September 26 – December 20
Over the past year, Rebecca Belmore spent extended time with family in Thunder Bay, where her daily view was of Lake Superior and a park sheltering a substantial un-housed population. During a trip to the dump at the outskirts of the city, she was struck by a golden eagle, rare in Ontario and listed as endangered, perched on a large pile of garbage. Reflecting on these experiences in relation to the Nishnaabeg creation story of a flood that left all the animals stranded on water, Rebecca noted, “We are in a sea of waste of our own making and the creation story reminds us that we all need land.” She developed Gichigami (2026) with this narrative in mind, holding it as a metaphor for the parallel seas of living bodies of water and human waste. These seven garments, turned inside out and adorned with layers of plastic water bottles, were worn during the Biennial’s opening weekend by participants who walked silently through Queens Park and then placed them in this room. The single muskrat coat, found secondhand, references the creation story’s muskrat who dove into floodwaters, retrieving a small piece of land at the cost of his life. Encompassing performance and installation, Gichigami is a warning that asks us to carefully consider where we are headed.
Note: In the Toronto Biennial of Art catalogue, Things Fall Apart: Notes on Rupture, page 33 refers to the title of this work as Colonized Waters. This errata corrects it to Gichigami.
Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art and co-presented with the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Made possible with the generous support of the Women Leading Initiative and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Bio
Bio
Rebecca Belmore
Rebecca Belmore (b. 1960, Anishinaabe) creates sculpture, installation, video, photography and performance. Central to her work is the body in relation to history, place and Indigeneity. Recent monographic exhibitions include Turbulent Water, Griffith University, Brisbane; and Facing the Monumental, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Recent major international exhibitions include the 2022 Whitney Biennial, 2019 Istanbul Biennial, and documenta 14. Belmore has been awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, among many others. She holds honorary doctorates from Université Laval, Quebec City; Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver; and Ontario College of Art & Design University, Toronto.
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