Reflections of neon Beothuk pendants, electric colours, and textures coalesce into the dark, marbled concrete floor of Eastern Edge Gallery. The energy of the artwork in My Cousin’s Cousin cannot be contained to just the walls of the gallery—it activates all surfaces. This exhibition highlighting the interrelatedness between all beings was created as part of the programming for Spirit Song Festival, a celebration of Indigenous Arts and Culture held annually in St. John’s, Ktaqmkuk. Through the transmission of intergenerational knowledge and reciprocity in their kinship systems, Amy Malbeuf, Jerry Evans, Jordan Bennett, and Meagan Musseau call attention to the importance of nourishing our relationships with the land, water, and animal relatives that sustain us. 

The radiating sculptures of Beothuk pendants, collectively named Re/awakening by L’nu artist Meagan Musseau, are part of her latest solo exhibition, pi’tawkewaq | our people up river. Each of these pendants is created from laser cut plexiglass, which is the same material used to encase dispossessed cultural belongings within museums and archives. The engraved designs reference drawings made by Musseau from her visits with the Beothuk belongings and caribou bone pendants held in the vault at The Rooms. In replicating and enlarging the markings by ancestor artists, Musseau transmits the intimate experiences of visiting these belongings and their embedded histories of these lands and waters, while refuting colonial narratives of erasure. 

On the opposite side of the gallery is Métis artist Amy Malbeuf’s triptych of animal kin, Woodland Caribou, Whooping Crane, and Arctic Grayling. Each image is a constellation of caribou hair tufts exploding like fireworks across the black velvet prairies. Specifically, the appliquéd strips of tarp stitched beneath each animal represent aerial views of pipelines in Northern Alberta that threaten their habitats and lifeways. By using caribou hair as a material, she honours that relationship to create the portrait. In these works, Malbeuf calls attention to the extractive and colonial environmental practices that harm her homelands, and the effects they have on these animal relatives who sustain her community, and who are integral beings of Métis kinship structures. 

Jordan Bennett, Malbeuf’s partner in life and art, was the Visual Artist-in-Residence for the duration of Spirit Song Festival. In this residency, in the days leading up to the exhibition opening, Bennett created three paintings that would become part of My Cousin’s Cousin, each one intentionally responding to lithographs made by Jerry Evans. For instance, Evan’s lithograph Mimajuaqne’kati – Place of Life depicts swirling migrations of caribou, salmon, and seal; each of these beings are sustenance and animal kin from Ktaqmkuk. Bennett drew inspiration from these cyclical movements in the creation of the painting Mechanical Medicine Wheel.

Two days before the opening, Bennett gave an artist talk to speak about his residency, and where the influences in his art practice come from. He spoke of how he was always inspired by the land and waters of Ktaqmkuk, our visual culture, and ancient histories as Mi’kmaq. Most affectingly, he also expressed the significance of Evans’ encouragement and support when he was starting as a young artist, and their reciprocal relationship in sharing their practices with each other.

It would be impossible to write about this exhibition without acknowledging how deeply important Jerry Evans is as a cultural innovator, storyteller, and community member in Ktaqmkuk and beyond. Last year, Evans was the recipient of the 2019 VANL-CARFAC Endurance Award, an accolade given to an artist in honour of their sustained and consistent dedication to their professional practice. Over decades of commitment to honouring his Mi’kmaq ancestry as a Master Printmaker, painter, filmmaker, and tattoo practitioner, Evans has also prioritized knowledge-sharing and supporting future generations of L’nu artists. Bennett described the work of Evans as “living and breathing…reaching backwards and projecting us forward.”

This gathering of works makes me think about how there is a continuum of transmitted intergenerational knowledge inherent in these artistic and cultural practices. With love, kinship, and reciprocity in the relationships between family members, My Cousin’s Cousin emphasizes our responsibilities towards each other and our territories that hold us close.

When you first walk into the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s exhibition space holding Ketu’elmita’jik, created by Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) artist Jordan Bennett, the colours and designs flood your senses. They enter you like some otherworldly creation that has seeped into your brain and started playing music you can’t quite hear.

This site-specific work fills the entire gallery. On one wall the painting extends past the usual ten-foot tall barriers and into the space of the gallery above. Ketu’elmita’jik, a Mi’kmaq word meaning they want to go home, incorporates 18th, 19th, and 20th century Mi’kmaq quillwork borrowed from museums across this land that is commonly called Canada. The intricate brightly coloured quillwork is carefully displayed on the wall in custom Plexiglas frames and cases created specifically for their current inhabitants. The designs and motifs painted directly on the walls echo those of the quillwork.

In the gallery space there are no labels, dates, material lists, or institutional ownership affiliation displayed on the wall— this space functions as one cohesive piece. The exhibition holds a cyclical sense of space and time, one that reflects Indigenous worldviews. By continuing the designs of these quillwork pieces Bennett is adding and continuing the knowledge these designs hold, encouraging the next generation to see them, to hear them, to feel their ancestors.

These works were made in community by many women’s hands[1], they are a collective collaborative piece, and made with the specific intention of trading. These are artworks; they are not utilitarian objects, they were traded to sustain the community’s livelihood. They were made in surroundings of laughter, story, food, sharing, language, and love.
It is worth pointing out that Indigenous products—trade items, handmade goods, and art works—are made to sustain, celebrate, continue, and pass on our way of life, our culture, our community livelihood. Hunting, gathering, storytelling, and making are all interconnected—they also allow us to practice our ways of life as well as participate in local and
global economies.

Bennett’s continuation of the quillwork in paint depicts his ability to listen and draw from his ancestors and the makers of these art forms; making becomes a prayerful act, one of honour, listening, and continuing. An act to reconnect and heal from colonial trauma. Not simply by displaying the work, but by adding to it, by continuing the conversation past the barriers of the piece he is honouring his ancestors. This action illustrates the breath of life in the quillwork that still exists, which requires its’ ancestors in the present to interact with it; much like Coast Salish masks they need human contact. It is so important for us, as Indigenous peoples, to see and interact with the work of our ancestors because it is in our blood memory, and our ability to read the designs and speak the visual language, even if we have not found our oral one yet.

The quill pieces hold Bennett’s ancestors—they directly draw a line from them to him and future generations. He understands the continual thread that is being pulled through time. We recognize that when we use these designs they are not ours, they are our communities’ and we are adding to the existing narratives.

A good friend said to me once, “as an artist, especially as an Indigenous artist, you have to understand that whatever you make now, you are adding to a history, you are continuing a story, and however you tell it, that version will always exist, thus influencing future generations”. The weight of this statement is heavy, but it should be. Indigenous artists are not just creating: we are continuing, we are surviving, and we are reconnecting. Bennett’s understanding of that weight is evident in his growing body of work.

Most recently, I saw Bennett at the unveiling of Pjila’si at Zatzman Sportsplex, another site-specific installation using Mi’kmaq and Beothuk designs. This permanent installation celebrates Indigenous contributions to sports and recreation in Mi’kma’ki. The piece utilizes various materials: aluminum, oak, walnut, ash and maple wood, 3M road sign sheeting and locally sourced labradorite. The 3M road sign sheeting almost shouts at the viewer, “Look over here!”. While the local materials such as the wood and stone softly suggests: “We have always been here.” At the opening, Stoney Bear Singers began with a powerful drumming performance and finished with the honour song.

“It was important for it (the honour song) to be sung in the space so the ancestors feel welcome,” says Bennett.

Indigenous art is not just art, it is our being and ancestors pushing through our bodies, through our fingertips, it is blood memory in physical form. Many Indigenous languages don’t even have a word for art, as it is embedded in our way of life.

Bennett has created a space that celebrates Indigenous ways of being and knowing within the walls of an institution that was not made for us. His ability to include and continue his ancestors designs is inspiring and will continue to inspire future generations.

[1] Handwork such as quillwork is typically done by women but if a person who identifies as a man or non-binary showed interest the community would make space for that person.