McMaster Museum of Art presents

Ursula Johnson: Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember)

Organized by Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery
Curated by Robin Metcalfe
on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, September 13 – December 8, 2018

Ursula Johnson’s practice ranges from fine craft and traditional Indigenous art forms through performance and installation. Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember) examines ideas of ancestry, identity and cultural practice. Johnson deconstructs and manipulates the function and image of Mi’kmaw basketry, using traditional techniques to build non-functional forms.

In Mi’kwite’tmn, Johnson creates three distinct spaces. A “Museological Grand Hall” displays empty plexi vitrines bearing sand-blasted diagrams of traditional Mi’kmaw baskets. An “Archive Room” is crowded with mutant basket-type objects from the series O’pltek (“It is Not Right”). In the “Performative Space”, the artist presents an endurance performance of shaving, pounding and splitting an ash-wood log to produce a mountain of splints, as traditionally employed in Mi’kmaw basket-making.

Johnson explores the impact of colonialism on Indigenous material and linguistic culture, and challenges the museological and ethnographic frame imposed upon it.

PUBLIC PERFORMANCES

Sept 20 – 22, 2018

The artist’s endurance performance begins each day in the exhibition space when the gallery opens.