Dana Claxton | |
---|---|
Born | 1959 (age 64–65) Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada |
Nationality | Hunkpapa Lakota |
Known for | Film, performance, and photography |
Website | danaclaxton |
Dana Claxton (born 1959) [1] is a Hunkpapa Lakota filmmaker, photographer, and performance artist. Her work looks at stereotypes, historical context, and gender studies of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, specifically those of the First Nations. In 2007, she was awarded an Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art.
Claxton's family are descendants of Sitting Bull's followers who escaped persecution by the U.S. Army in 1876 after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, heading to Canada. [2] Growing up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, she is the youngest of four siblings. Her family's reserve, Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation, [3] is located in Southwest Saskatchewan. [2] [3] [4]
Claxton co-founded the Indigenous Media Arts Group and has taught at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. In 2003 she served as the Global Television Chair at the University of Regina where she taught at the school of journalism. [5] In 2010 she served as Simon Fraser University's Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair in Women's Studies. [6]
She has worked closely with numerous Canadian and First Nations organizations, such as the National Film Board of Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, among others. She served as director and producer for 52 episodes of the Canadian program Wakanheja , a First Nations oriented children's program and 26 episodes of ArtZone, an art show for teenagers. She also served as producer and a storyteller for First Stories-VTV , a program about the Aboriginal population of Vancouver. [7]
When not creating art, Claxton serves on panel discussions, as an art juror, curator, as well as a mentor for young and emerging artists. Claxton lives in Vancouver, British Columbia and is a faculty member at the University of British Columbia. [3] [4] [8] She previously studied acting at HB Studio [9] in New York City. She received a Masters Degree in Liberal Studies in 2007 from Simon Fraser University [10] where she was made Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair in 2009-2010. [11]
I'm influenced by my own experience as a Lakota woman, as a Canadian, a mixed blood Canadian, and then my own relationship to the natural and supernatural world. So taking that whole bundle of experiences, it all goes in to the artwork, I think that's where the multi-layering comes in because I've had a very multi-layered life. And it's all those experiences that go in to the work. – Dana Claxton, 2007 [12]
Claxton combines her own world-view with Indigenous issues from the past and present. She investigates concerns about colonization, body imagery, beauty, politics, spirituality and the iconography of Native peoples and how it is placed in popular culture. Through video, photography and conceptual projects Claxton strives to blend traditional experiences and environments within contemporary spaces [4] [12]
Claxton's video creations started in the early 1990s. Experimenting with video in works such as Grant Her Restitution (1991) and I Want To Know Why (1994) where she explores the effects of colonialism on Canadian women. Evolving her artistic goals further, starting in 1996 with The Red Paper, Claxton proceeded to attempt to "bring spirit into the gallery space". Through the blending of the sacred and secular she incorporates traditional objects and symbols of Lakota spirituality in contemporary spaces and environs. [13]
Her numerous video projects have been shown in more than 15 countries. [7]
In the series On to the Red Road (2006), Claxton brings together five photographs to take a look on femininity and clothing. Through the series Claxton is showing a model wearing traditional regalia slowly removing articles of clothing to reveal a sexy outfit, bringing questions of sexuality and gender bias to light. [13]
Paint Up (2009) features portraits of Joseph Paul, a ceremonial Salish Black Face dancer and Pow-wow dancer living on the Musqueam Indian Reserve. Up close, large scale color portraits of Paul with his face painted, these works have been described as "imposing images, striking and cool, throw down a challenge to the sterile, nonspiritual, materialistic view of contemporary life." [13]
Newer works such as the Mustang Suite take a vivid look at the meanings and stereotypes behind Indianess, specifically Black Elk's vision of the Horse Dance. A group of large C-prints, the mustang represents freedom and mobility, and is not necessarily displayed as a horse. Daddy's Gotta New Ride shows an Indigenous man in a black suit with face paint and braided hair, standing next to a red Ford Mustang. Baby Girls Gotta Mustang features twin girls in red dresses and mukluks on bicycles. Another in the series, Mama Has a Pony Girl…Named History and Sets Her Free, shows a medicine woman with her arms outstretched and a Caucasian woman danced like a burlesque pony girl. The image is meant to support Aboriginal women who wish to release themselves from the binds of history, specifically one filled with sexualized stereotypes. Other images in the series are large scale reflections on the Indigenous community in a contemporary world. [14]
Claxton has also focused on the American Indian Movement which features blown up black-and-white photos of declassified government documents about the at times controversial civil rights organization. The documents were collected when Claxton lived in New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s, from the New York Public Library. The reporting documents have many blacked out words, notorious of other government documents from the FBI and related organizations. [14]
Claxton's photography has been featured in the book #NotYourPrincess Voices of Native American Women (2017), which was edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale. Included in her art piece Onto the Red Road, Claxton states that "[it] is about transformation, spirituality, and objectification of Indigenous [women]." When asked "what it means to be an NDN woman," Claxton cites "care for your family and community with generosity, courage, wisdom, and fortitude."
In Buffalo Bone China Claxton blends performance art, found objects and video to dissect the effects upon First Nations peoples due to policies from colonial Great Britain regarding the American bison. Bison were slaughtered and their bones crushed and exported to England to make bone china.
In the performance Claxton smashes pieces of china and makes four bundles, placing the bundles in a sacred circle while a video of buffalo plays in the background. "Feeling the loss of the buffalo, the backbone of Plains spirituality and sustenance, the artist uses a rubber mallet to destroy plates and bowls. The breaking of the china refers to the use of buffalo bones in the making of bone china during the period of exploitation and decimation of the buffalo." [15] Claxton only smashed British bone China. [16]
Buffalo Bone China was exhibited at the MacKenzie Art Gallery [17] in Canada from 23 May 2009 to 13 September 2009, as well as the Vancouver Art Gallery [18] from 27 October 2018 to 3 February 2019.
Created in 2003 and displayed at the 17th Biennale of Sydney, Sitting Bull and the Moose Jaw Sioux brings together landscape scenery, interviews and images to examine the founding of the Moose Jaw camp, the camp founded by Sitting Bull after exodus out of the United States after the Battle of Little Bighorn. The piece, originally commissioned by the Moose Jaw Art Gallery, features four video screens, archival images and interviews from the camps original inhabitants, as well as footage of the site. [13]
In 2019, the Hnatyshyn Foundation awarded Claxton their prize for outstanding achievement by a mid-career Canadian artist. [19] In 2019 Claxton received the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in the category of Arts, Culture and Design. Claxton won the 2020 Governor General's Award for Artistic Achievement in the Visual Arts Category. [20]
Moose Jaw is the fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. Lying on the Moose Jaw River in the south-central part of the province, it is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, 77 km (48 mi) west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Moose Jaw No. 161.
The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is an art museum in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The Eiteljorg houses an extensive collection of visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as Western American paintings and sculptures collected by businessman and philanthropist Harrison Eiteljorg (1903–1997). The museum houses one of the finest collections of Native contemporary art in the world.
Kelly Richardson is a Canadian artist working with digital technologies to create hyper-real landscapes. She is currently a professor at the Department of Visual Arts of the University of Victoria.
Rebecca Belmore is a Canadian interdisciplinary Anishinaabekwe artist who is notable for politically conscious and socially aware performance and installation work. She is Ojibwe and a member of Obishikokaang. Belmore currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The gallery is housed in a building designed by architect Peter Cardew which opened in 1995. Cardew received a RAIC gold medal for the building's design in 2012. It houses UBC's growing collection of contemporary art as well as archives containing objects and records related to the history of art in Vancouver.
The grunt gallery is a Canadian artist-run centre, founded in 1984 and located in Vancouver, British Columbia. They show work by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists.
Nadia Myre is a contemporary visual artist from Quebec and an Algonquin member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinaabeg First Nation, who lives and works in Montreal. For over a decade, her multi-disciplinary practice has been inspired by participant involvement as well as recurring themes of identity, language, longing and loss. Of the artist, Canadian Art Magazine writes, "Nadia Myre’s work weaves together complex histories of Aboriginal identity, nationhood, memory and handicraft, using beadwork techniques to craft exquisite and laborious works."
Sybil Henley Jacobson, was a Canadian painter. Her oil and watercolor paintings of prairie landscapes, portraits, and still life are in a traditional style. Her work is largely found in private collections, but is also found the major collections at Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Moose Jaw Art Museum and National Exhibition Centre, and Nutana Collegiate. In 1929 she was one of ten founding members of the Women's Art Association of Saskatchewan.
Skawennati is a First Nations (Kahnawakeronon) multimedia artist, best known for her online works as well as Machinima that explore contemporary Indigenous cultures, and what Indigenous life might look like in futures inspired by science fiction. She served as the 2019 Indigenous Knowledge Holder at McGill University. In 2011, she was awarded an Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship which recognized her as one of "the best and most relevant native artists."
Lani Maestro is a Filipino-Canadian artist who divides her time between France and Canada. She works in installation, sound, video, bookworks and writing. Her works deal with investigations of memory, forgetting, language, silence, and the ethics of care. From 1990 to 1994 Maestro was co-founder and editor of HARBOUR Magazine of Art and Everyday Life, a journal of artworks and writings by artists, writers and theorists.
Ellen Vaughan Kirk Grayson was a Canadian artist and educator. She was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan but her time spent hiking in the Canadian Rockies and the Okanagan Valley has shaped her artistic style.
The Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards, the Award for Outstanding Achievement as an Artist and the Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art are two annual arts awards of $25,000 and $10,000 that recognize mid-career Canadian visual artists and curators. The Hnatyshyn Foundation is a private charity established by Ray Hnatyshyn, Canada’s 24th Governor General.
Honor Elizabeth Kever is a Canadian artist.
Barbara Barber FRSA (1873–1966) was a Canadian artist. Barber, along with Sybil Henley Jacobson and Harriette Keating was one of two of the founding members of the Women's Art Association of Saskatchewan. Barber moved to Regina with her husband in 1912. She trained in Toronto and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Judy Anderson is a Nêhiyaw Cree artist from the Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, which is a Treaty 4 territory. Anderson is currently an Associate Professor of Canadian Indigenous Studio Art in the Department of Arts at the University of Calgary. Her artwork focuses on issues of spirituality, colonialism, family, and Indigeneity and she uses in her practice hand-made paper, beadwork, painting, and does collaborative projects, such as the ongoing collaboration with her son Cruz, where the pair combine traditional Indigenous methodologies and graffiti. Anderson has also been researching traditional European methods and materials of painting.
The Audain Prize for the Visual Arts is an annual award that recognizes a distinguished Canadian artist. Worth $100,000, it is one of Canada's most significant honours for the arts. The prize is supported by the Audain Foundation and presented by the Audain Art Museum.
Skeena Reece is a Canadian First Nations artist whose multi-disciplinary practice includes such genres as performance art, "sacred clowning," songwriting, and video art. Reece is of Cree, Tsimshian, Gitksan, and Métis descent.
Zainub Verjee CM, is a Kenya-born Canadian video artist, curator, writer, arts administrator and public intellectual. She began her career in the Vancouver arts community of the 1970s, which was steeped in interdisciplinary, intermedia, and intercultural practices. Having made her mark as an emerging artist, she shifted the emphasis of her work to curatorial, administrative and policy arenas. Applying the insight, creativity and criticality of an artist, she has brought “institutional critique” into the workings of the institution itself. Deeply engaged with the UK’s British Black Arts, Tactical Video Movement, Third Cinema and the post-Bandung Conference decolonization, Verjee has been embedded in the history of women’s labour in British Columbia. In February 2020 she was awarded the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for “outstanding contribution to the arts”. In 2021 she was conferred an honorary doctorate by the OCAD University recognizing her outstanding contribution to arts, racial and gender equity She was elected as a Senior Fellow of the Massey College at University of Toronto in the fall of 2021. Earlier she was appointed as McLaughlin College Fellow at the York University. In 2022 she was conferred Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, by Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, Halifax She was the recipient of the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts given by Simon Fraser University, Burnaby in the Spring Convocation of 2023. Her contribution to the pioneering prison theatre program in Canada and for integral role in the formation of the British Columbia Arts Council was recognized by University of Victoria by conferring her with an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts in Spring Convocation in 2023.
Andrea Fatona is a Canadian independent curator and scholar. She is an associate professor at OCAD University, where her areas of expertise includes black, contemporary art and curatorial studies.
Cleo Reece is a Cree Métis Red Power movement activist, environmental activist, and filmmaker. She is currently a band councilor for Fort McMurray #468 First Nation.