When you walk into the Urban Shaman Gallery in the Exchange District in the next couple of weeks, you’ll be greeted by a wide array of pieces made from an even wider range of materials. Each of these materials has significance for its healing properties in the communities of the Metis artists who contributed to the gallery’s latest exhibit, aptly titled I’ll Share My Medicines.
For curator Jennifer Smith, the idea started with a line evoking the title in one of the exhibit’s most prominent pieces: a video called “Land Abuse” by Chanelle Lajoie.
“That line captivated me,” Smith recalls. “I kept thinking about it and came to this realization that I wanted to think about what medicines were, how we share them... the generosity of growing medicine, whether that’s actually physical medicines or plants or what it means to grow as people together and share in community.”
From there, Smith and Lajoie began talking about the artists that they felt had healing qualities and curated them into the first exclusively Metis show being hosted at the Urban Shaman Gallery in a number of years.
“Indigenous curators [are] very in relationship and conversation with the artists that we’re working with,” Smith explains, noting that the medium the artists use doesn’t affect that relationship or conversation in the slightest.
I’ll Share My Medicines features works by five Metis artists from Manitoba and beyond, including Lajoie, Claire Johnston, Holly Aubichon, Lynette La Fontaine, and Val T. Vint. The artists contributed everything from beadwork to video installations to woodwork, with bundles of medicines hanging on the walls overhead.
For Vint, participating in a group exhibition like this one allows for new dialogues and understandings about medicines. “There were many conversations that way,” she says. “What you call medicine and what I call medicine maybe aren’t the same things... but that’s part of getting to know somebody, too.”
One of the most striking parts of I’ll Share My Medicines is in the centre of the gallery, where Vint has set up a table and chairs (what she calls the “deadly aunties room”). Over the table is a hanging of the moon shining through a window that Vint created and paired with a story about the moon’s healing powers for Metis women that she had written previously. The moon shines over dolls that were made by her sister, Giselle Legiehn, one of several other artists who had a small hand in contributing to the exhibition. “We both [collected] pockets full of interesting things as we were kids and come home and make something out of it,” smiles Vint, “It’s just a part of our lives.”
“[Vint] really wanted to create basically her living room or, you know, dining room here to be a place where we visited, created together,” adds Smith, noting that the “deadly aunties room” also features art by Vint’s grandchildren and has hosted several public participation events where visitors can create things like wall pockets alongside the artists.
“It’s a celebration of our people,” Smith says. “It’s not just a celebration of the people whose work is in the exhibition.”
I’ll Share My Medicines runs at the Urban Shaman Gallery until June 12. For more information and for gallery hours, visitors are encouraged to visit the gallery’s website.