Reona Brass: Glossolalia

I read once that barbed wire changed the history of North America. The lives of the First Nations were changed dramatically by fences containing sharp metal barbs that were meant to wound anyone or anything that dared to cross them. A mark of the lines drawn by the executors of the Dominion. A mark of the end of the nomadic way of life. Keeping cattle in, keeping the "noble savages" out.

"...surrendered lands" means a reserve or part of a reserve or any interest therein, the legal title to which remains vested in Her Majesty, that has been released or surrendered by the band for whose use and benefit it was set apart..."


"...surrendered lands" means a reserve or part of a reserve or any interest therein, the legal title to which remains vested in Her Majesty, that has been released or surrendered by the band for whose use and benefit it was set apart..."

As someone who grew up of the prairie, I am familiar with the gesture of searching for the loosest part of a fence, pulling apart the wires and stepping gingerly onto the other side. I wasn't worried about getting caught by the farmer, but I was worried about getting snagged by the wire. It would be painful and there was danger of being infected by the rusty barbs. (One of my friends had a nasty snowmobile accident when he collided with a barbed wire fence.) So when Reona Brass started to unroll a spool of silver barbed wire, I was relieved she was wearing thick leather work gloves. Standing at a music stand in a tailored brown business suit and matching shoes, she named the piece Glossolalia, Speaking in Tongues. Then she began to read selections from the Indian Act.

..."intoxicant" includes alcohol, alcoholic, spirituous, vinous, fermented malt or other intoxicating liquor or combination of liquors and mixed liquor a part of which is spirituous, vinous, fermented or otherwise intoxicating and all drinks, drinkable liquids, preparations or mixtures capable of human consumption that are intoxicating...

The words made me feel ashamed to be Canadian. They are injurious, repulsive, bathed in an acid bath of legal jargon. I was compelled to the Government of Canada website check if the artist had made the text up. She did not. The connection between the text and the image of the barbed wire was shocking.

"...mentally incompetent Indian" means an Indian who, pursuant to the laws of the province in which he resides, has been found to be mentally defective or incompetent for the purposes of any laws of that province providing for the administration of estates of mentally defective or incompetent persons..."

As she read the text her unwrapping action became more intense, she was wrangling physically with the wire and it began to snag on her business suit. She fought with the wire, taking its resistance on as a challenge and becoming more determined and frenzied in her struggle. Finally she stopped and took the time to catch her breath before she lowered herself into the wire, entangling herself in it and crawling through it towards the stage right podium. She stood up and read the words of the Navojo poet, Sherwin Bitsui:


What land have you cast from the blotted out region of your face?

What nation stung by watermarks was filmed out of extinction and brought forth
resembling frost?


Finally, Brass unhooked herself from the wire by shedding her suit to reveal the jeans and a blouse she wore underneath and she stepped free of the wire.


The artist doesn't speak her native Soto language, and performance allows her to escape the vicious traps laid by the words of the Indian Act and other words written in the same spirit. "Performance art is my language," Brass states. It allows her to be hopeful. She is also inspired by the words of her collaborator Navaho poet Sherwin Bitsui. "He thinks in Navajo," she says. It is wonderful to see a performance grounded in experience and intention. Brass has been working with barbed wire for four and a half years, she likes physical nature of it, but has grown wary of its ability to injure. For the past few years she has been teaching on her reservation, and she loves to see young people create pieces of performance art so that they can share in her power to create their own language.

Michael Fernandes: The Water Whisperer

This piece is called "Water is a Word," Michael Fernandes announces in a gentle, resonant voice. He is backlit by pin-holes of light leaking into the gallery through perforated boards in the gallery. "Water," he whispers as he looks into the eyes of each audience member in succession. He says "water" as a benediction, as a mantra, and a blessing. I begin to feel hypnotized by the use of repetition and the tone of his voice. The lights behind him have an other-worldly effect like the lights in a tunnel people describe after a near-death experience. The same word is repeated again and again. Then he looks into my eyes, saying the word again and starts to laugh harshly, jarring me awake from my state of relaxation, Then he gradually calms down and resumes repeated the word in a gentle voice and looking into our eyes until he finally leaves the room.

Everyone seems a bit surprised the piece had been so short (about 10 minutes), including the performer! I had also been looking forward to seeing the pinhole images described in the festival program. Fernandes decided that since his piece was so unexpectedly brief he would hold a question and answer session. He admits that he changed his performance after seeing the work of Reona Brass and Naufus Ramirez-Figeroa. He felt that the images and gestures he had planned to perform would have been too empty in comparison. I disagree. I think that he has a beautiful presence as a performer, and he could have filled his original piece with the content that a transparent soul expresses.


"I didn't know what I was going to do until five minutes before the piece," he said. This work was created out of a desire to pare down his performance to its barest elements to connect to the audience and refresh and ground his practice. Somehow the Q&A led to an discussion of a television show called "The Dog Whisperer." Suddenly Fernandes became very animated and showed us how he'd been coping with an aggressive dog by getting down on all fours and presenting the top of his head. He tells us about a pet psychic in England on television who makes parrots and pythons stand at attention. His friends tell him its all in the editing, but Michael wants to believe. I want to believe too, keeping my mind as open as as a starry Alberta sky where anything is possible. Perhaps that what the ephemeral nature of his piece is really about.

IdeaAssassins

IdeaAssassins Project: Courtney Lohnes and Kimberly McLeod
No. 66--In a Pool

It was ten o'clock at night and they had turned off the lights inside the room that housed the aging Scona indoor pool. We entered the back door and took off our shoes, enjoying the warmth of the floor on the bottoms of our feet. I was itching with curiosity to see the performers setting up to do their sound check, but we were told to stay away until they were ready. I loved the quality of light coming from the back of the screen in the distance projected onto the water. The quality of light reminded me of a Peter Greenaway movie. Some of the publicity for this piece had hinted that the crowd could enter the pool during the performance, so a couple of performance artists in the festival were really keen to join in. Naufus changed into his bathing trunks and did a little happy dance. There was much talk about whether or not we could swim and the rumor was that there was room for 13 people only because there was only one lifeguard on duty.


Once we were lead in we saw one performer laying face down in the water playing dead with a transparent breathing tube, and the other performer told us that we could choose to see the performance however we wanted, as long as we didn't block the video projector facing the screen hung above the water. Naufus slipped into the water and stayed there for the entire show. We were given permission to use a hand-held light so I pointed it at the performers when I wanted to take a photo. (Still, I apologize for my documentation--it was a very challenging lighting situation.) A projection of a nude man swimming on a beautiful pastoral outdoor pool played on the screen.

There was a looseness to the structure of this piece that was playful and nonsensical. The artists performed tongue-in-cheek baptisms on one another, they played with breathing into opposite ends of the transparent tube, and played an interactive game of matching a quote with a celebrity face. The quotes were written on papers that floated in the water on flutter boards and the faces looked like they'd been taped to flutter boards. Foam noodles and other pool toys floated in the water around the performers. A chaotic mish-mash of pop culture images from television edited with original images created by the artists played on the white screen; home-made DIY pop culture was mixed with snippets of found mainstream pop culture.

Volunteers were conscripted to join in the fun: Cindy Baker put on a white sandwich board which acted as a screen for a silent video of talking head shots. Three men volunteered to read the same short narrative about a personal experience in a swimming pool in Spain. The performers headed back to the ropes at the far end of the pool and used them to jump into the water while an audience member read a review of Water World, the notorious Kevin Costner movie flop. Arcane statistics were presented on a film that's apparently not really worth recommending.

Knowing that this particular pool is doomed to be shut down for good lends a melancholy tinge to this piece. However, the performers seemed to have a lot of fun. They each have a strong presence on the screen, as you can see in their Youtube videos. The anarchy of web surfing and channel surfing entered the performance paradigm. There is a work-in-progress interactive web component to the piece that contains Youtube videos with each of the artists reciting the same pool story from Spain. In No.66-- In a Pool the IdeaAssasins have created a collage of images that the viewer is left to sort and untangle or just let float and drift through one's mind like autumn detritus on a dark and murky pool.

What effect does a life mired in the banal trivia of pop television and pop web culture have on the evolution of identity and consciousness? That old gem the "opiate of the masses" comes to a cynical mind. Every time a new form of technology emerges, it is criticized for the negative effects it will have on corrupting the youth of its age. The positive features of current web culture include the ease at which the audience can also become a generator of culture on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Furthermore, virtual water coolers in the form of online forums make intelligent critique on the work possible among people a great geological distance apart. What could happen is a slow erosion of national identity itself, breaking down barriers between provinces and countries. What could happen is an erosion between mainstream and domestic culture. What could happen is an erosion between product--sponsored (Proctor and Gamble et al) culture and DIY "vanity" culture. The possibilities are intriguing and IdeaAssassins are part of the movement of young artists who will be exploring them.

The Twisted She Project Installation is Up!

Here is a sneak peek at the installation up right now for your viewing pleasure at the Latitude 53 gallery during viewing hours (10 am-6 pm) today and tomorrow. T.L. Cowan will be performing with her collaborators this Saturday at 8 pm. If you want to get a tasting sample of what you'll experience, come and have a listen to the soundscape, read the text and a look at some of the evocative imagery. The show is the culmination of many years of the artist's work, so it promises to be something very special.

Lunch at Leva, Sweets at Cibo

It's a gorgeous fall afternoon, warm and sunny with the leaves starting to turn from green to orange and yellow, so Edmonton performance artist Lance McLean and I headed over the bridge for lunch on the south side in the university district. Lance thought I might like Leva because they use fresh, local ingredients, and he was right. I had a delicious thin-crust pizza with porcini cream, Cambozola, mozzarella, potato, and mushrooms. We talked about life, the universe, and performance art while black and white magpies dove through the yellowing trees over head. I had a view of the the herb garden planted in the boulevard in front of the café where they grow the basil for their margherita pizzas.

Next, we headed to Cibo for dessert, which is right by the Garneau Theatre. I had read that they had hired a fancy French chef for the desserts, but they were decidedly Italian. I had the tiramisu and Lance had a nutty gelato. They were both good, but the dessert counter at Leva had looked a bit more interesting, just so ya know. I know there's a debate going on out there on which place has the best gelati. Get out there and enjoy the sunshine, Edmontonians! Tonight we party at the pool.

Technical Difficulties

Good morning folks, there is a glitch in the system that is not allowing my to upload photos, so in the meantime, check out the latest gossip collected last night as we dined at Hawali from the woman who dishes dirt with a giggle and a snort--Megan Morman. There might even be a story about you! No one is safe, I tell you. Her spies are everywhere.

From Sea to Bloody Sea

Canada, bracketed by two oceans… The maple leaf bracketed by two blood red stripes… Our national motto: From Sea to Sea… The Queen in England; the Queen with her blood red crown; her face and breasts as pale as a Canadian winter.
--Naufús Ramírez-Figueroa

It had just started to rain. The piper wore a striking kilt in the Anderson tartan which features a sky blue background. He played a traditional song called The Haunting and The Sky Boat Song in the parking lot while the Naufús Ramírez-Figueroa listened with his head slightly bowed. After a few minutes, the artist began to strip off his clothes and then cover his shoulders with a white sheet. We followed the piper and the performer in a procession up the stairs to the gallery where Ramirez-Figuera stood between two bowls. One was filled with a creamy white liquid, and one contained a thick red substance which I knew was pig's blood. (It's one of those props you have to order in advance, and so I overheard the staff having few conversations about the logistics of procuring it.) A grotesque rubber mask of the Queen Elizabeth II lay on the floor. Megan Morman handed out maple-leaf shaped cookies.




Ramirez Figueroa poured the white liquid onto the floor in a vertical line, then he donned the mask of the queen and confidently dove into the cream on his belly. He lay in one spot and rubbed the cream onto his breasts, breathing heavily into the rubber mask. At this point the white parts of the mask started to look like a skull. He stood and started a quasi-burlesque dance while the bagpiper played a version of Rod Stewart's hit song "If You Think I'm Sexy." Next the artist took the red bowl and poured it over the front of his body, so he became covered in layers of white and red--the colours of the Canadian flag. The odor of pig's blood overlaid with sickly sweet maple flavouring became overwhelming.


I have never seen the Queen in person but I have felt her stir under the bed covers… I’ve been to Buckingham and waited patiently outside its gates. I was a faithful subject. My blood red: like her royal red: like her red painted lips: like the maple left… I waited outside Buckingham but she never came out, never invited me for tea, never made me feel hers… England likes to eat, eat countries. Its eaten two male members of my family… The Queen has white milk in her breast, she is the mother to all Canadians… She has a comforting smile… One day, I’ll be happy when I can kiss her wrinkly hand.
--Naufús Ramírez-Figueroa

The artist filled the bowl again with blood and dipped one end of the sheet in it and then the other, leaving the center white. He hung the sheet from one end of the room to the other, stopping to get more rope when it turned out the end didn't quite reach. I assume he meant to dip the horizontal edges rather than the vertical edges, but the reference to the Canadian flag was still very clear. It could also have been read as a comment on how discussions on Canada evolve around north-south or east-west paradigms. Ramírez-Figueroa got down on his hands and knees, dipped his hair in a bowl of blood and began to use it to paint the white parts of the flag red. Finally, he threw the rest of the blood on the flag making it thickly soaked in blood and brilliantly scarlet. The piper played "Oh Canada" while Naufus put on the mask again and cut out the face so that his face showed through under the rubber crown--a grotesque form of royal drag.

The performance was focused, dramatic, funny, and shocking. I left feeling a bit dazed and nauseous afterwards, needing to distance myself from the scene. The bagpiper who had been hired for this gig looked a bit shell-shocked himself, so a few of us sat around the water cooler and processed how we felt about the piece. He was fairly new to this king of ritualistic performance art, and Cindy Baker widely advised him to "let the images hit you and decide what they mean to you." The artist's poetic text in the performance program illuminates the powerful imagery in his performance. "Sid Vicious would have loved it!" I told him as I talked about the history of anti-monarchy and anarchy in England itself. There were some tense moments when piper had had a few moments of doubt before the piece began. He wasn't sure if he was ready to participate in the ritual because he was trained to see the bagpipe as an honorific instrument used in patriotic ceremonies. I told him he'd been very brave to collaborate with an artist he hadn't met or rehearsed with before hand, (they'd had a telephone conversation). especially an artist who pushes the limits the way Naufus does. He's been warned about the unconventional nature of the piece and it had been described in detail over the phone. Megan Mormon later told me she thought he was unsettled when he realized the blood in the performance was real, not paint or stage blood.


As a Guatemalan refugee growing up in Vancouver, Naufus was taught to pay allegiance to our queen. However, recent events in parliament and a group of fellow immigrants made him question her authority. When Michaelle Jean held the destiny of Canada in her hands after Stephen Harper suspended parliament in December, 2008, the artist and his friends asked each other why the symbol of colonization still held so much power in a democratic country. Naufus began to feel torn about enjoying the high standard of living , the queen's milk, that a colonized first world country that has a bloody past and present.


The title of the piece, A Mari usque ad Mare ("From Sea to Sea"), is Canada's official motto. It originates from the Latin version of Psalm 72:8, "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." (King James version). It was not applicable until 1871 when BC joined Confederation and the Dominion of Canada reached from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. Some say the motto should be changed to reflect the third sea that boarders our country in the North, the Arctic Ocean, especially now that climate change has been affected that part of our country so dramatically and Stephen Harper has been raising issues of Arctic Sovereignty. Other people say the paternalistic motto should be scrapped altogether. Naufus pointed out to me that one point "from sea to sea" was visually depicted graphically on a suggested design for the Canadian flag which has become known as "Pearson's Pennant." It had a central image of three maple leaves and two rectangles of sea blue on the edges instead of blood red.