Aboriginal Art Turned Inside Out [Brian Jungen]

Brian Jungen, Variant 1, 2002The Tyee: Interview with conceptual artist Brian Jungen. “Jungen is half aboriginal and grew up in the middle of nowhere Fort St. John, so the odds of him making it to art school, let alone becoming a hit in the rarified art world, were slim. That’s until he started taking apart pairs of Nike Air Jordan basketball shoes and reassembling them into aboriginal ceremonial masks,” a project he started during a Banff Centre residency.

Indigenous Women in Leadership Forum receives federal funding

Canadian HeritageApril 11, 2005 The federal government announced $104,746 in funding for two projects which will serve Aboriginal women in Alberta. The Banff Centre for Continuing Education will receive $50,000 for the second annual Indigenous Women in Leadership Forum. The week-long event will offer participants practical experience in the areas of facilitation and team-building to help them develop strategies for financial self-reliance.

First native woman artist chosen to represent Canada at Venice Biennale is Banff Centre alumna


The Globe and Mail
(Page R1) — June 29, 2004.  

Anishnabe sculptor and performance artist Rebecca Belmore is the first native woman artist chosen to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale, “the world’s most prestigious art venue.” Her exhibition, for the June 2005 biennale, is curated by Scott Watson and Jann LM Bailey of the Kamloops Art Gallery.

At 44, Belmore is best known for Speaking to Their Mother, a 1991 outdoor performance with a two-metre-wide megaphone…. Beautiful in itself, the megaphone is also a mouthpiece that can be installed anywhere, from a windswept meadow in Banff, where Belmore created the work, to Parliament Hill, where it was used by the Assembly of First Nations to protest its exclusion from the 1996 first ministers conference.