One of the most prevalent species of the globe-spanning swallow, the barn swallow has adapted and thrived by using human-made structures to nest and breed in, thus growing in number with human expansion. Keeping this in mind, the spread and adaptation of this bird speaks volumes about human populations, their migratory patterns, and the inevitable cross pollination of ideas, references, and contexts.
Devin Troy Strothers, A Black Joan Jonas in, "Nigga I'm a coyote", 2012, acrylic, paper collage on canvas
Translated into the visual realm as the unifying theme for Artspeak's three-person group exhibition this ubiquitous bird speaks to a form of visual hybridity. While hybridity itself is a complicated and loaded term, specifically in the context of colonial disturbances of balance and power, the commingling of disparate influences come to a head in Barn Swallows.
The histories of Coast Salish cosmology intertwine with Modernist formal preoccupations in the sculptures and paintings by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. The silkscreened collages by Caroline Monnett question how an image can subvert, if not create new realities and cultural identity. In her Anomalia series, each collage print consists of found photographs of varying gradations and textures, creating a world within a world, exploring the creation, destruction, and reconstruction of identity making.
Similarly, the small and dynamic wall works by Devin Troy Strother are damning and sarcastic interventions into the visual representation of race and vernacular language in art history and language. In A Black Joan Jonas in, "Nigga I'm a coyote", multiple layers of meaning are at play in bringing to mind the vernacular use of coyote signifying a person who smuggles immigrants into America and to some degree, the coyote in the form of the trickster in popular Native American mythology stories.
As a series of works and images that are a conflation of multiple histories, yet belong to no one in particular, Barn Swallows speaks to the unsettling convergence of realities and representations into a new world order.
Artspeak: http://artspeak.ca/
Barn Swallows continues until March 29.
Amy Fung is a writer and organizer who publishes nationally and internationally in journals, magazines, catalogues, and monographs in print and online. She is the Programs Manager at Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society and her ongoings can be found at POSTpacificPOST.com and on Twitter @anotheramyfung. She is Akimblog's Vancouver correspondent.
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Barn Swallows at Artspeak
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