Raymond Boisjoly Winnipeg After the Installation and the Manifests in My Concerns with Language, Station to Station Launch of Both Exhibitions
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RB: While I don’t think of it in these terms, entre for photographic + digital upon Boisjoly’s return to Vancouver from something of the general and the specific arts Raymond Boisjoly Winnipeg after the installation and the manifests in my concerns with language, Station to Station launch of both exhibitions. naming, and discourse. is is often in the 04 April - 17 May, 2014 Station to Station // Silent Trans-Forming difference between naming and descrip- Curator: Derek Dunlop A conversation between Raymond Boisjoly, Derek Dunlop: Your choice of materials tion in relation to experience and under- Derek Dunlop, and Daina Warren can be described as having a mundane standing. To give an example, I am inter- URBAN SHAMAN quality, or coming from the vernacular - ested in the way something like “colonial- is conversation elaborates upon some of for instance, your use of coloured copy ism” can never be regarded directly, but Silent Trans-Forming the salient themes arising out of Raymond paper, Christmas lights, or the imagery of only glimpsed in the specific mechanisms 04 April - 07 June, 2014 Boisjoly’s recent exhibitions of new work at black metal music. You have a very subtle that come to impact colonized popula- two artist-run centres in Winnipeg. PLAT- way of imbuing these materials with tions. Colonialism is never present in full Raymond Boisjoly is an artist of Haida and FORM centre for photographic + digital traces of your own subjectivity. Can you before us, and this is the challenge of Québécois descent currently based in Vancou- arts presented a new series of photo-based explain your attraction to these materials moving between the general and the ver. His practice operates as active speculation work titled Station to Station. Also, Urban and what you think happens to them specific, to name an experience in relation and engages issues of Indigeneity, language as Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art when they begin to circulate in the to a general category without reducing its cultural practice, and the experiential aspects presented a new video installation in the institutions of art? specificity. e gas stations become a way of materiality. His process is situated in Marvin Francis Media Gallery titled Silent of registering something of the specific proximity to photography, and concerns the Trans-Forming. While each exhibition is Raymond Boisjoly: I am interested in reality of Indigenous peoples within their nature of technology as a means to index and unique, they both share interconnecting these materials because they communi- traditional territories beyond the way understand cultural transformation. He has formal and theoretical concerns that are cate something meaningful that isn’t these things are typically visualized. shown his work widely across Canada and is characteristic of Boisjoly’s practice. restricted to the category of art. As far as represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery in what happens to them when they circu- DW: Does the idea of the “West Coast” and Vancouver. Silent Trans-Forming is a video installation late in and as art, I am not sure, but I aim land/histories come into play with e constructed of common materials. A black for the works to register a conscious and Exiles? Does the idea of Vancouver history Derek Dunlop is an artist, writer, and curator tarp is re-deployed as a screen to display deliberate negotiation of their own come into play with some of your other based in Winnipeg. He completed his Master in an enigmatic text concerning the passage production in relation to art, as some- projects or influence your ideas? Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the University of of time. is particular combination of thing previously particular smuggled in, British Columbia in 2006. Dunlop has a studio elements is conceived as a deliberately ad resulting in a partial estrangement of RB: I have been thinking about the expan- based practice influenced by a variety of hoc formation, informed by something both art and the materials I have used. sive cultural geography represented in e critical discources including queer theory, and other than a strict, defined utility. In using Exiles, the neon signs for Lucky Lager phenomenology. He is the Director of Opera- common materials with common Daina Warren: Can you speak about your visible in the windows of Los Angeles tions at PLATFORM centre for photographic + functions for unforeseen ends, the work use of materials in your installation Silent Indian bars and the network this suggests digital arts. points toward the possibility of the future Trans-Forming at Urban Shaman, espe- in that Lucky Lager remains a very popular being something other than it would have cially your use of the black tarp? beer in parts of BC. I deal with specifically Daina Warren is of the Montana Cree Nation in been. Northwest Coast ideas in other projects, Hobbema, Alberta. She was awarded Canada RB: My choice of a black tarp for this work though these are limited in number, and I Council’s Assistance to Aboriginal Curators for Continuing Boisjoly’s investigation into the is derived from an interest in vernacular am still trying to figure out how I can talk Residencies in the Visual Arts program to work status of the photographic image, Station materials, materials deriving from every- about these things in a respectful manner with Grunt Gallery in Vancouver which led to to Station includes eleven photographic day life with their attendant uses. Tarps that does not appear simply to be me an associate curator and administrator works comprised of abstracted film stills are utilitarian objects that don’t have a trading on my identity as Haida. position until 2009. Warren also completed created through the productive misuse of specific use, only possible uses; my the Canada Council’s Aboriginal Curatorial technology. Sourced from Kent deployment of a black tarp is simply a ough I think about Vancouver—I have Residency at the National Gallery in Ottawa. In Mackenzie’s film e Exiles (1961), demonstration of its capacity to be worked in Vancouver for a little more than 2012, Warren graduated with a Master of Arts Boisjoly’s images are made by scanning the useful. From the tarp, I have cut out the a decade—I have dealt with it in incidental in Art History in Critical and Curatorial Studies film while it is being played on a digital text, “Always finding ourselves amidst or intuitive ways. With the elaborate from the University of British Columbia. She is video player: turning a moving image into changes already underway.” Upon this approach to Vancouver history offered by currently the Director of Urban Shaman a still one. e documentary style film object, a performance of the song “Write other artists in the city, my negotiations of Contemporary Aboriginal Art. follows a group of Aboriginal friends living Me, Baby” (1965) by Pat & Lolly Vegas is it are partial and fragmentary. in Los Angeles over the course of a twelve- projected without sound in order to hour period as they reflect upon feelings of emphasize the visual in this particular home and community and contemplate document. their future. DW: What drew you to Pat & Lolly Vegas? PLATFORM is discussion was conducted over e-mail Can you speak about this reference? RB: Pat & Lolly Vegas are really fascinat- DW: Could you also speak about the era stereotypes is often posed as a challenge Images often emerge within the condi- ing figures. I have done other research to which both of these exhibitions refer, to those stereotypes, positing a more tions of a restricted or highly controlled concerning Indigenous participation in and why that particular time period is authentic reality existing beyond the framework. In relation to this strategy, modernity;the choice of this video is an significant for you in terms of cultural art reductive tendencies of stereotyping. you’ve mentioned that, “e process by extension of that ongoing concern. history and an Urban Aboriginal art What I am trying to see through this is which something becomes visible can Within ten years of this performance, Pat history? that there is always an element that will also destroy it.” You seem to be testing & Lolly would progress from wearing exceed our understanding because our the limitations of your materials, while at sharply-tailored suits while playing a RB: I am very interested in the way popu- tools for seeing are never precise the same time questioning the limits, or derivative pop song to playing disco lar culture can index larger societal enough. the possibility of representation itself. music wearing pow wow regalia on changes. With both of these works, the Can you elaborate a bit more on these national TV. is transition models other material in question does not necessarily DD: You’ve used the term “creative tensions and maybe discuss why they developments in Indigenous politics. It constitute a stable point of reference for misrecognition” as a way to refer to your are important to you? is interesting to see this manifest in the histories of Urban Indigenous peoples, process—for example, the meeting of context of pop music. let alone their art. Given the complexity two incongruous technologies. It’s a very RB: I am interested in processes that of the issue, that Urban Indigenous evocative concept; can you elaborate a index transformations because every- DD: How did you come across Kent experience is not as easily legible for a bit more on this concept in relation to thing is undergoing numerous transfor- MacKenzie’s film e Exiles (1961)? public satisfied with conventional imag- both exhibitions? mations. e Rez Gas works are images of inings of Indigenous cultural practice, independent, Indigenous-owned gas RB: e first time I encountered e these documents allow for a different RB: I have never considered this term as stations situated on reserves that have Exiles was when it was available stream- approach to the issue that diffuses the something in particular but always in been faded into black construction ing on Netflix, it was maybe 2010.