Accompanying exhibition text by Dr. Kaitlyn Purcell

This is a collaborative experience of decolonial love and care. Summertime, here and there is a portal between two spaces across the west coast and prairies, from unceded lands and numerous treaty territories, a confluence of two artists celebrating their adoration for each other’s work.

Sharing ideas, resources, and the spotlight—this exhibition is one bright summery glimpse into the fabric of contemporary Indigenous art. We are woven into each other, whether we realize it or not—everything is connected in spirit and in science.

We are together, and together broken, in ways we have yet to understand. We are always travelling across the land when we become enamoured with, or inspired by, the work of our peers and heroes. Each time one of us glows in the limelight, we all grow a little brighter.

These are the memories of our paths as they move from parallel to intertwined. These knots of relationality are portals. We are across the internet and in the land, each and everywhere—but always together.

We are meant to show how much we care and want the best for each other. Collaboration and sharing our space, our practice, our ideas—is a form of decolonial love and kinship.

This kind of care is what makes us human again. This exhibition is the convergence of countless threads. Let us gather, together, and perpetually thicken our webs of relationality.

Kablusiak’s atikłuk are made in the mother hubbard style—this style’s lineage extends from whalers and missionaries in Hawaii. This convergence of culture and style is an act of taking only what is needed. Respect each and everything.

Murray’s spiderweb methodology reminds us to look to the Cree teachings from Wilfred Buck of Pakone Kisik, Pleiades—the hole in the sky. In the hole there is a home, there is a path, there is a travelling across time. In the seven sisters, there are infinite lessons emerging to and from.

Tell us a funny story! Beneath the laughter is something terribly unfunny that it becomes funny again. Here and there, smiley faces and hot dogs remind you it’s okay to not be okay.

This is why Mushum Armand Fisher taught all his children and grandchildren to laugh and protect themselves from the world in these funny ways.

For Hambone, metis billy stick is a reminder to laugh and to protect ourselves. It is a reminder of both horror and humour, and the thin imaginary line between.

Armand was the greatest ham of all time. I wonder how ham one must be to be given this new name.

We smudge and we spread smoke and ash all over ourselves, our dreams, and all the sacred spaces. The sky opens up once more, and we are home. We never left, we were always here, together.

These words left in memory, they are always holding us, guiding us. I will always be thinking of you, hoping you are well. This hope ur doing well is a gift from the hole in the sky.

Astronomers and scientists are scouring every equation and measure to understand where these sounds are coming from. All these love notes and smiley faces are falling from the stars.

The four seasons across the prairies and into the north all welcome us with lessons, and cute new outfits. Don’t forget your atikłuk all year round, in the summer this one will protect you from bugs, and you will be cute! In autumn you can hunt for caribou or moose. In the spring you will blossom and bloom, like grief—you will open up in a new way.

Stone Ookpik is a happy one no matter what. You can see it in their eyes. Some of us Indigenous are taught to fear the owl, but I think the snowy ones are more like wise doves, carrying an olive branch that looks more like a small rodent or bird. Ookpik sees too much, and their eyes are as round as the earth.

There is an intuitive process of multidisciplinary storytelling, of threading in web, in fabric, and in stone. Through the creation of these artworks, these sculptures and portals, Kablusiak and Murray celebrate their ancestors in a multitude of materials.

Canvas, harvested acorn hat ink, acorn nut ink, horse chestnut ink, the process is another kind of poetics. Murray teaches me that the photograph is another form of care and protection for these sacred objects and the stories they hold.

Is this a shade of decolonial love and care? Summertime, here, is a spider looking for a drink. Murray passes her a Budweiser. Suddenly, all across the land a light says, “Do it for your people.”

This is the kind of care that makes us fall to the earth with a great crash. We roam the world with our spider eyes, and all our ancestors, on the black velvet moon.

Here and there is a much-anticipated hunger born from the collaborative experiences of joy and creation.

We yearn to be filled with the sky. Whether we realize it or not, everything is empty in a good way. Together broken, in a good way.

Mother hubbard goes to and from the world in these funny ways. When they saw the cupboards are bare, they bring back a feast to share.

Mushum went out to buy a hat and when he came back, he was ham all the time. He was dancing and he said, “There is a hole in the web you have spun!”

Here and there is a much-anticipated doubling of each season, summer to summer.

I saw the strangest outfits of all in this collaborative experience, with it is a love of where we come from—no matter what.

They rolled themselves up in their atikłuk and their spiderweb methodology, sharing in the memories of him. Snoring peacefully, he travels across time, descending from the seven sisters onto the horizon.
The spider says, “Tell me a funny story!”

“Nobody liked my selfie!”