New Acquisitions: A Focus On Indigenous Women

New Acquisitions: A Focus On Indigenous Women BY ERIN JOYCE | FINE ARTS CURATOR

Three works recently exhibited in Larger Than Memory: Contemporary Art From Indigenous North America have been added to the Heard Museum’s permanent collection. The works by Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Meryl McMaster (Plains Cree) and Tanya Lukin Linklater (Alutiiq) represent Indigenous women’s creativity, diversity and resilience, and reflect the critical conversations raised in the exhibition and the accompanying publication.

Through the generosity of Karen Truax, in memory of her parents, Dr. Maurice L. Sievers and Bud Sievers, the Museum added Romero’s Indian Canyon to the collection. Originally commissioned as monumental billboards for the Desert X art installation in the Coachella Valley in 2018, the work is part of the artist’s larger photographic series Jackrabbit, Cottontail & Spirits of the Desert. The series features four figures which the artist describes as “time-traveling visitors from Chemehuevi.” These four children represent warriors of memory, fighting to remind us of the importance of connecting with the land and acknowledging the original inhabitants of that portion of the Californian desert: the Chemehuevi, Cahuilla, Mojave and Serrano peoples. Indian Canyon features a small boy sitting atop a boulder in the Mojave Desert—wearing regalia while looking out at the viewer wearing regalia. By placing this boy as the central figure in the vast expanse of the Coachella Valley, Romero negates collective forgetfulness of Indigenous lands and alerts the viewer to the continued presence of California tribes. Indian Canyon, and the larger series of photographs, is about creating visibility for Indigenous peoples globally, and also specifically in the artist’s home territory in

and around the Chemehuevi reservation in Southern California.

Another photograph we added to the permanent collection is What Will I Say to the Earth and Sky, II (2019) by nehiyaw (Plains Cree) artist Meryl McMaster.

McMaster’s conceptual photographs represent movement, space and the natural world, and they often reference the artist’s multifaceted heritage as a person of nehiyaw, British and Dutch descent. In this work, the artist is pictured in a glacial landscape with a brilliant shock of blue sky behind her. She wears a floor-length gown which almost disappears against the white backdrop of the snow except for the red mayflies that cover it. The costumes McMaster constructs and wears are armor-like; they often feature insects and animals that are able to fly, such as mayflies, butterflies, ravens and bumblebees. The significance of flying beings is that these creatures are able to move and travel freely, unhampered by borders or nations. McMaster’s photograph obliquely discusses Indigenous sovereignty—a free movement of Indigenous peoples unhindered by

colonial borders.

The final work we added to the collection in 2020 was the single-channel video Slay All Day, (2015), by Alutiq artist Tanya Lukin Linklater. The work features Toronto-based dancer Ceinwen Gobert in a split-screen format, with Gobert playing the role of both light and dark. Lukin Linklater engages with the notion of positive/negative in relationship to balance in the film—collaborating on the choreography with Gobert as well as directing the work as a whole. Lukin Linklater drew inspiration from Robert Flaherty’s 1922 film Nanook of the North, making note of the ways in which it represented Indigenous peoples. The film was made as a documentary, but it was actually Flaherty’s constructed version of Indigenous identity to depict the past. The video (running time 4:16) features no sound, referencing the silent nature of the 1922 film. Gobert references Inuit athletics and culturally specific movements as she progresses through the enclosed room. Her limitations within the space represent the inability of Indigenous women to move freely throughout the world, both physically and intellectually. Just as Gobert is trapped inside the closed room, Indigenous women are often trapped inside a fixed or fetishized perception of their identity and bodies.

These works are significant contributions to global contemporary art and are important additions to our permanent holdings—creating depth to our contemporary collection and continuing the Museum’s legacy of making space for and championing the artwork of Indigenous women.

Meryl McMaster (nehiyaw [Plains Cree]/English/Scottish/Dutch, b. 1988), What Will I Say to the Sky and the Earth II, 2019. Chromogenic print mounted to aluminum composite panel, 40 x 60 inches, edition 1/5. Heard Museum Collection, Gift of Kathleen L. and William G. Howard.