Opening Reception | Thursday, July 12, 7-9pm

Head to the Contemporary Art Gallery and catch the new exhibit my auntie bought all her skidoos with bead money from alumna Jeneen Frei Njootli (2012).

Frei Njootli latest solo exhibition deals with significant personal and cultural heirlooms, but more than that, the works are an expression of boundaries and self-determination. Frei Njootli works with steel, grease paint, and her possessions to leave only impressions of the objects that inspired the exhibit, but the objects themselves are absent. This exhibit thwarts the voyeuristic museum model of display, asserting autonomy and ownership over cultural objects and asking questions of who has the right to experience them, and who experiences them just by virtue of being and living.

my auntie bought all her skidoos with bead money is a profound, beautiful, and haunting discussion of autonomy. It fights back against a world that constantly oversteps, takes, and demands. It shares on its own terms. It teaches. It gives only as much as it wants to. It is vulnerable, but strong. It tells a story that is too familiar to some and completely new to others. This exhibit casts power dynamics into the limelight while honouring the labour, time, and stories of creators. It talks about objects - what qualities they have intrinsically, what qualities they have connotatively, and the trajectory they have long after they are initially made.

A publication accompanying this exhibition, with commissioned texts by renowned Tsleil-Waututh writer Lee Maracle and emergent Cree poet and writer Billy-Ray Belcourt, winner of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize, will be launched Sunday, September 16, 2018 at 4:30pm.