In Cont(r)act, Algonquin/Canadian/Quebec artist Nadia Myre negotiates the space of hybridity that she occupies as an emerging artist of Native ancestry. This exhibition defines a significant moment which bears witness to the thoughtful and courageous struggle many artists of mixed ancestry find themselves living --a process of identification with a retrieved historical past, rethought and re-articulated in a living present, which in Myre's case is given voice through her compelling artistic production. Her art pieces are indexically imprinted with Aboriginal symbolism, yet challenge Native culturally-sanctioned traditional meanings as well as euro-Canadian understandings of Aboriginal history and colonial impact. To produce Cont(r)act, Myre researched the traditions of her Algonquin ancestors, immersing herself in a culture made foreign to her. The tenaciousness supporting the arduous process of learning ancient crafts, such as beading and birch-bark canoe construction, is clearly evident in her highly-crafted, yet aesthetically Modernist, art. This fusion gives the exhibition an edge by challenging the ethnographic space historically allocated to Aboriginal people and to First Nations artistic productions. Myre cuts through both the traditional-sacred and Modernist aspects of her work, overlaying them with the deeply incised scars of colonialism's thickly layered racism and other, more personal pain. In Cont(r)act Myre resolves the space of cultural hybridity she occupies by constructing the formal and aesthetic means to negotiate the sacred and scarred aspects of her cultural and personal history. Joan Reid Acland, 2004
 
cont[r]act
installation view
(beader’s names)
installation view, oboro 2002
history in two parts
history in two parts (detail)
history in two parts (detail)
grandmothers' circle
grandmothers' circle (detail)
grandmothers’ circle (detail)
indian act
indian act (detail, pg.45)
installation view
untitled installation
monument to two-row
portrait as a river
portrait in motion (still)
portrait in motion (still)
contact