The publication is here - Rebecca Belmore: March 5, 1819

Rebecca Belmore Publication McMaster Museum of Art

Rebecca Belmore’s powerful installation March 5, 1819 is on view now until August 18 at the McMaster Museum of Art. Serendipitously, the beautiful scholarly publication about this artwork arrived at the Museum today. It was jointly published by Carleton University Art Gallery, The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, and McMaster Museum of Art, the three galleries who acquired the work (an edition of 3) for their respective collections.

The publication may be purchased online from ABC Art Books Canada http://www.abcartbookscanada.com/ or in person, at the galleries.

ABOUT THE PUBLICATION

REBECCA BELMORE: MARCH 5, 1819

Foreword by:
Sandra Dyck
Anne Chafe
Carol Podedworny

Essays by:
Jennifer Adese
Heather Anderson
Kristina Huneault
Ingeborg Marshall
and a conversation between Glenn Alteen and Rebecca Belmore

96 pp col. ill. 10.75 x 7.75 in softcover 9780770905699

Rebecca Belmore has created some of Canada’s most haunting artworks on the subject of colonial violence and its living legacy. This publication documents a powerful two-channel video installation that unfolds on parallel walls, with two hand-held cameras following the struggles of a man and woman being chased through a snowy forest. March 5, 1819 features the frantic final moments before Demasduit, a young Beothuk woman (later renamed Mary March) is captured by colonists at Red Indian Lake in Newfoundland. Her husband Nonosabasut dies trying to save her. Belmore’s re-enactment of this historical moment in contemporary dress places the viewer into the middle of the event – as both witness and perpetrator – effectively bringing the historical struggle of Indigenous peoples in Canada viscerally into the present.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe/Canadian) is internationally recognized for her performance and installation art. Belmore was Canada’s official representative at the 2005 Venice Biennale, received the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Art in 2013, and was awarded the 2016 Gershon Iskowitz Prize. Co-published with The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery Division

CONTRIBUTORS

Jennifer Adese is associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto. She is co-editor of two forthcoming volumes: New Directions in Métis Peoplehood (UBC Press) and Indigenous Celebrity (University of Manitoba Press).

Glenn Alteen was awarded the 2018 General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts Award for outstanding contribution. He has written extensively on art and performance, notably in Unceded Territories : Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (MOA 2016).

Heather Anderson is Curator and Adjunct Professor of Art History at Carleton University. She has been both Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Assistant Curator of Modern Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada.

Kristina Huneault is professor of Art History at Concordia University. She is a founder of the Canadian Women Artists History Initiative, and was the 2010 recipient of the Marion Dewar Prize in Canadian Women’s History.

Ingeborg Marshall won a Fulbright Scholarship and attended both Sarah Lawrence College and Bucknell University. For her contribution to the scholarly understanding of the Beothuk, she was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree at Memorial University, St. John’s Newfoundland.