Circuit 4, Stewardship

Stewardship #callresponse Christi Belcourt, IV Castellanos CIRCUIT 4/5, Take Care and Esther Neff, Marcia January 8–27, 2018 Crosby, Maria Hupfield, Ursula Blackwood Gallery Johnson, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Isaac Murdoch, Tanya Tagaq, Tania Willard, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory Co-organizers: Tarah Hogue (curator) Maria Hupfield (artist/curator) Tania Willard (artist/curator) Take Care’s fourth circuit, Stewardship, decentres the isolated individual as the privileged recipient or the primary site of care. Against the calam- itous futures wrought by extractivism and the state forces that enable it, this circuit explores stewardship as a potential counter-modality of care- taking. Relationality, shared responsibility, custodianship, interdependency, community governance, and intergenerationality: the contested lexicon of stewardship is difficult to avoid in efforts to respond to the crises of care cascading across multiple domains of life—ecological, social, cultural, political. Stewardship scales up care, and names the relational work of Notes tending to a world, a resource, an artefact, a memory, a community, a 1 Tarah Hogue, engaging the work knowledge system, an institution, a future. Stewardship forefronts ideas of Audra Simpson, in “#callresponse: presence across platforms,” and practices of care that centre upon relationships to land, territory, and MICE 02, ed. Radiodress (2016): http://micemagazine.ca/issue-two/ water, and that undo hierarchies between human and nonhuman. While callresponse. irreducible to stewardship alone, this circuit’s exhibition—#callresponse— Front cover: repositions the crisis of care within and against the intersecting forces of Only Available Light (detail), from the nation state, colonialism, land dispossession, and patriarchy. As co- the series Only Available Light, 2016. Archival film (Harlan I. Smith, organizer Tarah Hogue writes in relation to #callresponse, “the resistance The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, 1928), projector, of Indigenous peoples exposes the precarity of settler sovereignty and selenite crystals, and photons, opens possibilities for alternate conceptions of care and responsibility 8:44 min. Original composition by Leela Gilday. PHOTO: DENNIS HA. towards one another.”1 – Letters & Handshakes COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GRUNT GALLERY. 3 CALL Murdoch; Maria Hupfield and IV Castellanos the geographically diverse sites and pro- #callresponse grew out of collective discus- To support the work of Indigenous and Esther Neff; Ursula Johnson and Cheryl vides opportunities for networked exchang- sions about the importance of Indigenous L’Hirondelle; Tania Willard and Marcia Crosby; es. As both a title and hashtag, #callresponse feminisms in grounding our lives and work women from across Turtle Island and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and Tanya draws from activist movements and cam- in reciprocal relations, while critiquing and through art commissions that drive Tagaq. Following the initial commissions, paigns such as #IdleNoMore, #BlackLives- refusing the intersections of colonialism and dialogue and mobilize action on the a touring exhibition opened at grunt gallery Matter, #MMIW, and #ReMatriate that uti- patriarchy. This includes work with other topic of reconciliation with Indigenous in Vancouver in 2016, with selected repre- lize social media to generate awareness, humans, more-than-humans, and territory Peoples. To stand together across sentations of each project continuing to discussion, and action around important beyond narrow definitions of land as seen evolve with each geographic location to cultural, economic, environmental, political, throughout the commissioned projects. sovereign territories as accomplices1 which it travels. and social justice issues facing marginalized #callresponse does not privilege re/concil- in awakened solidarity with all our communities. iation as central to the work and lives of relations, both human and non. Blackwood Gallery invited the co-organizers Indigenous women but rather reorients the to engage with the institution’s collection Indigenous languages, oral narratives, song, vital presence of Indigenous women—their RESPONSE of Inuit Art as a site-specific response to ceremony, and land-based knowledge be- work and their embodied experiences—as the thematic of Stewardship, the fourth come akin to hashtags in how they recall central, as defining, and as pre-existing To ground art in accountability, value circuit of the Take Care project that occa- and accrue embodied knowledge. These current appeals for a reconcilable future.3 lived experience, and build upon sys- sioned this iteration of #callresponse. The technologies move in ways that are intimate, The project acknowledges how artists are tems of support. To enact strategies co-organizers invited Beatrice Deer, an Inuk attentive, specific, and responsive. Recog- already working to complicate and unsettle, of resurgence, resilience, and refusal singer from Nunavik, to select works from nizing the fundamental shifts that can occur following Audra Simpson’s call that our “day- against ongoing multiple articulations the collection to be hung on the University when the intersections of gender, race, and to-day lives be critically engaged” with an of Toronto Mississauga campus. These colonialism are considered seriously as the “ongoing, active attention to what is before of power and the structural colonial works are accompanied by textual respons- locus of systemic and symbolic violence, us and a continuing care and vigilance over violence of nation states. es written in English and Inuktitut from #callresponse uses the hashtag as a device each other.”4 The artists’ works are grounded Deer’s own perspective as an Inuk woman. to give voice to the importance of Indige- in the communities of significance through Guided by Anishnaabe Nation intelligence as A number of other local responses have nous North American women in creating a which they move, both urban and rural, told by Washkigaamagki (Curve Lake First also been commissioned, including a “vis- more equitable, just, and balanced future. online and in-person, in spaces where the Nation) Elder Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams), itation” of Ursula Johnson’s durational song- The intention of #callresponse is to populate artists live and work, as well as those plac- we act in the spirit of Nanaboozho, who is based performance Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: as many spaces, and many media, with the es they traverse in their various roles and interpreted in the following text by Leanne The Land Sings with Cherish Violet Blood hashtag, to broadcast the message and to responsibilities.5 Betasamosake Simpson as Kwezens, whose and Rosary Spence, song workshops for catalyze bodies. –#callresponse “very presence simultaneously shatters the youth led by Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Ursula disappearance of Indigenous women and Johnson in partnership with Peel Aborig- girls from settler consciousness. … [She inal Network Friendship Centre, a “writer- propels] us to rebel against the permanence in-residence” who will take over the proj- of settler colonial reality and not just ‘dream ect’s social media platforms, and a panel alternative realities’ but to create them, on discussion unpacking the concept of stew- the ground in the physical world, in spite of ardship in relation to Indigenous and artistic Notes being occupied.”2 considerations. 1 We take up the term “accomplices” 3 David Garneau writes: “Re-con- 4 Audra Simpson, “Reconciliation as a politicized alternative to ciliation refers to the repair of a and its Discontents: Settler “ally,” following Jaskiran Dhillon’s previously existing harmonious Governance in an Age of #callresponse is an artistic and curatorial Shining a light on work that is both urgent “On Becoming an Accomplice.” relationship. This word choice Sorrow.” Lecture, University of collaboration co-organized by Tarah Hogue and long-term, #callresponse is structured Paper presented at Accomplice & imposes the fiction that equanimity Saskatchewan, March 2016. Art Practice—Indigenous Feminist is the status quo between https://www.youtube.com/ along with project artists Maria Hupfield as a connective support system that strate- Activism & Performance, Yale Aboriginal people and Canada.” watch?v=vGI9HkzQsGg and Tania Willard. The project begins with gically centres Indigenous women across University, New Haven CT, March Conversely, “conciliation,” “calls to 2016. mind the meeting of two previously 5 This text is, in part, adapted from a series of five local art commissions by multiple platforms. It moves between spe- separate parties. Applied to the Tarah Hogue, “#callresponse: Indigenous women and artists whose home cific sites, online space, and the gallery. The 2 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Canadian situation, it allows the presence across platforms,” territories are located in the Canadian na- project focuses on forms of performance, “Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg picturing of First Nations and MICE 02, ed. Radiodress (2016): intelligence and rebellious Inuit people having an independent http://micemagazine.ca/ tion state. Each artist invites respondents process, and translation that incite dialogue transformation” in Decolonization: existence prior to contact.” David issue-two/callresponse. to consider her work, and their responses and catalyze action between individuals, Indigeneity, Education & Society 3, Garneau, “Imaginary Spaces of no. 3 (2014): 8. Conciliation and Reconciliation” are also included in the exhibition. The communities, territories,

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