Jordan Bennett鈥檚 exhibit at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum鈥檚 (EAGM) gallery No. 1 conveys the stories and the symbols associated with his people.
An opening reception for Bennett鈥檚 work was held on Jan. 26 at the EAGM. He discussed his work and answered questions for the audience.
It will remain at the EAGM until early April.
Bennett, who is a visual artist of Mi'kmaq decent and a resident of the west coast of Newfoundland, said the show is based on observations of Mi鈥檏maq and Beothuk people and their visual cultures.
鈥淎 lot of these works are based on our traditional porcupine quill designs, so a lot of people come into the galleries when they have these shows, and they look at it, and they see the connections of the Indigenous influence, but also ask about the bright colours,鈥� said Bennett.
These colours are traditional for the Mi鈥檏maq. Dating back 200 or 300 years, they used a lot of hot pink, bright orange and red.
Stories of the Mi鈥檏maq people are starting to surface now, he said, and the Wije鈥橶i (Come with Me) shares some of those stories.
鈥淭hese stories were never actually passed on through written material, but through visual material,鈥� said Bennett. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of text written about the Beothuk and the Mi鈥檏maq, from Jesuit priests from as early as 1499 and 1501, and a lot of these texts are very one-sided. So what I wanted to do was put those texts to the side.鈥�
Bennett spent countless hours in museums and archives studying the work of the Beothuk and Mi鈥檏maq, to figure out the colour scheme and the connections with the artwork.
鈥淎nd then I started to discover that the Mi鈥檏maq and Beothuk designs were very similar, so I started to overlap them and connect them, and make them converse with one another in different ways,鈥� said Bennett.
Bennett started working on the exhibit while working on his master鈥檚 thesis in B.C. He connected with the late Daphne Odjig, who was 95 years old at the time and still completing a couple of drawings a day.
鈥淚 looked at her drawings, and I said 鈥業f you can do two a day, I can do one a week,鈥欌�� said Bennett.
Two exhibits in the south corner of Gallery No. 1 have an audio component. If people spend enough time in front of the selections, they will start to hear sounds.
鈥淭he further you are from the piece, it sounds like kind of a static,鈥� said Bennett. 鈥淭he closer you get, it turns into a more audible and recognizable sound.鈥�
There are also works that pay tribute to trees.
鈥淵ou can tell so much about the rings of a tree, how old it is, if it was involved in any type of forest fire, if there was a bug, all these different seasons, how long the seasons were sometimes, so I started to think what kind of information could be stored in these pieces,鈥� said Bennett.
At that point, Bennett and a friend realized many of the trees they saw in B.C. are much older than Canada.
All of the selections in the exhibit serve as stories of home, he said, and elements that are important about their culture.聽
