Ociciwan Collective and Art Gallery of Alberta will present a two-person exhibition, A Parallel Excavation, of Duane Linklater and I's work in April, 2016.
From the AGA's description of the exhibition:
Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective has curated an exhibition of new works by internationally known artists Duane Linklater and Tanya Lukin Linklater at the Art Gallery of Alberta. The exhibition, featuring installation work by both artists, explores notions of excavation in relation to the intellectual, environmental and cultural resources most immediate to the artists.
Duane Linklater investigates the structure and materiality of the wall itself including gypsum, wood and steel, while considering the political implications of those materials as resources extracted in Canada. The connection of gypsum, wood and steel as supporting substances lying between the gallery’s institutional structure and its public becomes a site of mediation for Linklater. In his exploration of these materials the artist questions what is revealed during excavation: “How do we, as Indigenous artists articulate, disfigure or blur the outcomes of an excavation particularly in the gallery or museum space so we can see or sense the tones of certain relationships?”
Arriving at the Art Gallery of Alberta from a practice that engages with visual and performance languages, Tanya Lukin Linklater’s new sculptural work builds on the idea of the gallery itself, investigating this cultural institution as a site where critical modes of discourse may converge. Considering the complex relationships of Indigenous peoples and artists to institutions, museums and galleries, she excavates the Art Gallery of Alberta’s archival records. She offers this action as a considered gesture towards the conceptual spaces between Indigenous peoples, Indigenous art histories and museums that pose an open-ended question, how does the institution perform?
A Parallel Excavation: Duane Linklater & Tanya Lukin Linklater is curated by Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective.