Monthly Archives: April 2012

Speaking Highlights for Global Dialogue: Remixing Art and Indigeneity, Again

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MOA is very excited to host our upcoming Global Dialogue: Remixing Art and Indigeneity, Again.  This event (May 12, 10 am to 6 pm) features a collaboration of artists, scholars and curators inspired by the artistic legacy of Doug Crammer. A variety of topics will be addressed, including, alternative expressions of artistic engagement and resistance used by Indigenous artists for decades, the complexities of participating in the art market, and the critical role of Indigenous curators.

Joining us is curator, author, and scholar Paul Chaat Smith, who is currently Associate Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Paul Chaat Smith has written the books Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong and Like a Hurricane: the Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. His writinh focuses on the landscapes, politics, and cultures of the American Indian. Paul Chaat Smith encourages others to “hit the reset button about Native discourse.” His work is powered by the desire to create this kind of awareness and instil a new way of thinking. He addresses the inspiration for Everything You Know about Indians is Wrong in this Q&A with Paul Chaat Smith. 

Photo courtesy Paul Chaat Smith, National Museum of the American Indian.

Louie Gong, artist

Another notable contributor to the Dialogue, Remixing Art and Indigeneity, Again, is art icon, educator, and activist Louie Gong. He is the founder of the company Eighth Generation, which infuses traditional

Coast Salish art with icons from popular culture. Gong strives to make impacting impressions about identity by clashing cultural concepts of different worlds. The work below by Louie Gong is called “Wolf-Chucks”. Louie has many other, one-of-a-kind, authentic youth inspired designs which can be admired on his website: www.eighthgeneration.com

Louie Gong’s work is an expression on behalf of people who walk in multiple worlds, and has received a lot of recent media attention. ”UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong,” is a short film which captures Louie’s unique style of merging art and activism. The film is currently screening at festivals around the world. To watch a teaser of Gong’s short film and learn about his inspiration, click on the following link: UNRESERVED Trailer.
Join us on May 12 from 1-6 pm (the Dialogue is free with regular Museum admission), and meet Paul, Louie, and a range of other fantastic curators, artists, thinkers, movers, and shakers!

The Salford Totem Pole (song)

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And here are the lyrics to Pete Martin’s song on the Salford Totem Pole. Thanks, Pete, for permission to post!

The Salford Totem Pole

By Pete Martin

I was born from the trunk of a West Red Cedar

Carved by the hands of Chief Doug Cranmer

Sailed o’er the ocean on a Manchester Liner

That’s how I came to Salford

They stood me up in a prominent place

Where I watched the amazement on many face

With my look of grandeur and touch of grace

I’m the Salford Totem Pole

 

Thunderbird sits ruling the skies

Ancestor of the Namgis tribe

Then the killer whale is no surprise

Another great crest of the Namgis soul

Raven she’s a Tlingit from Tongass

Chief with his copper showing plenty brass

I like to think I’m a work of class

I’m the Salford Totem Pole

 

Salford people flock to see

Three fine artists from North BC

They’ll be amazed when they finally see

Their wonderful work in restoring me

 

I’m not just a piece of wood

I’ve become a symbol of brotherhood

From Namgis people on Alert Bay

To Salford where I’m proud to stay.

 

We are proud of the cultures that we share.

 

They’ll shout from the rooftops good and loud

When I’m back once again looking tall and proud

With respect gushing out from the Salford crowd

That’s how I see my new home

Thank you Stephen, thank you Joe

Kevin, Edgar Bruce also

You’ve all left a mark on the Salford I know

I’m the Salford Totem Pole

The “Salford” Totem Pole

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By Matthew Willis

On March 28th, singer-songwriter Pete Martin emailed MOA with a song he wrote called, “I am the Salford Totem Pole”. The song is about a totem pole carved by Doug Cranmer in 1969 for a commission given to him by the (no longer existing) Manchester Liners. The pole was an emblem created with the aim of representing and celebrating the history of trade between Canada and the United Kingdom. The pole was brought back to the United Kingdom and stood in Salford until it was taken down due to weather damage in 2005. Somehow, the totem ended up in a warehouse in Salford Quays until it was found by  Councillor Steve Coen who requested it be displayed again in Salford proper and restored.

This link connects to an interview done on the day the totem pole was removed from the warehouse it was housed in and moved to its restoration location in December 2009:

http://www.salfordonline.com/totempole_page/16958-video:_salford_totem_pole_finally_moves_home_(part_8).html

Kevin Cranmer, Doug Cranmer’s nephew, and his cousin Edgar Cranmer worked with Bruce Alfred in the summer of 2010 to restore the pole. Originally carved from British Columbian Pine (most totem poles are carved from red cedar), the three carvers used planks of cedar  to restore the damaged fragments of Doug Cranmer’s original pole. On July 1st, 2010, the fully restored pole was displayed in Trafalgar Square in London in collaboration with the Canadian Embassy on Canada Day.

This link connects to an interview the three carvers did just before they started the restoration in 2010:

http://www.salfordonline.com/totempole_page/21236-video:_kevin_cranmer_and_friends_arrive_back_in_salford_to_start_restoration_work_on_totem_pole.html

With the restoration complete, the pole was brought back to Stanford in early 2011. There was some deliberation over where it would be raised. There is an outlet mall that is a popular gathering place for the public and the decision was made to raise it there.

Here is a link showing Kevin Cranmer re-awakening the pole to be raised: http://www.dreamscope.tv/additional/salford-totem-pole

This last clip shows the people of Salford voicing their thoughts as to where the pole should be raised. Currently, it is on show in the Museum Of Museums at the Trafford Centre in Manchester, UK, just beside Salford, but will be returning to its adoptive home in the coming months where it will be given a permanent location.

http://www.salfordonline.com/totempole_page/26736-video:_salford_streettalk_on_salford’s_totem_pole.html

It is fascinating for us at MOA to see Doug Cranmer’s work celebrated so enthusiastically in a place so far away from where Cranmer’s first “exhibition” is being held. This is a quote from Richard Sumner that, I feel

, best encompasses the majesty and tone of the Salford Totem Pole, Pete Martin’s song and Doug Cranmer himself. The discovery of something so international contrasted to Cranmer’s humble nature make this even more extraordinary.

“I think he just liked to fly below the radar. He was happy if he had a glass, his car, a pack of smokes and a bottle of scotch. He’d leave all the glory to everybody else. He wasn’t really one to toot his own horn. It’s up to us to do it.” –Richard Sumner.

Photo by Vickie Jensen