Exhibition Essay
The Lands We Are
by Jennifer Smith
Every morning I take a walk up my street. At the end of the street is a house with a red dress hanging in the window. I think about this dress and its presence in different ways. The first time I saw it, I thought of Jaime Black, and how much impact the "REDress Project" has had on our community in Winnipeg, across the country, and internationally. Sometimes I wonder about the people inside the house who put up the dress, and wonder is it in solidarity with the families of MMIWGs [Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls], have they lost a loved one themselves, how are they coping? Sometimes it is a reminder of the importance of taking up space and making our presence known. And through this thought, I began relating Jaime’s work to the Land Back movement. Land Back is specifically about returning land to Indigenous people, but this red dress made me think about taking it back for ourselves and what that process might look like. I began acknowledging the markers in our city that show the presence of our Indigenous population. Red ribbons tied on bridges hold space for the women and girls we have lost; orange ribbons tied on school fences are memorials for children taken into the residential school system; and beautiful murals depicting Indigenous culture are emblazoned on the walls of buildings downtown and the north end of the city. These reminders are not purely visual--the sounds of drums call to me during rallies and marches through the streets, and jingle dresses ring out in unison, filling the small cracks within these urban spaces. These are the reminders that we are still here; the ways that the many Indigenous cultures converging on the land call to each other in a mutual embrace through sights and sounds.
Jaime Black’s work represents our presence. The "REDress Project" has been a highly visible way of doing this, with the artist’s video and photographic work offering more subtle visual explorations of the connections between the land and Indigenous people. Black’s work seeks to build and sustain an emotional connection to the land (the earth, forest, and waterways). This relationship has not been built on what she requires from the land, but rather how she lives in an emotional and physical relationship with it. Jaime honors this relationship through visiting and spending time with familiar places, to understand them deeply over time, as we do with loved ones. Or introducing herself to new places, by jumping in a lake, pressing her body to the earth or rocks, taking time to explore, and understand what these spaces need, but how others use them, too. It is building intimacy, and in building that intimacy, understanding the responsibility of the relationship that is built-- but also celebrating and finding joy in it. Through Black’s images, viewers access a glimpse into these intimacies.
"between us" is a beautiful example of the unending love that water gives. There is no separation from the artist and the water, she is immersed in the water, there is no way to separate her body from the water. The water caresses her body, holds her, and Jaime gives herself over to that. This waterway has known other bodies and held them in the same way it holds Jaime, but no matter how many people build a relationship with the water in this way, it still gives itself to us.
The "living memory" photo series allows Jaime to introduce her whole body to the rocks, but also learn about them, she can feel if they are rough, where the crevices are, and feel their curves. It is a profoundly spiritual way to introduce yourself. Without this image the visual trace of this interaction wouldn’t be known to anyone but the rock and Jaime, a trace that disappears with the wind and sun. But as the sun evaporates the trace made of water it begins a cycle that will turn that vapour into rain and that water will once again return to the waterways, and have a chance to touch these rocks and Jaime again. The cycles of our planet are endless, and the ways we connect in a moment is never completely erased.
In the series "they tried to bury us," we see Jaime engaged in a solitary ceremonial act. It reminds me that the lands have always been here for us. The land has provided for us in unwavering ways that can be related to our basic survival needs of providing food and a place to live, but also as a place that holds us-- when I say “us,” I think there are many levels of the way we can think of us. It has held humans, and four legged relatives, and grown vegetation and carved itself out based on the movement of water, this is all a part of us. It holds our histories, and the histories of our ancestors before us, and it will be here in all of those same ways for the generations ahead of us. It will always allow us to grow on it.
Jaime’s work from the "REDress Project" to actions on the land captured through photography are all acts of ceremony that connect her to the land, but also lay out a path to remind others to find their way to the land, too. They are ways of holding space for the land in the same way it holds space for us, it is the only way we have of taking Land Back if it will not be given back. They are ceremonial acts that are a reminder that land, water, and body are intertwined and always have been. We need to remember what that intimacy feels like and not allow invisible barriers to separate us from the land. We are part of the land, and it is part of us. We need to move through life with a reminder of the fulfillment that comes with this relationship.
Jennifer Smith is a Métis curator, writer and arts administrator from Treaty 1 Territory. She works as the Executive Director for National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition, alongside her practice as an independent curator. Jennifer’s research focuses on exploring traditional methods of making new digital technologies that tell our stories. In 2018 Jennifer was the Indigenous Curator in Residence at aceartinc. in Winnipeg, and most recently co-curated the exhibition Sovereign Intimacies with Nasrin Himada for Gallery 1C03.