© 2024 Barry Pottle. All Rights Reserved.
Design Concept: The L. Project (www.thelproject.ca)
IMAGE: Shelby Lisk for Central Art Garage. OO7 COLLECTIVE: The History of the “Ottawa Ontario Seven” Indigenous artists collective archived on www.barryacearts.com In the Spring of 2012 a group of four Ottawa-based Indigenous artists gathered at a local cafe. The artists were Barry Ace, Rosalie Favell, Leo Yerxa and Ron Noganosh and the…
Barry Ace,Leo Yerxa,OO7 Collective,Ottawa,Ron Noganosh,Rosalie Favell
EXHIBITION: ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras at the Esker Foundation ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / AMONG ALL THESE TUNDRAS is currently exhibiting at the Esker Foundation in Calgary, Alberta. Curated by Heather Igloliorte, Amy Prouty and Charissa von Harringa, the exhibition, which features “contemporary art by Indigenous artists from around the circumpolar world,”…
Among All These Tundras,Amy Prouty,Calgary,Charissa von Harringa,Concordia University,Esker Foundation,Heather Igloliorte,Leanne Simpson,Montreal,OCAD U,Ontario University of Art and Design University,Sámi,Toronto
Barry Pottle’s Awareness Series, a suite of contemporary Inuit photographs recently acquired to the AGH permanent collection, considers two contrasting depictions of Inuit identity. Pottle probes the fraught history of the Eskimo Identification Tag System, which saw Canadian federal authorities issue tag numbers and corresponding identification discs to all Inuit in the Western and Eastern Arctic from the 1940s to 1970s. The 19 photograph series contrasts images of the numbered discs, and portraits of individuals (all friends, community members, and colleagues of the artist) who were, at one time, enrolled in the disc system. While these individuals may have varying opinions regarding this former government initiative, their shared experience brings awareness to a moment in recent history not commonly known or discussed in context of greater Canadian culture.
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Art Gallery of Hamilton,Awareness Series,Eskimo Identification Tag System,Inuit
Photography remains an underdeveloped art form among the Canadian Inuit, at least in comparison to stone-carving, drawing and printmaking. Certainly Inuit artists have used photographs as source images for, say, their drawings. But as a medium in and of itself, it has attracted far fewer professional practitioners, Cape Dorset’s Jimmy Manning being perhaps the most salient example.
It’s therefore something of a salutary surprise to see Ottawa-based Barry Pottle’s Awareness Series at Toronto’s Feheley Fine Arts, one of the country’s longest-running purveyors of fine Inuit art. Not only is the series an exhibition of colour photographs, 19 in total, the ensemble has a decidedly conceptual/historical underpinning, rather than being a potpourri of depictions of the Arctic landscape and contemporary Inuit culture.
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Awareness Series,Cape Dorset,Feheley Fine Arts,Inuit,Jimmy Manning
Barry Pottle, from Nunatsiavut but now living in Ottawa, gave an artist talk during the opening. He offered a few words on his experience speaking to the Inuit whose tags and faces he photographed (see YouTube link below). He also discussed his experience in speaking with fellow Inuit about these tags, finding both positive and negative reaction. The exhibition, was originally part of the travelling exhibition entitled ‘Decolonize Me’ is both informative and provocative.
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Awareness,Eskimo Identification Tag System,Feheley Fine Arts,Inuit,Nunatsiavut,Toronto
