An inquiry into the history of the land that the Fine Arts Gallery of the University of Alberta occupies, assisted by gallery visitors.
I was invited to participate in the Institution of Knowledge exhibition after co-organizer Natalie Loveless came to see Bodies in the Land, a week-long performance that I did at The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas in September 2022. In that work I read aloud accounts of 19th century deaths in Benton County, Arkansas. Natalie was particularly interested in the way that I engaged the public who came to see the work. I had not read the material in advance, so when I came across something that I didn’t understand, I asked the audience if they knew what it meant, or if they could look it up on their cell phones and tell us. Conversations ensued about what I was reading.
Preliminary preparation in Edmonton: I scheduled a February 2023 site visit to Edmonton, and in advance I did some general reading about the area. I read a history of the first 50 years of the University of Alberta. I read some general histories of Edmonton, a 1972 history of Indigenous education in Canada, and began to read the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
I spent a week in Edmonton, meeting local participants of the project, and talking with Natalie Loveless about the general concept and plans for the exhibition. I had a whirlwind week, going to galleries and museums, meeting with students, local artists and university professors to learn about their work and research.
I also spent time in the FAB gallery so that I could chose a space for my performance. I selected a space on the ground floor that had windows facing the street. But really it was the tree outside the window that invited me to choose that location – a tree that in February was without leaves, trapped between slabs of concrete, its branches spread open across the gallery windows, as if looking in.
Interim preparation: I returned to Boston to think about how to design a performance about learning that included, in some way, talking with the public. Meanwhile, I continued reading the TRC report, the report of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, a memoir of an early British Christian missionary in Alberta, Dan Kennedy’s Recollections of an Assiniboine Chief. I also read essays by University of Alberta professors: Indigenous Métissage by Donald Dwayne; Edmonton, Amiskwaciy Wâskahikan, and a Papaschase suburb for settlers by Rob Shields, Kieran Moran and Dianne Gillespie; and Treaties Made in Good Faith by Sharon Venne. It was at this stage that I learned that the University was built on reserve land taken by the settlers from the Papaschase Cree.
Designing the performance: Since in the past I had done performances where I have read books aloud to the public, and others where I had engaged viewers in conversations on specific topics, I wanted to design a different structure, a different focus for the performance. The question that I wanted to focus on was about learning, ways of learning.
My initial foray into learning about Edmonton depended on books that were recommended, that I found online and discovered in the used bookstores of Edmonton. But the more I read, the more I recognized how little I knew. It was not possible for me to make a performance in which I provided information to the public. I did not possess the knowledge, nor did I have enough time to acquire it.
And with that thought, I realized that I was asking the wrong question. I recognized that I was starting with the common assumption that as the performer I should function as an authority and impart insights. But that was not possible in this context: I am a stranger to Edmonton, to Alberta, to Canada. I am a white settler from the United States. I know little of the place or of the country. I had no knowledge to deliver. I really could only learn. Out of that realization came the design of the work, which was deceptively simple.
As people came down the ramp into my section of the gallery they saw a wall text that stated:
I have read about this place and its history,
but I know that it is incomplete.
I know so much has been ignored or overlooked.
I am here to learn.
I am here to engage in other ways of learning,
and I am hoping that you might join me,
so that we can learn from each other.
About here.
Above that text was the title Learning Here with my name, and to the right of that were additional names, hand-inscribed, of the audience members who participated. Later the names of the artists who filled in for me during the final two weeks were added below mine.
Once people arrived into my section of the gallery, I asked them if they would talk with me and tell me what they knew about this place in which we were. It was a very open-ended question, and different people understood it differently – meaning what they knew about the gallery, or about the university, or the city, or the country.
I had a table full of books and articles that considered the history of the location, from its geological formation to current times. All volumes of the TRC report were there, as well as articles on indigenous rights, a reprint of an 1891 publication of Canada Indian Treaties and Surrenders, and government reports on policies determining relations with the indigenous people of the territories from the 19th century to the present.
When my section of the gallery had no visitors, I read aloud from these books and articles that were on the table. My voice could be heard into other parts of the gallery, where people were viewing other works in the exhibition.
Performance challenges: The challenge for me, as a performer, was to be aware of where a person’s attention took them, to find questions that might open the conversation further and let them speak to what they knew and what they wanted to tell me about the place. I was not interested in engaging in superficial conversations, but rather wanted to hear about significant experiences that people had had, and the knowledge that they had gained from them.
Often additional people arrived, and so I needed to welcome and include the newcomers, introducing them to who was there and what we were engaged in discussing, to fold them into the conversation so that it expanded to include the knowledge and interests that the newcomers brought to it. Finally, paying attention to the arc of energy and interest, I had to choose when to bring the conversation to a close.
The duration of the performance – five hours a day for two weeks, required a level of focus that is not easy to sustain. Fortunately, the presence of the public ebbed and flowed in the gallery, providing natural breaks for reading aloud, and also resulted in smaller groups for conversations.
Shared ownership: No two conversations were alike, in subject matter or dynamics. While I initiated the conversation, the participants determined the direction. In that respect, the participants owned the experience as much as I did. And for that reason, I asked participants to add their names to the gallery wall, listing them next to mine. We made the performance together. The written accounts by participants reveal the range of topics that we discussed.
The exhibition was open for two weeks longer than I was in Edmonton, and so I invited a group of artists who had taken a workshop with me to sit in for me in the gallery. Eight different people filled in, sitting and talking with gallery visitors about what they knew about the place, and reading aloud from the books when they were alone. They also wrote about their experience of performing this interactive work. As additional performers, their names were officially added to the wall text: Rémy Bocquillon, Beau Coleman, Yelena Gluzman, Justine Kohleal, Sha Labare, Natalie Loveless, Banafsheh Mohammadi, and Eszter Rosta. They too share ownership in the work.
What did I learn? While I framed the experience, with the subject matter of the books on the table as well as my initial question, this was a work that was completely open to the dynamics and interests of the individuals who sat with me. It was an exercise of giving away control. I had to continually find ways to hold the performance with open arms.
I am deeply curious about what people find important in their lives, how they situate themselves in a place, and in relation to other people. We don’t often have the opportunity to engage in extended conversations with strangers. I learned yet again how nuanced and unique each person really is. There is no real way to generalize about people – all the value is in the minute differences that make them individuals. I learned a myriad of details about peoples’ lives in Edmonton. This kind of performance is an opportunity to be reminded of what makes humans endlessly fascinating.
My only disappointment was the fact that the people who visit the university gallery, especially when school is not in session, is limited to a small subset of the population of Edmonton. My audience was primarily artists and academics from the white settler community, with only a few exceptions. There is more that I might have learned from local people who know other histories of the place.
The tree: The tree outside the gallery window is a crabapple tree. Amazingly, it burst into bloom just as the exhibition opened, with a lush expanse of deep red blossoms outside the windows, its branches knocking at the glass in the wind. The presence of the tree was the anchor of the performance. Despite the harsh conditions of being surrounded by cement, it has nevertheless survived and continues to grow and flourish.
