Beadwork - Radical Practices:  Beading Practices of Yukon First Nations (Canada) and the Ndebele (South Africa)

The Great Hall
January 21 - March 21, 2010

Beadwork - Radical Practices is an international exhibition which profiles historical and contemporary beading practices of Southern Yukon First Nations (Canada) and the Ndebele (South Africa). It consists of both historical and contemporary work from the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa as well as historical work from the MacBride Museum and contemporary work from the Yukon Territorial Government Permanent Art Collection both located in Whitehorse, Yukon. Eighty objects and artworks from these institutions will be on display. Beadwork - Radical Practices offers another way of understanding indigenous communities through the intersections of historical context, life experiences and social and cultural transformations. The exhibition provides an opportunity to explore both historical and contemporary beadwork as means of trying to understand the stories of two diverse indigenous cultures.

Learn more - download our exhibition notes .

Thursday, January 28, 2010

7-8:30pm
Curator's Tour
Scott Marsden
Curator of The Reach

South African High Commission
Ottawa, Canada

Fifteen Restless Nights by Derek Besant

 
The Great Hall
January 21 - March 21, 2010

Fifteen Restless Nights is a multi-media installation that incorporates large digital photographs of rumpled motel-room beds accompanied by music and an original soundtrack. This exhibition explores Derek Besant's impressions of fifteen nights spent over the course of one year in different motel rooms in different cities. Each morning Besant would photograph the unmade beds and record the rumpled sheets and pillows in what he calls "metaphoric landscapes". The digital photos show rumpled sheets and pillows, but they represent the "distances of intimacy" between each of us.