Curator's Tour with Lisa Deanne Smith & Ryan Rice

Curated by Ryan Rice. Ryan Rice, Kanien’kehá:ka, is an independent curator and an Associate Dean at OCAD University.

Jordan Bennett’s solo exhibition Souvenir draws upon his inspired intentions to visit, activate and respond to the innovative heritage embedded, woven and veiled in the richness of Mi’kmaq material culture and design. His interdisciplinary and intuitive approach grants new vitality to overlooked cultural expressions that carry elaborate Mi’kmaq cosmologies interpreted through customary geometric motifs embellished in a highly valued era of porcupine quillwork and basketry souvenir trade commodities that was thriving in the 19th century. The exhibition brings together Bennett’s newly designed site-specific work, museum collection loans, and installation to celebrate the vitality and influence of Indigenous aesthetic as contemporary practice.

 

 

 

A large-scale outdoor mural by Jordan Bennett

Curated by Lisa Deanne Smith, Curator, Onsite Gallery

 

pi'tawita'iek: we go up river on the south wall of OCAD University’s main campus, adjacent to Butterfield Park, will ground the space in Indigenous material culture. This public artwork is rooted in Bennett’s relationships with Mi’kmaq porcupine quillwork. He brings forward and reimagines their graphic patterns, bright colours and inspiring stories. In visiting with these cultural objects Bennett connects with their visual language and furthers this visual conversation through his contemporary influences and experience.