Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation
Currently based in Albuquerque NM

American Ledger (No. 1)
2018
Vinyl banner
Collection of the Artist

For many players with sustaining and percussive instruments, voices, coins, axe and wood, a police whistle, and a match.
For at least 13 minutes.
For any number of musicians with any number of non-musicians.
Each line is a minute or longer.

Line 1 is for both percussive and bendable tones.
Line 2 begins with a warbly long tone crossfading into waves of harmonic or dynamic increases. X = chop wood.
Line 3 is for police whistle(s). Other instruments may join.
Line 4 is for coins to be thrown. Two instruments may accompany.
Line 5 is a line.
Line 6 is a grand decelerando ending with the striking of a match.
Line 7 is for acknowledging groupings of 5's and 4's. Chop wood.
End with everyone and everything.

Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation; Santa Fe NM
Currently based in Albuquerque NM; San Francisco CA

A Song Often Played on the Radio
2018
Ink, graphite, earth, blood and wine on archival paper, digital video
24 min. (total duration)
Collection of the Artists

PART ONE
A score is displayed: unfurled near present-day Los Alamos and what the Spanish conquistadors thought to be the fabled “Cibola” or the Seven Cities of Gold.

PART TWO
A short film is played: sharing surrealistic, true and mythological stories of knowledge, wisdom and time from New Mexico told through local Hispano dialects and Indigenous languages.

(Haudenosaunee-Métis-Cantonese descent; Bear Clan)

Burnaby BC, Unceded Territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations 1977

Currently based in Kingston ON, Haudenosaunee, Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, and Wendake-Nionwentsïo Territory

Walking Ohénton Karihwatéhkwen
(walking + words before all else)
2018
Audio tour
With Adria Kurchina-Tyson and Nathan Thanyehténhas Brinklow
Collection of the Artist

PART ONE
A tracklist is offered here.
Pick up an audio player at the Admissions Desk.

For this presentation at the Kamloops Art Gallery, the first statement is in Secwepemctsín, the language of our hosts in Secwepemcúl̓ecw.

(Coast Salish-Sahtu Dene-Scottish)
Galiano Island BC, unceded Penelakut, Lamalcha, and Hwlitsum Territories / ceded territories of the Tsawwassen First Nation, 1990
Currently based in Tkaronto, Mississaugas of the Credit, Hodinöhsö:ni’, Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, and Wendake-Nionwentsïo Territory

through, between oceans part 2
2020
Beaded fishing net
Collection of the Artist

(Secwépemc)
Kamloops, BC
Currently based in Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc

Land and Language
2021
Installation
Commissioned by the Kamloops Art Gallery
Collection of the Artist

Forming an exterior score for the exhibition Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, presented at the Kamloops Art Gallery April 24 to July 3, 2021, this project by Garry Gottfriedson serves as a land acknowledgement for these territories.

The score contains a poem, Land and Language, translated to the language of this land, Secwepemcstín, by Elder Flora Sampson and Dr. Janice Dick-Billy, and a sound recording of the poem read in English by Garry Gottfriedson and in Secwepemcstín by Dr. Janice Dick-Billy, heard from speakers above.

The poem in both languages surrounds the shape of an elk hide with a painted pictograph in the centre, recreated from an image on a rock in this region. As Gottfriedson’s poem describes, this visual language shares ancestral stories written on rock and passed down through oral tradition. The image links the sky, land, and human figure, speaking to the interconnection of Secwepémc people to the celestial realm and the Earth.

The traditional language, Secwepemcstín, is likewise connected to the land and its people, marking a geography of harvest and sustenance. Traditional place names for this region point to important areas of water and sources of food. The shape of the elk hide, the rich red colour of the paint and deep brown background of this installation affirm the traditionally inseparable relationship between the land and people and how the language was born of this connection.

Hodinohso:ni’ (Skaru:ręˀ, Kanien’keha:ka) & Settler (German, English)
St. Catharines ON, Onguiaahra traditional territory of the Hodinohso:ni’, Chonnonton, Anishnaabeg 1985

arrangements for rotations - rotations for collections - collections for sounds - sounds for light - light for transformations - transformations for arrangements - using only found materials of significance create an /object - collection - tool/ to / mark > absorb > reflect > refract > witness > carry > light + sound of your surroundings - between the shortest day and the longest night + the day that is equal to the night - between the day that is equal to the night + the longest day and the shortest night - between the longest day and the shortest night + the day that is equal to the night - between the day that is equal to the night + the shortest day and the longest night
2020
Second-hand curtains (from artist’s house dyed using kitchen compost materials, avocado pits + onion skins), copper, found colour gradient paper, found metal cylinders, thread, cord, wooden box, modified found plastic, metal, glass, fabric, paper objects salvaged, collected, modified, found metal, glass, brass, copper and crystal, materials collected from my living spaces, from second-hand economic sources, found by the artist’s children on walks around the city, glass from light fixtures of previous occupants of the artist’s home
Commissioned by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
Collection of the Artist

in exhibition spaces rotate /object-collection-tool/ based on these cycles of light > that which correspond to beyond the current season will be presented > that which corresponds to the current season will not be displayed as it is activated elsewhere > in personal spaces rotate /object-collection-tool/ based on these cycles of light > that which correspond to the current season will be activated> that which does not correspond to the current season will not be stored elsewhere

(Oglala Sioux Tribe)
Sylmar CA 1990
Currently based in Tulsa OK

Lakota-Sys (L-Sys), Listener
2018
Digital video with stereo sound
17 min. 25 sec. (total duration)
Collection of the Artist

A video is played. Lakota-Sys (L-Sys) is a visual interface which guides Listener, a science fiction story about a woman wandering alone in the future, receiving transmissions from the Far Place on her listening devices. How can Lakota understandings affect the design of technology? What does a Lakota data-visualizing interface look like?

(Canadian, Hakka Chinese origin)
George Town, Malaysia 1967
Currently based in Vancouver BC, Unceded Territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations

Crowd Shyness: the sound of its making
2020
Hollowed cedar stump, drum head, hardware, resin
Commissioned by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, 2021

On rainy days, set it outside to receive the rain. Play along if you wish, letting the rain take the lead.

At the invitation of the Belkin, Germaine Koh worked with Gallery staff during Summer 2020 to develop COVID-19 safety and visitor interaction protocols that recognized the importance of collective care and teamwork.

She installed a number of cedar tree stumps on site to indicate physical distancing stations, guided by the metaphor of crown shyness —the phenomenon by which trees grow with distinct spaces between themselves, to avoid spreading pests and damaging each other. In the context of COVID, the human equivalent is “crowd shyness”—keeping one’s distance as a form of conscious citizenship. Now, for Soundings, Koh has adapted one of the cedar stumps to give it voice, by hollowing it and fitting it with a drum head that will sound when it is left out in the rain, amplifying the voice of this material.

(Secwépemc)
Splatsin, Secwepemcúl̓ecw, 1989
Currently based in Armstrong, BC, Secwépemc Territory

7⟨ʔ⟩: Reciprocity Values
2021
video installation
Commissioned by the Kamloops Art Gallery
Collection of the Artist

This work builds on Aaron Leon’s explorations of time, light, and wavelength. Drawing on early photography and using an additive process, Leon’s imagery plays with layers of red, green, and blue light in the image, shifting the reciprocity values to create different light effects. The videos appear as fixed yet subtly moving images, reflecting our engagement with the land.

“I set up the camera and the land does the rest through collaboration. I allow the land to retake itself from the ‘landscape.’ What happens to our relationship to the land if we feel it has its own autonomy, its own sentience? How will our relationship with it change? How do we engage in our own values of reciprocity with the land?

The accompanying audio track is a result of recordings while in the field, of wind, of the landscape, what it was telling me. I was also thinking about my work in language and our goal to document our dialect in Splatsin, and how language evolves because of the land. The audio track shares my grandmother’s words in Secwepemcstín and English. 

These words come from the dictionary as a form of how we learn now, how we have adapted our learnings from the land to learning in a Western context. The words focus on the glottal stop found in our language, something that isn’t found regularly in the English language. This glottal stop is represented by the number 7 or ⟨ʔ⟩ in the international phonetic alphabet. Originally, there were no characters for glottal stop on the typewriter so a 7 was used instead.”

(Alutiiq/Sugpiaq)
Kodiak AK, Homeland and territory of the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people 1976
Currently based in North Bay ON, Nbisiing Anishnaabeg Territory

We wear one another
2019
Digital video installation
30 min. (total duration)
Collection of the Artist

Excerpts of text composed by the artist, Tanya Lukin Linklater, in relation to a Mackenzie Delta Inuvialuit gut-skin parka, held in the Hudson’s Bay Company Collection at the Manitoba Museum.

The gut-skin parka and text were installed on specially fabricated plinths at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre for Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson. The gut-skin parka became a score for a performance that the artist developed with dancers, Ceinwen Gobert and Danah Rosales, and composer/musician, Laura Ortman, through an open-rehearsal process.

This new performance, We wear one another, was presented at the Ka’tarohkwi Festival of Indigenous Arts at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts on 24 March 2019.

Representing The Ogimaa Mikana Project, Susan Blight (Anishinaabe,Couchiching) and Hayden King (Anishinaabe, Gchi'mnissing)

Never Stuck
2018
Vinyl banner
Collection of the Artists
Produced as a part of Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, on view at the Kamloops Art Gallery April 24 to July 3, 2021.

Never Stuck
2018
Vinyl transfer, artist booklet
Collection of the Artists

PART ONE
A score is displayed.

On Facebook recently, Niizhoosake Sherry Copenace (Anishinaabe, Onigaming) wrote, “As Anishinaabe we have been given our way of life to solve and get thru any situation. Anishinaabe is not ever stuck.” These profoundly philosophical words articulate Anishinaabeg resistance and adaptation. They convey a confidence that our language and epistemologies have sustained us before, during, and long after colonization.

For this presentation at the Kamloops Art Gallery, the first statement is in Anishinaabemowin, the language of the artist-guest, and the second is in Secwepemctsín, the language of our hosts, the T'K̓emlúps te Secwépemc, whose home territory is here in Secwepemcúl̓ecw.

(Tahltan-French)
Prince George BC, Dënéndeh, Dakeł Keyoh (ᑕᗸᒡ ᗲᘏᑋ), Lheidli T'enneh Territory 1977
Currently based in Tkaronto, Mississaugas of the Credit, Hodinöhsö:ni’, Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, and Wendake-Nionwentsïo Territory

NDN Love Songs
2018
Vinyl transfer, digital video
With Navarana Igloliorte
Collection of the Artist

PART ONE
A score of instructions to musicians is presented alongside seven video portraits.

PART TWO
Recordings of previous performances are added to the video portraits.

PART THREE
Parmela Attariwala performs the score on violin.

(xʷməθkʷəy̓əm | Musqueam); (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm | Musqueam)
Vancouver BC 1994; Vancouver BC 1962
Both currently based in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory

wəɬ m̓ i ct q̓pəθət tə ɬniməɬ
2020
Cedar, paint
Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, 2021

PART ONE
Four paddles (2020) arrive, one at a time, in the gallery suggesting a growing gathering over the course of the exhibition.

PART TWO
The paddles rest on a backdrop of land, sea and sky, drawn from imagery on banners that move in the wind at the University of British Columbia, in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory.

“This visual display is an act of communication between two communities, an abstract representation of cultural significance in Salish tradition, and symbolizes a journey of healing.”
~ Diamond Point

(Inupiaq)
I live and work on lands of Sugpiat and Dena'ina peoples.

Qutaaŋuaqtuit: Dripping Music
2018
Digital video
14 min. 07 sec. (total duration)
With Miranda Ramnares
Collection of the Artist

A video is played. The artist performs a classical score by George Rochberg, Caprice Variations for solo violin (1973), overlaid with Inupiaq words, interpreting each variation and claiming name to Alaska Native belongings from the Agnes Etherington Art Centre's collection. Placed in relation to Rochberg's Caprice Variations, different systems of cultural knowledge and production are brought into dialogue with one another.

(Skarù:ręˀ - maternal / Kanien’kehá:ka)Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory 1963
Currently based in Tkaronto, Mississaugas of the Credit, Hodinöhsö:ni’, Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, and Wendake-Nionwentsïo Territory

Do’-gah - I don’t know [shrugging shoulders]
2020
Archival canvas matte print, oil, earth, indian tobacco ash
edition 1 of 3
Indigenous Art Collection, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada

If the Hodinöhsö:ni’ perception of monument relies on the good mind, and if our values are realized in the daily recitation of the Ganö:nyök [Thanksgiving Address], which places our minds, bodies and footsteps in creation, countervailing trauma, can this process itself then be seen as monument?

Land is the Hodinöhsö:ni’ monument for where we place our feet. Earth is where we remember. To sustain the integrity of the good mind and cultural safety when dealing with trans communal relations, it is imperative that I remain hyper-vigilant that misinformation is assimilation.

Our ways to remembering are dependent on the ability to express our values in relation to the Land and its truth. It is with this in mind that I created Do’-gah, a multi-layered response and relational strategy brought forward from my on-reserve lived experience.

Do-gah - I don’t know [shrugging shoulders] is a performative gestural mnemonic work whose source comes from my grade school Mohawk lesson handouts and the word/gesture as experienced within my community. The viewer is requested to perform all 60 phrases with and without the gestured shrugging. Carrying many levels of meaning, the work speaks to a systemic forgetting, lateral violence and trauma.

Do’-gah
1. I do know, but I refuse to tell you, just for today.

Do’-gah
2. I need to remind you, that you can’t know everything.

Do’-gah
3. I don’t know, and because you asked me and expect a detailed answer, I feel shame and anger at once for the irony of the colonial systemic deficits and for your extractive expectation of presumed knowledge.

Do’-gah
4. I don’t know, and I refuse to find out for you.

Do’-gah
5. I’ve heard you, and will think about it. Time and reflection for considered response of what I shall tell you on my own time and to ensure cultural safety.

Do’-gah
6. I do know, and I need to tell you the protocols of our relations moving forward.

Do’-gah
7. I don’t know - my language.

Do’-gah

(Anishinaabe)
b. Peterborough ON, Mississauga Anishinaabe Territory 1991
Currently based on Chemong Lake, Mississauga Anishinaabe Territory

Strata
2018
11/0 Miyuki Seedbeads, jar, bottles, metal plinth and shelf, audio recording
Collection of the Artist

PART ONE
Drop beads into the jar. Listen to the layering of colours.

PART TWO
Once filled to the brim, the jar of beads is delivered to the artist to make into a single piece, following the layers as a pattern. Bead echoes remain in the gallery.

PART THREE
Beadwork from the previous exhibitions return to the gallery, resounding together. Touch and listen.

(Secwépemc)
Kamloops BC, Secwepemcúl̓ecw
Currently based on Neskonlith Indian Reserve, Secwépemc Territory

Surrounded/Surrounding
2018
Wood burning fire ring, laser etched leather, wood, vinyl transfer
Collection of the Artist

PART ONE
A score and fire ring is displayed.

PART TWO
Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa performs the score.

PART THREE
New Orchestra Workshop Society Ensemble performs the score.

PART FOUR
A procession takes place between the Agnes Etherington Art Gallery, and the Four Directions Indigenous Student Centre. During the procession Jeneen Frei Njootli performs the score. The fire ring is gifted to the Four Directions Indigenous Student Centre. A fire is lit.

PART FIVE
A new fire ring is created. Students perform the score.

PART SIX
Alysha Brilla performs the score outside of the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery.

PART SEVEN
Melody Courage performs the score and is filmed at UBC School of Music for the exhibition at the Morris and Helen Belkin Galley (UBC).

PART EIGHT
Fire Ring is moved to BUSH Gallery on Neskonlith Indian Reserve. A fire is lit.