By SINEAD OVERBYE 30.06.21
Text extracts, from The Pantograph Punch: https://pantograph-punch.com/posts/home-is-in-my-heart
Feature Image: Marja Helander Dolastallat (To have a campfire), 2016.
"In Among All These Tundras at Pātaka, the voices of Indigenous artists form a chorus that sings of their experiences of identity, language and home."
Among All These Tundras is an exhibition about the concerns of Indigenous artists from the circumpolar world. Situated throughout two main galleries at Pātaka, it includes various video works, photographs, sculpture and installations. The 12 artists exhibited here are from different Indigenous groups in the circumpolar region, including Canadian Inuit groups, Sámi from Norway and Finland, Kalaallit Inuits from Greenland and Alaskan Athabascans. Their voices form a chorus that sings of their experiences of indigeneity and their love for their identities, language and homes.
Tundras are vast, treeless landscapes endemic to the Arctic regions of Europe and North America, where the majority of the contributing artists are from. The works exhibited allow us to marvel at these landscapes and see them as they do – with reverence and love
The idea of seeing landscape through the lens of the people that are native to it/ live as a community within it, regarding land in a different way to conventional western ownership perspective.
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On the back wall of the second gallery, two videos by Marja Helander, a Sámi artist and filmmaker, play on loop side by side. Maybe it’s the giant bear, or perhaps the rich fabrics the women wear, or the sweeping drone shots of landscapes that make them look like vast paintings, but I am instantly intrigued, and sit to watch both films from beginning to end. The first film, Dolastallat (To have a campfire),shows a Sámi woman pushing a sled through the mountains in Northern Russia. She wears traditional Sámi clothing, which shines red against the snowy landscape. Her journey takes her to an abandoned building filled with snow, where she sets up a generator and makes a cup of coffee. Behind her stands a large bear, to whom she offers the coffee when she’s done. The reverence of the situation is delightfully elevated by the artist’s sense of humour, as the bear, which is stuffed, doesn’t move to accept the coffee cup. The woman blinks, confused, before replacing the cup on its stool and moving to stand next to the bear, to assume the same stance as him.
Marja Helander, Dolastallat (To have a campfire), 2016. Courtesy of the artist
Highly revered in Sámi culture, the bear seems to represent a connection to tradition that the woman is searching for in an otherwise abandoned and lonely landscape. The tone – one of delight, humour and love – is moving. It’s really special to see Indigenous art with elements of fun and joy, while still commenting on the exploitation and destruction of Indigenous lands by outside forces.
Work that connects to indegenous, traditional roots as well as inviting a contemporary audience to connect with and contemplate the artwork. This reminds me of Gauri Gill's photographic work Acts Of Appearance, where she collaborates with indegenous/ Adivasi villagers in Maharasha, inducing humour, folklore into her depictions and interactions with the villagers. I am really interested in performance that has this kind of aubsurdity or humourous lens, often it points out the deeper aspects of an issue or tries to subvert orthodox perceptions within society, allowing a reconsidered narrative to take place instead.
Helander’s second video, Eatnanvuloš Lottit (Birds in the Earth), won the Risto Jarva Prize at the Tampere Film Festival and was nominated for the Sundance Festival in 2019. The film shows two Indigenous girls, transformed into ballerinas, dancing through the many different landscapes of their Sámi homeland. Their grace and poise are set in disturbing contrast to some of the more devastating examples of land destruction and capitalist expansion in the places where they dance. The work invites the viewer to reflect on whose land they stand on and challenges us to be more aware of the histories and peoples who’ve traditionally inhabited our environments.
Again, the ideas of reconsidering land are presented through a filmed performance, but with a slightly different tone: something i'd imagine that is more mesmerising and serious, even beautiful to encounter through the film. It focusses on breaking down the idea of landscape and how its been treated, and as the text says, its histories and people. There is a focal point cast on the effects of colonisation of the land, which in turn is something I am exploring through my own artmaking. Land, i feel, is the most obvious as well as conflicting space, as it is pushed through histories of being claimed, being a warzone, being divided, being commercialised, amonst so many other things. These issues become buried into a commercial setting through media, which flits from prisinf land as a romantic realm, or subjecting it to violence through political desire/greed. I think art can operate outside of this conventional confinement; not in a way that finds a solution to this, but in a way that at least might resonate with individuals and create another level of understanding between people and our relatioship to land.
Marja Helander, Eatnanvuloš Lottit (Birds in the Earth), 2018. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Elias Rodriguez / Mark Tantrum Photography
Parts of the video also depict the ballerinas pulling up artefacts from the snow, such as taxidermy animals, dolls and microwaves. The artist seems to be questioning the appropriateness of claims emphasising the ‘benefits’ of colonisation for Indigenous peoples. It does this by displaying the commodification and exploitation of natural resources that have resulted from industrialisation. The ballerinas continue to dance, stretching their arms gracefully above their heads, twirling and gliding, in a gentle and entrancing act of activism. They cover up signs that say “Valtion Maata: State-owned land”, so that they read, more accurately, “Maata: land”. They journey across the countryside and through urban centres, treading lightly. And, at a few points, they are again transformed into young Indigenous women, wearing traditional Sámi clothing, dancing more free and expressive traditional dances, seeming to mimic the gestures of animals.
The contrast between western and indigenous treatement of land, as well as, in return, how the people respond to the land - depicted through the idea of the ballerinas and young Indigenous Sámi women.
Bepen Bhana: Postcards from the edge
Bepen Bhana
Aishwarya Me Shahruth i Te Roto o Tekapo / Aishwarya Aur Shahruth Jhila Tekapo par (Aishwarya and Shahruth at Lake Tekapo), 2013
oil on canvas
1200mm x 1800mm
© Bepen Bhana
Bepen Bhana
Salman Me Preity i Aoraki / Salman Au Preity Aoraki/Parvata Bavaraci par (Salman and Preity at Aoraki/Mount Cook), 2013
oil on canvas
1200mm x 1800mm
© Bepen Bhana
Artist
Bepen Bhana (Aotearoa NZ)
Curator
Bruce E. Phillips
Text from website:
A solo exhibition by Auckland-based artist Bepen Bhana exploring the history of New Zealand’s landscape in painting and as a backdrop for Bollywood films. Bhana’s series of photorealist paintings appropriate both the content and technique of Western European painting and Bollywood film posters to engage with the politics of representation and place. By providing bilingual artwork titles in Te Reo Māori and Hindi, Bhana also pays respect to Tangata Whenua and investigates the possibility for a sense of tūrangawaewae to be developed for immigrants.
Compared to the above indigenous artists' series, Bhana's work shows a disconnect of landscape and a comment on the duality of people, homeland, foreign land, and foreign people.
When i observe Bhana's works, whether on a website or on google images, there is this immidiate response to being Indian within the Aotearoa/NZ landscape. It is farcicle, though, as far as being indian goes, as i dont feel much cultural relationship to the Bollywood actors posing in the paintings, nor with the landscapes. I find it funny, of course, as it obviously is a humourous series of works, but there is also something off-putting in the juxtaposition of the two types of iconography. Theres something almost unnatainable about them. Its a shared type of theatrics between the two icons. Distantly, the works speak to the establishment of the classic-bollywood generation of kiwi-indians present in Aotearoa through the years, and the shared filmic appraciation that we have for Bollywood as well as seasonally touring the landscape. Tourists we are, for sure, but perhaps through being a brown race and having the generational memories of colonisation, we have the ability to connect to, pay respect and find affinities with Tangata Whenua through a more intrinsic level. Bhana initiates this conversation in a practical way, by titling his works both in Te Reo and Hindi.
Bhana's works remind me a bit of my own interventions in the NZ pristine landscape; even though most times i am unaware of my presence as an indian in the landscape during my making. I think here i tend to focus on a social point of view, shared throuhgout communities on the surrounding landsapce. Not to say that Bhana's work is exclusive to non-indians/south asians/bollywood fans, but just to point out that this is the difference between my apporach to responding to landscape and Bhana's way of doing so. Looking at Bhana's work makes me want to address ideas of my personal experiance with my surroundings. I like the way he seems to manifest work that is relatable and humourous, which presses a discussion amongst the respective audieces of art, pristine landscapes and of course, Bollywood.
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