Photos by Rita Leistner
Wandered through a powerful exhibition at the Bargehouse at Oxo Tower Wharf on the Southbank earlier this month. EcoCentrix: Indigenous Arts, Sustainable Acts included the work of more than 40 artists from the Americas, Australia, the Pacific and South Africa. Installed over four floors of the incredible space – which felt a lot like a loft complex one might find in DUMBO, Brooklyn - the exhibit housed a truly breathtaking range of photographs, digital media, sounds, texts and crafted objects. Much of it was interactive, and included an array of live performances and workshops that I was disappointed to have missed (I stumbled upon EcoCentrix on its last day).
What has haunted me since was a devastating installation on the top floor: The REDress Project, created by Winnipeg-based Métis artist Jaime Black. Red dresses were suspended throughout the dark, cavernous space – the effect was chilling and rather terrifying – the room felt filled with ghosts. Black conceived the piece in honour of the more than six hundred Aboriginal women reported missing or murdered in Canada. As much as I was spooked and uncomfortable in the space, the tragedy of these women was overwhelming such that I also wanted to stay with them a bit.
What has haunted me since was a devastating installation on the top floor: The REDress Project, created by Winnipeg-based Métis artist Jaime Black. Red dresses were suspended throughout the dark, cavernous space – the effect was chilling and rather terrifying – the room felt filled with ghosts. Black conceived the piece in honour of the more than six hundred Aboriginal women reported missing or murdered in Canada. As much as I was spooked and uncomfortable in the space, the tragedy of these women was overwhelming such that I also wanted to stay with them a bit.
Less disturbing but equally resonant exhibits included Irma Poma Canchumani’s astonishing gourds, upon which she carves the storyboards for the films she then goes on to produce.
And these gorgeous kites from Guatemala - gigantic bamboo and paper creations made to be flown on the Days of the Dead, in which ancestors are allowed to revisit the world of the living.
I also loved this room, which gives a good sense of how perfect the Bargehouse was as a setting for EcoCentrix; in it are photos and costumes of the Masi Maidens – Rosanna Raymond and Katrina Igglesden – whose performance I wish I had seen.
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