{"id":32133,"date":"2019-03-22T03:59:31","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T10:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=32133"},"modified":"2019-03-25T00:15:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T07:15:19","slug":"exhibit-starts-with-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/03\/22\/exhibit-starts-with-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhibit starts with friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda MacCannell\u2019s photograph of John T\u2019Seleie. (photo from Drew Ann Wake)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The new show at the Zack Gallery, Crossed Paths \u2013 which explores the connection between the Jewish and the Dene peoples \u2013 has its roots in the federal Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1970s, I was a CBC reporter in the Northwest Territories,\u201d show curator Drew Ann Wake told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cWhen the government proposed a pipeline through the area, they sent Justice Thomas Berger to investigate the impact of the proposed pipeline [in 1974]. He talked to over 30 native communities to get their input.\u00a0When he was finished, he issued a report recommending the government settle all the claims on land that the pipeline would pass through before construction started….\u00a0They are still settling those claims. The pipeline hasn’t been built yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a journalist, Wake accompanied Berger and his team on that historic trip. She taped numerous interviews with the local people participating in the inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen years ago, I found those old tapes,\u201d she recalled. \u201cOnly audio tapes; it was so long ago. I thought it would be interesting to go back and talk to all of them again. And let their children and grandchildren listen to their elders\u2019 voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Linda MacCannell\u2019s photograph of Michael Jackson. (photo from Drew Ann Wake)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She invited a friend, photographer Linda MacCannell, to create portraits of some of the participants of the Mackenzie Valley negotiations. Over several years, they traveled to the villages Wake had visited with Berger. MacCannell took photos and Wake filmed her interviews. \u201cWe created a show of Linda\u2019s portraits and the stories I collected and went on the road. By now, we\u2019ve exhibited this show in 50 galleries across North America,\u201d said Wake.<\/p>\n

MacCannell\u2019s large-scale portraits of various members of the Dene First Nations, who live along the Mackenzie River, constitute the heart of the exhibit at the Zack.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago, we gave a presentation at the grunt gallery, an artist-run centre in Vancouver,\u201d Wake explained. \u201cWe showed the films. After the presentation, a man approached me. He introduced himself as Michael Shumiatcher, a local artist and educator. He said he knew Justice Berger at the time of the inquiry. Michael was a high school student then, and Berger was his best friend\u2019s father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shumiatcher suggested they work together and present the exhibit to schools around the province. Wake liked the idea, and invited him to join her on her next trip north. Also joining the summer 2018 trip were artist Melenie Fleischer and her husband, cellist Eric Wilson, as well as composer Daniel S\u00e9guin.<\/p>\n

\u201cDaniel saw the video I made of the drummers the previous year,\u201d Wake explained. \u201cHe wanted to write new music to incorporate the traditional drums.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group traveled to Fort Simpson, N.W.T., to study the drumming culture of the Dene in more depth.<\/p>\n

\u201cS\u00e9guin wrote a piece of music, called Dehcho, for cello and the drums,\u201d Wake said. \u201cThat is how the local nations call the Mackenzie River \u2013 Dehcho. Wilson performed it at the local gallery presentation of our show. The gallery was packed. People sat in the hall and stood on the stairs. He had to repeat his performance for all who wanted to hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, Fleischer and Shumiatcher produced several paintings.<\/p>\n

One of Fleischer\u2019s, a herd of bison, is suffused with wild, tumultuous energy. \u201cThey were huge,\u201d she said of the animals. \u201cThey looked up casually and continued grazing and drinking water in the shallow puddles. We were cautious and maybe even scared as we huddled close in the van to take our photographs. Thrilled at our first encounter with the ancestors of the ancient bison depicted on the cave walls of Altamira, Lascaux and others, I knew then that I was going to paint bison.\u201d<\/p>\n

A painting by Shumiatcher depicts Wilson blowing a shofar on the shore of the Mackenzie River. Fleischer and Wilson brought the shofar on the trip as a gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we got our invitation from Chief Gerry Antoine to come to Fort Simpson and collaborate with Liidlii Kue First Nation on our cultural exploration of music \u2013 cello and drums \u2013 we were very excited. We were in New York at the time, and I wanted to bring Chief Antoine something special,\u201d said Fleischer. \u201cAll I could think of was that our nation was thousands of years old, as were the indigenous people. With that in mind, we went looking for a ram\u2019s horn from Israel, a shofar.\u201d<\/p>\n

They visited several Judaica stores in New York. \u201cIt was funny,\u201d said Fleischer, \u201cmy husband Eric blowing shofars outside the stores, on the sidewalk. He is a cellist and very particular about sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next step for the group was to approach the Zack Gallery for a joint show. The Jewish artists\u2019 paintings complement MacCannell\u2019s photography, showing another facet of the northern experience. Just as power and serenity dominate the portraits and the photographer\u2019s triptych of the river landscape, the paintings add a touch of awe at nature and its symbiotic relationship with humankind.<\/p>\n

The Zack exhibit also includes traditional clothing made by several Dene artists. \u201cLast year, we won a grant from the Canada Council [for the Arts] to commission northern artists,\u201d Wake said. Of the pieces on display, each has a story. In some cases, the stories are real; they happened to the artists\u2019 family members. For others, the stories are purely imaginary or are based on local folklore. Regardless, every story has a link to the tapes Wake collected in the 1970s and the people she interviewed.<\/p>\n

Linda Wolki, known for her needlework, created a traditional yellow coat after she listened to the recording of her mother telling Wake how she hunted seals when she was young. \u201cThe woman\u2019s story was amazing,\u201d Wake said. \u201cShe was out hunting in the snow and cold, and four polar bears decided to chase her. She laughed.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pair of embroidered moccasins, made by Agnes Mitchell, is displayed in a plexiglass case next to the pair her father wore for years. The embroidery on the old moccasins \u2013 made by Mitchell\u2019s mother \u2013 and the new ones is equally elaborate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne story I asked an artist to illustrate was an ancient northern legend about an abandoned woman,\u201d Wake said. \u201cThe tribe abandoned that woman in the forest because of her sharp tongue. She only had a few coals for her fire, but she survived. She made herself two cloaks \u2013 one of raven feathers and another of rabbit fur \u2013 and many more objects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artist Jeneen Frei Njootli has brought the cloaks to life. Her creations, a black cloak of raven feathers and another of white rabbit fur, hang in a corner of the Zack, one above another, as a tribute to her people\u2019s tenacity and their drive to survive in the harshest conditions.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Raven cloak made by Jeneen Frei Njootli. (photo from Drew Ann Wake)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe were very proud to learn that recently Jeneen Frei Njootli was chosen as one of the five finalists for the Sobey Art Award, an annual prize given to the most promising Canadian artist under 40,\u201d said Wake, who then pointed to a blue coat on display. Smiling, she said, \u201cAnd that coat belongs to Michael Jackson. But not the Michael Jackson of pop music. Our own Michael Jackson, a Vancouver lawyer who, in the 1970s, was part of Justice Berger\u2019s team.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Wake started working on this show, one of the new interviews she conducted was with Jackson. \u201cHe worked with many First Nation people,\u201d she said, \u201cand I asked him how come he was so empathetic to their plight. He said it was because he was Jewish. When he grew up in London, England, he experienced antisemitism. He knew hunger as a child in post-World War Two Britain. It made him sensitive to others suffering from discrimination. Made him want to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Berger inquiry, Jackson befriended one of the local men, John T\u2019Seleie, who organized his community to meet with the inquiry\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir friendship has lasted for decades. They\u2019re still friends,\u201d Wake said. \u201cAs a child, T\u2019Seleie was a student at a residential school. Like many others at residential schools, he suffered. As an adult, he became an advocate for his people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The portraits of these two friends hang side by side on the gallery walls, and the film Wake made of her interviews with them is also part of the exhibit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how our entire show started, so many years ago,\u201d she said, \u201cwith those two and their friendship: a Jew and a Dene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crossed Paths is at the Zack until April 7.<\/p>\n

Olga Livshin<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda MacCannell\u2019s photograph of John T\u2019Seleie. (photo from Drew Ann Wake) The new show at the Zack Gallery, Crossed Paths \u2013 which explores the connection between the Jewish and the Dene peoples \u2013 has its roots in the federal Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. \u201cIn the 1970s, I was a CBC reporter in the Northwest Territories,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989],"tags":[8802,3956,8803,8801,2747,40],"class_list":["post-32133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-drew-ann-wake","tag-first-nations","tag-mackenzie-valley","tag-paintings","tag-photography","tag-zack-gallery"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}