“Musical works that cut across boundaries of visual art and performance to illuminate landscapes, their inhabitants, and histories.”
—MacArthur Stichting
In his first solo exhibition in Belgium, artist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Raven Chacon invites you to explore the stories that landscapes can tell. A carefully curated selection of four video works allows you to experience these stories with your whole body—from eyes and ears to mind and heart. They invite reflection on our journey through the world, our perception of time, and our place as human beings on this planet.
Gauge
The monumental video work Gauge welcomes you in the exhibition space. On three large screens, ice rocks painted with natural pigments appear and disappear on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Responding to natural forces of time and extreme temperatures, the landscape becomes a temporary canvas. Natural charcoal and food grade dyes are sprayed through fire extinguishers and other non-traditional art making tools on the monumental ice walls as the tides cause them to rise and fall upwards of ten meters. The mesmerizing visuals are supported by an audio soundtrack composed from hundreds of on-site field recordings of the shifting ice, wildlife, modern tools, and of the overwhelming harsh environment.
Rift Transcription
Earth Mother / Father Sky
Watȟéča :: Ch’iyáán Yiskáago
A second group of artworks, made in collaboration with fellow indigenous artists take us to the West Mesa outside of Albuquerque where the landscape is dominated by three volcanoes. It is located near Petroglyph National Monument, a site that is sacred to Native peoples, especially the Pueblo. The Pueblo’s history on the land is marked by glyphs on the rocks, which are believed to have been created by supernatural beings at the dawn of time, and which provide a link to the realm of ancestors and spirits.
In Rift Transcription, Raven Chacon is joined by his partner Candice Hopkins, a Carcross/Tagish First Nation curator and writer. Inspired by Sámi drums that also function as depictions of landscapes, the camera circles the two performers as Hopkins reads the horizon to map to the tempo of her drum.
Earth Mother / Father Sky captures a collaboration with Rob Thorne, a Ngāti Tumutumu/Tainui composer and anthropologist. Thorne performed on his wind instruments as the sun rose near his home in Oruaiti, Aotearoa (New Zealand), while Chacon did the same as the sun set in New Mexico, resulting in a beautifully meditative dual-channel work.
The third video titled Watȟéča :: Ch’iyáán Yiskáago documents a collaboration between Raven Chacon and Cannupa Hanska Luger, an artist of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lakota tribes. While Chacon manipulates dysfunctional electronics from his collection, Hanska Luger plays his own instrument-esque ceramic sculptures.
All in all, Chacon’s video installations are a testimony to his versatile practice in which he incessantly pays tribute to mother Earth, questioning our position as human beings on this planet and our responsibility as stewards of the land.
Curated by
Karen Verschooren
at STUK, Belgium
until December 15, 2024