Memory Keepers III | Nujimikwite’taqatijik III

It is in the landscape that contains the memories, the bones of the ancestors, the earth, air, fire, water, and spirit from which a Native culture has come and to which it continually returns. It is the land that ultimately defines a Native people.

-Gregory Cajete (Tewa)

Nujimikwite’taqatijik III

Mi’kmaw translation by Diane Mitchell

Nuji-
tasked with, responsible to do..., designated to do...

-mikwite'-
the morpheme for “remember”

-taqatijik
"they" (in Mi'kmaw there are singular, dual and plural endings for many verbs).

Each artist is their own memory keeper, where they encode, store and retrieve knowledge of the land, language, and cultural practices. Their artwork translates and transmits Indigenous knowledge for future generations. Memory keepers III | Nujimikwite’taqatijik III is a site-specific, experimental, collaborative visual art installation created by eight Indigenous artists from Halifax and across southern and northern Canada, led by GLAM Collective and presented at NSCAD’s University’s Treaty Space Gallery at the Port Campus. GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) is a collective of curator-artist-scholars who present innovative projects in public spaces by working through Indigenous, feminist, and anti-oppressive methodologies.

For this project, we have selected eight works by eight artists produced in two one-week intensive visual arts residencies at Concordia University and NSCAD University in 2019 which culminated in the installation of Memory Keepers 1 | Gardiens des mémoires at Nuit Blanche in Montreal and Memory keepers II | Nujimikwite’taqatijik II at Art in the Open. The artists featured in our third installation of our Memory Keepers series bring their diverse creative practices together to create experiential, interactive, digital and site-specific works. This inclusive, welcoming event is geared towards all Nocturne audiences and will be suitable for all ages. Our installation is hosted by NSCAD University’s Treaty Space Gallery at the Port Campus. We draw on the fun and spontaneous spirit of Nocturne in creating this site-specific experimental art exhibition, and take this year’s theme of Scaffolding in both technological terms - drawing on digital and new media arts to create an exciting, interactive installation - but also to refer to the idea of Indigenous resurgence, where we situate Indigenous peoples within a long continuum of past, present and future on this land.

The artists include Caroline Monnet (an established Algonquin-French contemporary artist and filmmaker known for her work in sculpture, installation and film); Jerry Evans (a master Mi’kmaq print maker, tattoo artist and powwow dancer from Ktaqamkuk (Newfoundland), Carrie Allison (an Indigenous mixed-ancestor multidisciplinary visual artist), Darcie Bernhardt (an emerging Inuvialuit painter and curator, recent NSCAD graduate and current Assistant Curator at the MSVU), Tom McLeod (a Gwich'in and Inuvialuit emerging installation and new media artist with professional experience in the film industry), Megan Kyak-Montieth (an Inuk painter from Nunavut with a BFA from NSCAD and lives in Halifax, NS), and Jason Sikoak (a graphic artist from Nunatsiavut studying Studio Arts at Concordia University). GLAM Collective is co-led by Dr. Heather Igloliorte (an Inuk curator, Associate Professor, and University Research Chair at Concordia), Dr. Carla Taunton (a settler-ally curator, social justice scholar and Associate Professor at NSCADU), and Dr. Julie Nagam (a Metis-Syrian-German artist, Associate Professor and Research Chair at the University of Winnipeg, and 2018-19 Scholar-in-Residence at Concordia University).

At the beginning of our art incubator workshops, the artists were provided with a list of available materials and technical equipment they could access (including outdoor projectors, lights, etc) for both the Montreal and Charlottetown installations as well as materials and spaces they had accessed to, including video creating and editing suites, production labs, sculpture, fashion, and painting studios and other maker-spaces on Concordia and NSCAD campuses. It was their task to prioritize materials and equipment needs according to the production budget provided. They had considerable technical assistance and project assistance on campus, guidance from the GLAM Collective, Assistant curators and project coordinators.

Our third installation which features four works produced in Montreal (Bernhardt and McLeod, Sikoak, Monnet, and Kyak-Monteith) and 3 works produced in Halifax (Evans, Allison, and Aubin) will be featured at NSCAD’s Treaty Space Gallery using the outside of the building to further our engagement with the curatorial theme of scaffolding – a temporary support structure- in that we will re-build Sikoak’s pop up tent Labrador Tent and use it as our projection surface for Allison, Bernhardt and McLeod and Kyak Monteith’s stop motion animations as well as showcase the work of Evan’s on the gallery windows while projecting Monnett and Aubin’s work on an industrial garage door. These surfaces and outside structures will temporary be a gathering site for Indigenous stories, memories, and knowledges, and will support the sharing of these works to Halifax publics.

This project is funded by NOCTURNE; Treaty Gallery at NSCAD University; Transactive Memory Keepers Insight Grant; the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership Partnership Grant; the Aabijijiwan Digital Media Lab at University of Winnipeg, the Office of Community Engagement (Concordia University); the Department of Art History (Concordia University); The Office of Academic Affairs and Research at NSCAD University, University of Winnipeg, as well as considerable in-kind support provided by the Indigenous Futures Cluster of Concordia University, Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology, Hexagram Labs, and NSCAD University Multi-Media services.