Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 facts about Mi'kmaq artist Jordan Bennett’s al’taqiaq: it spirals
His first lens-based public artwork will be unveiled as part of Capture Photography Festival at BC Hydro’s Dal Grauer Substation
Jordan Bennett, al’taqiaq: it spirals, 2020, is a reclamation of cultural and familial histories. Image courtesy of the artist.
Jordan Bennett’s al’taqiaq: it spirals will be on view from April 2 to March 1, 2022 at the BC Hydro Dal Grauer Substation (944 Burrard Street) via Capture Photography Festival in partnership with BC Hydro sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association.
MI’KMAQ ARTIST JORDAN Bennett’s al’taqiaq: it spirals is a multifaceted work that was shaped by a trip to Paris and COVID-19, was inspired by ancestral porcupine quillwork, and allows people to visit with a piece of his people’s history.
Al’taqiaq: it spirals draws from a porcupine quill basket created by Mi’kmaw artists that is in the Museum of Vancouver. Because pandemic restrictions prevented Bennett from spending time with it in person, staff there took a photo of it for him. Through that image, he took inspiration from the basket’s colours, patterns, and stories to paint a moose skull that was harvested in his home community and gifted to him by a family friend. Bennett took a photo of the adorned skull on Mi’kma’ki land in present-day Atlantic Canada to create the piece that will soon front the BC Hydro Dal Grauer Substation in downtown Vancouver on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations through the Capture Photography Festival.
Every year, Capture commissions artists to create new site-specific works to be installed on the Dal Grauer Substation’s façade. Completed in 1954, the building commissioned by the B.C. Electric Company was designed by architect Ned Pratt and artist B. C. Binning and came to serve as a three-dimensional “canvas” that was said to resemble a Piet Mondrian or De Stijl painting.
This porcupine quillbox inspired Jordan Bennett’s al’taqiaq: it spirals. Quillbox and cover, Mi’kmaq Museum of Vancouver Collection, AG 103a-b, via 3,599 Miles: An Interview With Jordan Bennett.
Originally form Stephenville Crossing, Ktaqamkuk (Newfoundland), Bennett lives on his ancestral territory of Mi’kma’ki in Terence Bay, Nova Scotia, where his work includes painting, sculpture, video, installation, and sound. In challenging colonial perceptions of Indigenous histories, he has exhibited work at the Smithsonian-National Museum of the American Indian in New York City; MAC-VAL in Paris; Toronto’s Power Plant, and Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, among several other renowned art institutions.
Curated by Kate Henderson, Al’taqiaq: it spirals served as a form for Bennett to reclaim cultural belongings and familial histories—and also acted as a catalyst to reintroduce photography into his artistic practice.
“The first time I saw Jordan’s work was when he exhibited Turning Tables in the exhibition Beat Nation in 2010,” Henderson tells Stir. “Since then I’ve been interested in the traditional Mi’kmaq porcupine quillwork designs that Jordan draws inspiration from in his practice. Jordan reclaims these designs and shares the history of his ancestors through his colourful, vibrant work. His work spans many histories—it asserts and reclaims his ancestral knowledge with a contemporary spin that looks to the future.”
Here are five things you need to know about al’taqiaq: it spirals.
The porcupine quill basket that inspired the work was created by ancestral artists between 1860 and 1890. “These objects come from animals that live on the land, and a lot of the quillwork I reference is created from porcupines that lived 200 or 300 years ago,” Bennett shared in Henderson’s 3,599 Miles: An Interview with Jordan Bennett. “So, my works connect back to these beings.”
Like the porcupine, the moose holds tremendous significance in Mi’kmaq culture. “This animal has provided sustenance to my family and my ancestors for hundreds of years,” Bennett said. “This particular moose skull and how it travelled into my life has its own story. That skull belonged to a family friend of ours, who hunted it well over a decade ago. My dad had seen it on the side of this gentlemen’s shed for years, and he’s always asked him about it. One day, our friend finally gave it to my dad, and my dad in turn surprised me with it. It’s a beautiful set of antlers, and it’s very rare to find them attached to the skull like that, in this pristine form.”
Bennett’s use of hot pink was inspired by a porcupine quillwork piece he recalled seeing that was created in the mid-1800s and that incorporated the same vivid hue.
It was at Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris where Bennett came across plate photography of Mi’kmaq people from the mid-1800s. “That was physically the closest I could ever get to my ancestors, because the light that bounced off their skin in that moment – making those images – was literally captured on those plates, which in turn became artworks that I was able to visit over a hundred years later,” he told Henderson. “Ever since that encounter with these photographs, I feel like photography has been inching its way back into my life and art practice.”
Without the photograph of the basket from the Museum of Vancouver, al’taqiaq: it spirals might not have ever come to be. “They engaged with me and they spent time with the basket on my behalf,” Bennett said. “Visiting is a big part of my practice, and when I visit these belongings, I’m not just spending time with objects – I’m spending time with an ancestor.”
Jordan Bennett, al’taqiaq: it spirals, 2020, courtesy of the artist. Photo by Jocelyne Junker, Capture Photography Festival
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