Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts

Media Release | September 28, 2021 | Banff, AB

Curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson
Tour Organized by Independent Curators International (ICI)

On view at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, AB.

The Gallery is open in line with Banff Centre’s COVID19 measures. Click here for more details.

September 10 - December 5, 2021

Curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson, Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts features newly commissioned scores, performances, videos, sculptures and sound by Indigenous and other artists who respond to the question of “How can a score be a call and tool for decolonization?”.  Unfolding in a sequence of five parts, the scores take the form of beadwork, videos, objects, graphic notation, historical belongings, and written instructions. During the exhibition, these scores are activated at specific moments by musicians, dancers, performers and members of the public gradually filling the gallery and surrounding public spaces with sound and action.

The exhibition is cumulative, limning an ever-changing community of artworks, shared experience and engagement as it travels. Soundings shifts and evolves, gaining new artists and players in each location. Some artworks have multiple parts, others change to their own rhythm as the exhibition grows.

At the core of the exhibition is a grounding in concepts of Indigenous land and territory. To move beyond the mere acknowledgement of land and territory here means offering instructions for sensing and listening to Indigenous histories that trouble the colonial imaginary. Soundings activates and asserts Indigenous resurgence through the actions these artworks call forth.

Artists

This iteration of the exhibition includes works by Raven Chacon and Cristóbal Martínez, Sebastian De Line, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Maggie Groat, Kite, Germaine Koh, Aaron Leon, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Ogimaa Mikana, Chandra Melting Tallow, Peter Morin, Diamond Point and Jordan Point, Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk, Greg Staats, Olivia Whetung, Tania Willard and T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley with more performers, artists and composers invited to respond and create new works as the exhibition travels to each new venue.

The exhibition tour has been organized by Independent Curators International (ICI).

Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts is an exhibition curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson, and organized by Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Canada. The traveling exhibition is organized by Independent Curators International (ICI). The exhibition and tour are made possible, in part, with the generous support from ICI’s International Forum and the ICI Board of Trustees. Additional support has been provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter Program, the Isabel and Alfred Bader Fund of Bader Philanthropies, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Kingston Arts Fund through the Kingston Arts Council, and the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund at Queen’s University. The presentation at Walter Phillips Gallery has been organized in collaboration with Jacqueline Bell, Reneltta Arluk and Janine Windolph. The presentation of this exhibition at Walter Phillips Gallery is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program.

About the Curators

Candice Hopkins is a curator and writer of Tlingit descent originally from Whitehorse, Yukon. She is Senior Curator of the Toronto Biennial of Art and co-curator of the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada. She was a part of the curatorial team for documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany and a co-curator of the major exhibitions Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, and the 2014 SITElines biennial, Unsettled Landscapes in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing is published widely and her recent essays and presentations include “Outlawed Social Life” for South as a State of Mind and Sounding the Margins: A Choir of Minor Voices at Small Projects, Tromsø, Norway. She has lectures internationally including at the Witte de With, Tate Modern, Dak’Art Biennale, Artists Space, Tate Britain and the University of British Columbia. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art and the 2016 the Prix pour un essai critique sur l’art contemporain by the Foundation Prince Pierre de Monaco. She is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation.

Dylan Robinson is a xwélméxw artist and writer of Stó:lō descent, and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen’s University. His current work focuses on the return of Indigenous songs to communities who were prohibited by law to sing them as part of the Indian Act from 1882‒1951. Robinson’s previous publications include the edited volumes Music and Modernity Among Indigenous Peoples of North America (2018); Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2016) and Opera Indigene (2011). His monograph, Hungry Listening, is forthcoming in early 2020 with Minnesota University Press.

About ICI

Independent Curators International (ICI) produces exhibitions, events, publications, research and training opportunities for curators and diverse audiences around the world. Established in 1975 and headquartered in New York, ICI is a hub that connects emerging and established curators, artists, and art spaces, forging international networks and generating new forms of collaborations. ICI provides access to the people and practices that are key to current developments in the field, inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art.

About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Founded in 1933, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is a learning organization built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and creative development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become the global organization leading in arts, culture, and creativity across dozens of disciplines. From our home on Treaty 7 territory in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to inspire everyone who attends our campus – artists, leaders, and thinkers – to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to society through cross-disciplinary learning opportunities, world-class performances, and public outreach.

Website

http://curatorsintl.org/exhibitions/soundings
https://www.banffcentre.ca/walter-phillips-gallery

Events

Virtual Exhibition Tour: September 23, 2021
In-Person Exhibition Tours: October 6, November 12, and December 1, 2021

Press Contact, ICI

Madeline Yee
madeline@curatorsintl.org
401 Broadway, suite 1620
New York, NY 10013
212.254.8200

We acknowledge, with deep respect and gratitude, our home on the side of Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain, in the beautiful and special territory of Treaty 7. We recognize the past, present, and future generations of Stoney Nakoda, Blackfoot, Tsuut'ina Nations, and Métis from Region 3, who help us steward this land, as well as honour and celebrate this place.

About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Founded in 1933, Banff Centre is a learning organization built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and creative development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become the global organization leading in arts, culture, and creativity across dozens of disciplines. From our home in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to inspire everyone who attends our campus - artists, leaders, and thinkers - to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to society through cross-disciplinary learning opportunities, world-class performances, and public outreach.