Monthly Archives: January 2012

Upcoming Kesu’ Book

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By Samantha Schmidt

Our upcoming exhibit, Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer, focuses on locally and internationally renowned artist, Doug Cranmer. The exhibit is enhanced by a recently published book by the same name, by MOA Curator and Assistant Professor, Jennifer Kramer. (Join us on at Tuesday, February 14 from 4-5 pm to help celebrate the launch of the book!) This is the first publication to consider Doug’s contributions to the international art world and the regional community. It is organized into five chapters, each of which examines a unique aspect of Doug’s personality as reflected in his life and work. Kramer uses interviews with Doug’s friends, family, students, and acquaintances to try to pinpoint a man who was never comfortable with labels. Through the text and many full-color photographs,  Kramer helps us understand how Doug may be seen as perhaps the first truly ‘indigenous modern’ artist.

“Whether you are keen on Northwest Coast Kwakwaka’wakw art or new to this engaging topic, it is a great addition to any library. You can

pick up the book at local bookstores, or in the MOA Shop, when you stop to visit the show, which runs from March 17 through September 3, 2012. A list of talks and tours associated with the book and exhibit can be found at www.moa.ubc.ca/events.

Mosquito. This limited-edition print entitled Mosquito was given as a gift to those who attended the raising of the “New Generation” replica Wa’kas pole in Stanley Park, Vancouver, 1987. 55.5 × 37.7 cm. Collection of Phil Nuytten; photo by Ken Mayer. Page 80.

Tibetan Odyssey

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TIBETAN ODYSSEY

A special afternoon of Tibetan music and film will be taking place at MOA on Thursday, February 2 at 3:30 pm.  Musician Jamyang Yeshi was born a nomad into a musical family in the Amdo region of Tibet and escaped across the Himalayas in 1998.  After living in Dharamsala, India, for seven years and performing widely with the Aku Pema group, he was invited to Canada to perform and settled here as a refugee.

Jamyang has performed widely, at festivals such as the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and the Vancouver Island Musicfest, and on tours to Moscow, Europe, Canada and the United States, He recently opened for k.d. lang during the Dalai Lama’s visit to Calgary, Alberta.  In 2009 Jamyang completed a film which documents the recording of a CD of his family’s music.  Shining Spirit: The Musical Journey of Jamyang Yeshi (2009) tells the story of bringing together Jamyang and his family through the use of multi-tracking recording technology.  With the help of his friends, Director/Producer Karen McDiarmid, recording technician Mark Unrau,  and the irrepressible Gompo Kyab of Tibet, Jamyang joins voices once again with the family he has not seen in twelve years.

Shining Spirit is a testament to the power of music, the resilience of the Tibetan culture, and the enduring bond of a family separated by politics and geography.  This award-winning film screened as part of the Banff Mountain Film Festival’s world tour, was third prize winner at the Kathmandu Mountain Film Festival in 2010, and has recently screened at Telluride Mountainfilm and the Monaco Charity Film Festival as well as at numerous other festivals around the globe. It was also part of the prestigious National Geographic “All Roads” Film Festival in Washington, D.C.

Karen will introduce Shining Spirit, setting it in the context of the current situation in Tibet. Following the film, Jamyang will perform live, singing and playing traditional Tibetan instruments, such as the dranyin and the kara.  After the film and performance, both Jamyang and Karen will be on hand to answer questions.


Bio on JAMYANG YESHI

Jamyang Yeshi travelled across the Himalaya from Amdo, Tibet, to Dharamsala, India in 1998, and travelled widely in India as part of the popular Aku Pema Performing Arts group. In 2004, Jamyang did a special performance for Richard Gere in Moscow at a Tibetan Buddhist cultural festival and in 2005, he was invited to give an opening night performance at the “Cultures at Risk” Summit at the Banff Centre in Canada. He settled in Canada, producing “The Karma of Snowland” CD with Gompo Dhundup.  Jamyang has performed for H.H. the Dalai Lama and Prince Charles, and with Nawang Khechog in Toronto.  His latest CD is “Shining Spirit” and the award-winning film, “Shining Spirit: The Musical Journey of Jamyang Yeshi,” (2009) has screened at film festivals around the world, including the National Geographic’s “All Roads” Film Festival and the Banff Mountain Film Festival & World Tour; as well, Jamyang’s music is featured in several documentary films. In 2009, Jamyang toured in Hungary, and performed at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, as well as opening for k.d. lang at a special concert during the Dalai Lama’s visit to Alberta.  He toured in the western U.S. in 2010, and was a special

guest at Telluride Mountainfilm. Currently Jamyang is working on a fusion CD, as well as performing throughout North America.  He makes his home on Vancouver Island.

 

Photos by Karen McDiarmid

Doug Cranmer: A Man with a History

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By  Mindy Ogden

MOA will soon feature an exhibit on the art and life of Doug Cranmer, an influential artist known for pushing boundaries and broadening the definition of Northwest coast art. It is difficult to succinctly describe this complex and multi-faceted man, who was at once “a person of integrity and wisdom, a chief and a leader, a maker, critic, fisherman, logger, inventor, entrepreneur, teacher, builder, conservator, son, husband and father” (in the words of Anthony Shelton, MOA’s director).  Perhaps the best way to introduce him would be to acquaint you with his roots. In Western culture, we usually meet the person before the family, but on the Northwest Coast, it was, and is, the other way around.

Born on January 18, 1927, Doug was the firstborn son of Dan Cranmer, Kwakwaka’wakw hereditary chief, and Agnes (Hunt) Cranmer. Agnes was from the more northern Tlingit tribe – her father George Hunt is famous for

having worked closely with anthropologist Franz Boas. She was the second wife of Dan Cranmer. Dan divorced his first wife, Emma Mountain, in 1921, because she was unable to produce any children to inherit Dan’s chiefly status and privilege. As was the custom, the divorce was accompanied by a potlatch.

The Canadian Indian Act had outlawed the potlatch in 1884; however, prior to 1921, no arrests had ever been made in enforcement of the law, and many potlatches were still held illicitly. Dan’s potlatch was held at a remote location (Village Island) to escape the eyes of the Indian Agent, but his plans were to no avail. Forty-four of his attendees were arrested and charged with various felonies, such as singing, dancing, and giving or accepting gifts at a potlatch. They were given the choice of either surrendering their potlatch goods or serving a term in jail. The result was one of the largest seizures of potlatch goods in Canadian history (pictured above).

Gloria Cranmer, Doug’s younger sister, made it her life goal to see these goods repatriated. She was seminal in the founding of the U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, which now houses these items. Here Doug is pictured holding one the masks danced at his father’s potlatch, which was repatriated due to his sister’s determined efforts. Note the resemblance!

“Doug with Imas (ancestor spirit) mask from the repatriated Potlatch Collection, owned by Ned Alvin Innis, 1980. Courtesy of the U’mista Cultural Society and the Audrey and Harry Hawthorn Library and Archive, moA A000961c; photo by Vickie Jensen.”

 

That ought to suffice for famous people in one family, but nonetheless, Doug has even more well-known relations. His step-grandfather, Mungo Martin, has been credited with the revival of Northwest Coast art in the twentieth century, and was key in Doug’s own training as an artist. Clearly Doug and his family have played a pivotal role in the history of Canada and of the Kwakwaka’wakw.

“That is so inappropriate”: Situational and Cultural Norms of Acceptability in the Museum

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By Matthew Willis

This post is a departure from what is conventionally posted on the MOA blog but I was inspired by something I overheard today in the Galleries. I was in the lobby this afternoon switching some schedules around, chatting with the usual co-workers. Near the MOA shop and the admissions desk is a Papua New Guinea Clan pole, one of two made for MOA by Teddy Balangu in 2006, which, featured prominently on the middle of the pole, is a male figure with a visibly large phallus.

This is not the first sculpture in the museum to display such bodily organs and it won’t be the last. As I was standing there, I heard someone utter: “that is so inappropriate” was the statement.  I could potentially understand someone from a non-artist, non-academic or non-MOA point of view coming from a generation other than my own or from a culture where such displays are taboo.

I was surprised when I turned around to see the utterer.

The source of this utterance was a six or seven year old boy who was in a school group visiting the museum. The small, mushroom-cut blond child did not smirk or hide giggle when he spoke but instead, seemed earnestly affected by the carving. Why the boy said, “that is so inappropriate” is of interest to me and is what I plan to explore today.

Before I became the Communications Assistant at MOA, I was a Museum Assistant, who gave regular group tours at the museum. I had the pleasure of touring visitors of different ages, backgrounds, cultures and personal interests, and I cannot remember a time when someone from one of my groups made a comparable comment to that of the blonde child.  This is not to say that people were not thinking them but people tend to stay quiet unless they have a question and often when people wanted to make a comment, they would typically save them until after the tour where they could ambush me quietly in a corner of the Multiversity Gallery.

The outspokenness of the child probably came from the fact that he was exactly that—a child. When I was young, I made inappropriate comments in public because I didn’t know any better. At the dinosaur museum in Drumheller, Alberta, I was misbehaving (or so my mother tells me) and when my mother was carrying me back to the car, I shouted, “you’re not my mom!” to which the security guards gave my mother a few glances. I related personally to one of the child’s classmates was touching the clan pole (and had to be stopped by a Museum Attendant) which, to me, is a more predictable and foreseeable act from a child as the friend probably did not know any better himself.

My little blonde friend, however, did not have the same anticipated “childish” reaction. He called the carving “inappropriate” and when he said this, I start asked myself: what is “inappropriate”? How do we define it? I feel that there is a difference between inappropriateness in the everyday and in art so where is that line? What did the child find inappropriate and why?

I had a brief discussion with a co-worker about what I heard and she said that “inappropriateness” is a cultural occurrence the same way what is “appropriate” and “acceptable” is determined. I would also add it’s a situational occurrence. I laughed when a Mexican friend of mine told me that she habitually used to try and kiss people on the cheek whenever they entered a room when she first moved to Canada but quickly realized that you can’t always do that. The clash between Canadian and Mexican practices and what is culturally appropriate interacts with the situational acceptability of a kiss (entering a room versus kissing a lover in public, for example).

So perhaps this boy’s reaction was a cultural statement of “inappropriateness” regarding certain displays of sexuality. Being a child, he might not have been aware of the situational acceptability of displaying a piece in a museum of world artwork even if it is inappropriate in certain cultural contexts.

The taboo of revealing one’s genitals in public may have informed the child’s reaction as something that his parents taught him at some point (calling gentiles “privates” or another innuendo). The child learns that such a display is “inappropriate” in a public space. However, I don’t buy this argument. I can only speak for my own culture, but sex plays a large part in Western comedy. I have seen other children point and laugh at the pole’s phallic display. I’ve even had adults look at it, chuckle, and attempt to ask me an academic question about it when they really just want to hear me say something about a large wooden penis. The reason the child’s reaction is so curious is because of his age, his context (he was with friends and not with his parents) and the culture he most likely comes from (he was white and without a detectable foreign accent) did not synchronize with his reaction given the evidence of the situation.

One possible explanation is that he was being mimetic of his parents while disregarding the situational acceptability of the pole in an attempt to be more “adult-like”, something that we see children of a certain age attempt. Seeing the phallus prompted the reaction that the child thought would be most like something his parents would say in a brief moment of a desire to be more like an adult. It is impossible to know this for sure, and without getting into the un-provable psychology of the child at that moment, what is more interesting to me is why there an absence of a situational context (being in a museum) and a dominance of a cultural context (whatever the parents had taught the boy).

The conclusion I come to is that, in this case, cultural norms of acceptability superseded the situational for a moment but this was an exception to the norm: all the other children were laughing and giggling at the phallus. Perhaps the boy merely “forgot” his situational context and was left with only his cultural notion of acceptability to evaluate the pole. It reminds me of an unfortunate question asked of me once by a visitor: “so where are the shrunken heads?”. This particular visitor seemed to think that, culturally, a museum of anthropology would include “shrunken heads” and seemed to not realize his situation (MOA does not have such things). Both the child and this

unfortunate question raise a point for me I hope to leave with you: at what points do we forget to compensate with situational context and accept what we see and when do we abandon all contexts and rely only on our biased cultural compass? How does our situational context impact our perception of, especially, other cultures?