshaping your city

In 2002, Ryan Wedding was an Olympic snowboarder at the top of his game. Ryan's style is really gun it and go. And in less than a minute, it slipped away. But he continued to chase the high. Ryan James Wedding. He controls one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in this world. I'm Michelle Shepard and from CBC Podcasts and the Toronto Star, The Most Wanted Olympian. Available now on Amazon Music. And Selina Yellowbird is here. Rinalda Arlook is here. And we're going to talk about some of these works and also what public artwork can do for reconciliation. Welcome to both of you to the show. Hey, it's really great to be here. Thank you. Nice to have you here. Hi, thank you. Of course. Listen, Selina, I'm going to start with you. When you think about public art, because it's maybe a broadish question, but I feel like it's maybe a good place for us to begin. When you think about public art, what can public art do that art in a gallery can't quite do? Um, that's a good question. I feel like what I really appreciate about public art is that it's kind of just like on your commute to work or it's going to the grocery store. It's just, you're kind of just walking to get to point A to point B. And I think it's because it's kind of in your vicinity, it kind of grabs your attention and you take a moment to reflect because it's so out of where you would find, let's say when you go to a gallery and you see an exhibition, it's like, you know where you're going and you know what to expect. And I feel like when you're kind of, just out and about and you see public art, it kind of grabs your attention. And I feel like it kind of has you reflect a little more. Um, and it's more accessible, you know, so it's, you know, maybe people who don't have the time or maybe the money, or it kind of is just in the environment, kind of in the open and it's to everyone, which is just really cool. Yeah. Like, listen, I don't, um, I don't think a lot about like the space around me. And then sometimes I will like stumble upon a public artwork and say, Whoa, I'm now literally rethinking about every, every, every part of this public space in a different way. I'll tell, let me ask you the same question. What can public art do for a community or for a space? Yeah, I think what it really does is it just shows itself, right? Cause it takes so much effort, so much collaboration, so much partnership, uh, to be able to create public art that, uh, it really shows that, that there's an importance, uh, to the work itself, to the artists themselves, to be seen on such a large level. What I love about it is the accessibility because, you know, galleries have limited hours and, and exhibitions have show like limited showing. So it's like whenever you feel compelled to see that work, you can be there to see the work. You can touch the work. You can take photos with the work. You know, I did, I just sent you a photo of like a forced perspective of one of the public art pieces. And so it, you know, it's, it's a way, it asks you to engage with it in a way and it shows who's in, who's in your community. So when you see like large indigenous public works, you're seeing the indigenous people in your community. Who are creating really powerful, creative, uh, impactful works. And so, yeah, it's just, uh, I find, I, I have a very big curiosity for public art when I go to different places and I like to see what's around whose work it is and how people are interacting with it. All right, so let's get into it. I want to start with this clip. It's a clip from Cheyenne Rain Legrand talking about her art. I wanted to speak to indigenous futurism and the beaded earring to me symbolized that. It was a contemporary form of beadwork and I wanted to have that displayed in Harlac Park as a way to celebrate our fashion and our culture. There's that word celebrate. I want to return to that in just a moment, but that was Cheyenne Rain Legrand talking about her first public art installation. It's a piece called Missy Mixock. It's in Harlac Park in Edmonton. Uh, we were talking before the show Renalta about how you are driving around Alberta and interacting with a bunch of public arts. Um, in, in, in the province. Uh, you actually, as a matter of fact, did see that, that, that piece yesterday. What was it like? Can you describe it for us a little bit? Sure. I mean, I was inspired to go see it because you invited me to be on this podcast. So I was like, I'm so excited. I'm actually in Edmonton. I'm going to go look at, look at this incredible work. I love that. So yeah, Cheyenne, you know, she's exuberating joy in the video. Like you're like we watched here and, and that's exactly what you receive when you go into Harlac Park. So you park, you drive in, it's the first work that you see. It's, it's placed so well in the city. It's like, there's the water, there's buildings there where people are pathways that are, people are walking. And even as we were heading up to it, people were posing with it, looking at it, interacting with it, touching it. And, uh, so yeah, it's a, it's a real celebratory work and it's placed in a really celebratory, uh, way. And it really, uh, it really, uh, exemplifies the intention of what that work was supposed to do. So yeah, it was a joy. It was a real joy. I will say, I'm, I'm conscious of like, as you were describing that and the exuberance that it sort of gave you and Alta, uh, both Selena and I are kind of like sitting here with like gigantic smiles on our faces. Like there is, there is something about this idea of sort of intentionally making an art that we get a work of art that is so celebratory. And, uh, Selena in that clip, we hear Cheyenne sort of mentioned that this work is sort of a celebration of fashion and culture. Um, you mentioned that in the, in the exhibition that is that you curated, which is opening today. Uh, thank you so much for taking the time to talk today, even though this work is opening right now. Uh, Carrie, Alison's solo show at the McCord Stewart museum, Montreal, like a celebratory feeling is something that you willingly and intentionally chose to pursue. Tell me a little bit about choosing to pursue that feeling. Um, I think for myself, because of my master's where I kind of talked about the importance of indigenous art, um, and how indigenous, especially desire pleasure and sexuality, that we need more art that celebrates, um, our people and our culture and our various traditions. Um, because I think, you know, what tends to happen that we tend to see is that people focus, people tend to put more importance on discourses of trauma, um, and victim blaming, which tends to leave us kind of stuck in this like vacuum of negativity. And I, and I always say that we, we do need to talk about what has happened, the colonial past, how it's still present today, but we have to celebrate our people, our languages, our traditions, um, because it shows that we're still here and that we are a very, very talented peoples. Um, and that's kind of what I wanted to do with Carrie Allison was that, you know, looking in her collection and looking at the type of art she does, I was like, can we need to celebrate your gift? And, you know, especially when it comes to beadwork, the colors, the motifs, the stories behind. Uh, so yeah. Yeah. I think I, I hear in that, in that description and in the way that you chose to frame it, this sort of very intentional framing of that joy, very intentional framing of sort of like putting that, um, at the front next, we have this piece from Brian union with it's his largest piece to date. And that is saying something because if you live in Toronto, you might pass by the art gallery of Ontario and outside of the art gallery of Ontario, he's got this piece couch mount monster. Uh, it's, it's, it's not small is the way that I would describe it. It's a large bronze work that is a bit overwhelming in size. And you know, when you, when you kind of pass it, but his new work is called Bush capsules. It just recently went up in Vancouver's Oak Ridge park. Um, Renata, could you just tell us a little bit about this piece? Yeah, so Brayden Youngin, you know, he's from northern Alberta. and uh he does he brings pieces uh he brings pieces together that kind of like our image like our works that we would write like um like pieces that we recognize masks golf things like this he's just so so like creative and how uh he uh how he brings these materials together and that creates a bigger uh like um image to it so like these ones are based on his patio chairs that he has been known to use i think you've created a whale out of patio chairs last time and i the patio chairs are reminiscent of uh things that you buy at the store that tend to decay with moss on a lawn or like erode from the sun on a patio yeah and he brings them to life and creates like these large mushrooms i think they're what 40 feet high in vancouver and it's wonderful like i'm thinking about the art that exists in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Toronto, like, and we're just like so seen in all these like really like large ways. So yeah, that's his work there. And yeah, I really, really admire Brian's work so much. The scale is maybe the first thing that hits you from Brian's work. I feel like there's something, you know, like the idea of like a whale out of patio chairs an idea of elephant out of uh couches like there is there's a thing like first of all you register the large thing and then you register the things that it's made up of i think like to me like that's the experience of it but uh selena these mushrooms are gigantic uh as reynolds mentioned they're 40 feet high what is the power of art and maybe specifically indigenous art at that scale do Well, the first thing that I think of is Kent Monkman and kind of like his exhibit that we that that Marielle had at the Musée des Beaux-Arts where Kent Monkman is known to have art pieces that are huge and it kind of is to kind of take up space. space and i think that that's what's really nice about public art that is huge is that it takes up space where generally like we see that like for instance indigenous people where we were taught to make ourselves small or to keep quiet and so it's like when you put art that is at scales of this like size it intentionally takes up space and it it kind of reclaims power and it's like sovereignty over being like here's our our identity and here's what we have to say i'm glad that you brought up kent monkman because i do think that is exactly where i want to go next with this conversation we'll get to that in just a moment but first we'll take a quick break in 2002 ryan wedding was an olympic snowboarder at the top of his game ryan style is really gun it and go and in less than a minute it slipped away but he continued to chase the high you ryan james wedding he controls one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in this world i'm michelle shepherd and from cbc podcasts and the toronto star the most wanted olympian available now on amazon music i'm alamin abdul mahmoud and this is commotion and today is the national day for truth and reconciliation selena yellowbird is here and ronaldo arlook is here and we're talking about some of the new public artworks by indigenous artists that you might be familiar with and i'm ronaldo arlook and i'm ronaldo arlook and i'm ronaldo arlook and i'm ronaldo arlook and i'm ronaldo arlook and i'm ronaldo arlook and i'm ronaldo arlook across the country right now so finally we get this new piece um on the lasagna art trail in toronto from this artist that you guys might have heard of his name is kent monkman uh the piece is called the colony uh it opens today it's his first public artwork and it's this 12-foot altar relief adorned by a bunch of beavers doing a whole bunch of different things ronaldo you are excited about the colony what's it what's it uh what i mean that's the impression that i get what's it what's it's very true what's it bringing up for you well so when i got when i looked at the video for that and i looked at some of the articles written about the giant beaver colony in ontario it got me really excited because we have that same those same uh stories up in the northwest territories primarily denna dead territory with the denny and so there were these stories of these giant beavers that existed up there and it was during a time when the land was lawless and so uh you know the beaver has no natural water predator and so the beaver has no natural water predator and so the beaver has no natural water predator denny would have to go on their canoes along the water along the shore of the water and they'd have to be so quiet and to not disrupt them and they would tell their children not to uh not to make any sound and they would just like like go by these waterways and so there are these two brothers or one one man depending on uh the cosmology of the storytelling in the denny there's yamoria and yamoja and i heard these stories from uh elder george blondin in his in his in his stories that he would share in his books and his tellings and so what what they would they brought law to the land and so they wanted to defeat the the giant beavers and so they would chase them down waterways and that would those created two rapids that are known across denna day and then uh they would they would jump across they would jump off the waterfall so they would move these boulders and there's like these landmarks of where the boulders where the beaver crashed into them and he did eventually kill them and so we stretched the their hides onto bear rock mountain and there's you could see the hides that were stretched there and when he cooked the beaver the grease of the beaver uh smoldered and there's still there's a part of the denna day where there's you can still see the smoldering of the smoke and so those giant beavers were a time of lawlessness and then they brought law to the land and so when i saw these giant beavers from kent monk that i was like oh no like what's kent doing what are we bringing back what are the teachings what are the stories and it's so exciting um and also like just know like look what that work evoked right it evoked us storytelling it evoked bringing us back the knowledges that we carry already so it it really did create a celebratory like uh reaction to me so thank you for uh for picking up on that of course i mean i think the the specific notion also of um kent doing that specific work right the specific work of saying uh this is maybe a conversation we've not had in a minute let's here's let's figure out how to bring it back that to me feels like a very kent monkman thing to do uh so let me ask you this question how does it feel like a continuation of the work that kent monkman is interested in well i feel like what kent likes to do is to kind of exactly evoke these type of reactions where it's kind of like bringing things that maybe people don't want to talk about i'm especially thinking of the where it was where there was a lot of topics of residential schools but there was also the violence that we see on indigenous bodies and so i think that's what that that's why i love art is because you can have these conversations in ways that captivate people but then have people question oh why did why did he use this why these colors why of this scale so um i think this is a continuation because it's exactly that it's okay let's have conversations let's let's kind of put it in your head and let's let's have conversations let's let's kind of put it in your head and let's your face um yeah i mean i'm interested in that because you know the thing about public art is that there's such a wide range of reactions i do stop every time i see that brian young in peace and go whoa i'm really struck by the scale i also see people who are passing by it not really registering it from the from their periphery of their eyes you know like so there's something to me about public art that is quite often issuing you an invitation and sometimes people don't necessarily take that invitation so let me ask uh both of you so let me ask you a question i'll start with you first what response do you hope the public has to some of these public work arts that we've been talking about today well i hope that it kind of stimulates conversation i hope that when people see it that it kind of invites them to do more research on you know in their lives and to to you know ask themselves these questions um but i also think just the fact that many people will be stopping and taking pictures i'm thinking of cheyenne's um like beaded piece i'm like even to just have people stop and to take a picture with it and to even feel you know like wow this is so beautiful kind of what we feel when we wear our earrings or our regalia it's i think that that's what's important is that it kind of it invokes a type of feeling of celebration and joy um and indigenous beauty that is not just you know a lot of people think indigenous people that you know we're closed off but we're inviting people to share these feelings with us so that's kind of what i hope ronaldo it's it's not lost on me that uh you are the kind of person who will get in a car and drive to see some public artworks in different towns and maybe other people are not necessarily built that way i did really mention before the show started that i would take a whole map of public work arts that you curate i go like i'll make these drives that sounds like a great time but what do you what do you hope the public takes away from interacting with some of these public works i think yeah actually uh what selena's saying it's a it's a visibility you know it's an importance uh like we're present we're here we were always here we're here now we're going to be here in the future and we are you know we're we are creative cultural uh like inherent beings of and with knowledge and and ways to share that knowledge is so adaptable and so when we look at public art like they're so different these three pieces that we're talking about and yet we're we're part of this great great big landscape of diversity within our own nations and and and peoples and so um you know it's it's incredible to have these pieces be seen to the scale that they're at these are not like you know public art are not like they're not cheap to do and so there's a lot of investment from the community donor sponsors you know partner art funders law and so like everyone is putting a great effort to make these pieces as exquisite and brought to life as they are and and so it shows that we're a valued it shows that we're seen uh that we you know that that we're being witnessed and i think it is um you know we are we are recognizing today as a really important day of remembrance and so an acknowledgement and so it can be done in a celebratory way it can be done in a reflective way and these and like looking at public art it also is a bit of a time capsule in that way where were we in history when these pieces were created where were we in our own timeline of a nation when we were asking ourselves those questions and this is how we found some of those answers so i i do think it's wonderful to go on public art tours to see what's out there and when those were done so that we could again like you know we're we're moving away from the the leaders in brass you know we're really we're looking at different materials and different concepts and we're looking at different materials and different colors and and different scales and i think it's very exciting i think it's very exciting i i want to go back to the thing that you just mentioned in the middle of that answer ronaldo you said that it shows that we are valued because of the ways that it shows uh investment in this country we have funding and residency programs to help artists plenty of people would say not nearly enough um but you work on the indigenous ways and decolonization team at the national gallery of canada ronaldo when we talk about decolonizing the art world what do you think about that what else do we need to be doing to support indigenous artists you think yeah it it it has to be purposeful you know like i think about how recent the collection at the national gallery when it became purposeful to acquire and commission indigenous works you know before it was donated it was when they had when they received it they they included as part of the collection but now there's a real integral purpose to collecting commissioning acquiring indigenous art to fill those those gaps uh that are like across the um across the like the the years the decades and it and and across all the different regions and making sure there's a real uh regionality to the work that the gallery has and i think that that can be echoed in in like uh in like smaller galleries as well or even just in in how we see art like public art there it it can't be accidental it has to be purposeful it has to be thoughtful you know when we create when like when we think about the works that we're commissioned to make as writers or visual artists or uh in different disciplines as we think from a place of like how does that serve community how does inherently how does that reflect in our cultural teachings or language like there's a lot of different processes that come to creating that work and that's often and then we go into the negotiations of like how do we bring forward those inspirations inherently inherent teachings to say a contract you know very practical but very necessary how do we then teach all of our collaborators why it's inherently important that we we go from this from this building space and then when it gets into the into the land itself like how can we carry that forward in the conversations with the contractors and carry and so it's just like how do we hold that knowledge and that sacredness through the entire all the different processes that it takes to like create a public public work and i i think those are really interesting ways to engage reconciliation uh your own involvement in those in those conversations so yeah i'm glad that you brought that up that this is an idea of sort of engaging um the broader public sense of reconciliation because i think ultimately that is what this is sort of moving towards right and so selena maybe i'll ask you this question like moving beyond art and more towards uh the fact that we are talking on today the national day for truth and reconciliation i want to ask you what what does reconciliation what reconciliation look like and what's art's role in getting to that place um i think reconciling the thing is that already i don't really like the word reconciliation um and this is just personal because i feel like sometimes it there's this connotation that it was there was a good relationship before when the start of this of kind of like history um it started off really bad but anyways i think that art can can kind of help people understand educate because it kind of i'm thinking of kent it kind of brings to light these like these issues that we've seen throughout history um and problematics that we see kind of what colonialism is continuing to do today and kind of like how we're we're working to undo these things i think it can kind of educate people in ways that maybe and i always say this that's why i love art because art is very it's it can be subtle where it's very political and sometimes people won't see it but it can be very political and sometimes people won't see it but it can be it so they'll engage in it um and then they'll reflect but the thing is that sometimes you know you'll have protests which are super important but sometimes people don't feel safe in spaces this like this because the presence of the police or violence or you know sometimes it's not accessible so i think art is is so beautiful because it kind of is able to get in in these spaces and have and have more reach maybe other spaces won't before i let you guys go i just want to ask for a recommendation from both of you uh ronalda why don't you go first okay so this was the recommendation for like how to celebrate indigenous artists uh on this day or reflect upon so i am a mentor for the indigenous writer circle as part of audible and we mentor uh emerging indigenous writers i've been a part of that collective for the past four five years and uh and so um i've always inspired by indigenous writers so i think about richard van camp i think about wabi gizik rice i think about tanay tagala joshua whitehead you know january rogers there's so many uh we are we are so interesting in the writing world and all the different genres that we're in uh right now i have um i i'm reading indigenous horror i feel like we're really leading the conversation on horror yeah and like you're reading never whistle at night is that what you're reading like never whistle at night that's right that's the one i'm reading yeah and then you know we were at tiff when we saw nyla nook sucks heart of the south which is like a psychological thriller very scary so i recommend you know even our filmmaker like not even and our filmmakers like nyla nook suck and and north of north of course season two you know check that out it's like there's so many beautiful ways to engage with uh with um with all of us right now uh selena what about you what do you got um i agree with all of that and i also um i'm speaking from montreal those that are in montreal we for instance the the carrie allison exhibition is going to be open um and it's our museum is open until nine and it's free so i really encourage everyone to come celebrate indigenous art the way we were speaking about it today um there's also peaceful marches that are happening as well where there's going to be singers um and there's going to be places for prayer and smudging so i really encourage people to take part of that and i always tell people this and people who are non-indigenous but who want to support i always say just take this day to also listen um you don't have to do like a bunch of things you don't have to you know be too much it's just listen um and you know leave space to to those who need space on this day i really appreciate it for that yeah i really appreciate that note i think that's a perfect note to end on i really appreciate your time as well thank you guys so much for coming on the show today thank you so much yeah i really appreciate it of course selena yellowbird is a nehyak and french curatorial assistant at the mccord stewart museum from alexander first nation bernardo arlook is an anuvialic dene cree artist from the northwest territories she's part of the indigenous ways and decolonization team at the national gallery of canada my name is alamina mahmoud this show is called commotion we'll be back tomorrow we'll see you then for more cbc podcasts go to cbc.ca slash podcasts