Setting: land

Kevin Lee Burton, Kaoru Ryan Klatt, Kade Twist, and Anna Tsouhlarakis
February 6 - May 3, 2015

Organized and circulated by the Thunder Bay Art Gallery
This exhibition has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council through the Aboriginal Curatorial Projects and Ontario Touring Programs

Setting: land is an exhibition bringing together works by four artists - Kevin Lee Burton (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Kaoru Ryan Klatt (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Kade Twist (Phoenix, Arizona), and Anna Tsouhlarakis (Washington, DC). Through their video and installation-based artworks, each artist considers land as both a source of inspiration and a setting for enacting stories and experiences.

By examining variations of this theme, the artists in Setting: land each engage their work within different sites and locations through highly specific and speculative actions. For instance, Anna Tsouhlarakis's short videoNavagation (2002) depicts the artist walking blindfolded from her studio to her former residence in Maine, prodding her surroundings and placing trust in her own innate "Indian" sense of direction. In the videoNikamowin (Song) (2007), artist Kevin Lee Burton charts his own journey through various terrains through the narration of remixed Cree dialogue.

Kade Twist's positioning of present day phoenix in Our Land, Your Imagination: The Judeo-Christian Western Scientific Worldview and Phoenix (2008) provided a melancholic vision of a city that has been settled on indigenous land. In a place far more remote, but no less settled, Kaoru Ryan Klatt's Yulaska (2007) tells the story of a personal trip taken through the Yukon Territory and the state of Alaska towards the Arctic Circle which consciously blurs the boundary between fiction and reality. Together, the works in this exhibition open discussions about the various histories that have become lodged in the land and that continue to affect our lives in the present.

- Suzanne Morrissette, Curator

Image Credit: Kaoru Ryan Klatt, Yulaska (2007) installation shot, projection onto Tarn 3 tent, LED light, 27:15 min, Photo by Klaus Rossler.