Jun 7, 2023

Performing photographs

Rebecca Belmore recreates and reimagines past performances in a series of photographs on view at the AGO.

By Khadra Ahmed
An image from Rebecca Belmore's nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations)

Rebecca Belmore. nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), keeper, 2017. inkjet print, Overall: 106.7 × 142.2 cm (42 × 56 in.). Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift of the artist, 2022. © Rebecca Belmore 2022/7162

A series of photographs by Rebecca Belmore keeps the night of October 1, 2016, alive at the AGO. That night, the acclaimed multidisciplinary Anishinaabe artist performed Clay on Stone (2016), as part of the AGO’s contribution to Nuit Blanche Toronto. During this twelve-hour performance, Belmore created an abstract clay painting on the floors of the AGO’s Walker Court. While the clay has long been washed away, visitors can now experience a snapshot of this moment through a series of photographs on view in The J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous + Canadian Art, located on Level 2 of the AGO in the Wilder Gallery (galleries 227 and 228).

Clay on Stone is revisited and reimagined in a photograph titled keeper (2017). In it, Belmore’s sister Florene is shown seated on the floor in a pool of clay and placed beside her is one of the same buckets Belmore used in the AGO performance. Florene tenderly washes a dry, cracked ground with a clay-covered rag. This photograph and its title speak to how Indigenous women contain the knowledge to care for, as Belmore phrases it, “a parched earth.”  keeper is one of five photographs in Belmore’s series nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations) (2017-2018). A recent addition to the AGO Collection, this series is inspired by some of her most impactful performances, with some photographs taken 15 to 20 years after they first were performed. 

The five photographs, keeper (2017), mother (2018), matriarch (2018), witness (2017), and madonna (2017), are windows into singular moments of Belmore’s past performances, continuing her powerful depictions of the social and political realities of Indigenous communities. Featuring her sister in each of them, this series explores the beauty and power of Indigenous womanhood, as well as the contemporary personal and political issues they face. 

An image from Rebecca Belmore's nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations)

Rebecca Belmore. nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), madonna, 2017. inkjet print, Overall: 142.2 × 106.7 cm (56 × 42 in.). Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift of the artist, 2022. © Rebecca Belmore 2022/7159

mother features Florene posed on a grey tarp behind two ice blocks, a haunting expression on her face. Her hand is gently placed on one of the blocks as if she’s waiting by a window for someone to come home. This photograph is inspired by Belmore’s performance freeze (2006), where Belmore carved the surname Stonechild into a block of ice in honour of Neil Stonechild, a 17-year-old Saulteaux First Nations boy left to freeze to death on the outskirts of Saskatoon by police officers, a victim of a practice called “starlight tours.” While Freeze was dedicated to Stonechild, Belmore explained to Wanda Nanibush, AGO Curator, Indigenous Art, in an interview for Aperture that mother is a work created for Indigenous women who have lost their sons to this violence.

An image from Rebecca Belmore's nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations)

Rebecca Belmore. nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), mother, 2018. inkjet print, Overall: 106.7 × 142.2 cm (42 × 56 in.). Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift of the artist, 2022. © Rebecca Belmore 2022/7163

“I was thinking about Neil Stonechild and his family,” she explained, “Especially his mother, who lost her son to this horrible death… In mother, I am trying to create an image that speaks to Stonechild’s mother, but also to the experience of many mothers.”

witness was born from Belmore’s performance Vigil (2002), which she performed in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at an intersection where Indigenous, transgender, and Two-Spirit people have been abducted. This performance was partly a response to Robert Pickton, a serial killer who was active in the area and responsible for the murders of 26 women, the names of which Belmore wrote on her arms for the performance. At the end of the performance, Belmore changed into a red dress and hammered nails through the dress onto a poll, eventually ripping herself free. This exact moment is recreated in witness in which Florene is photographed mid-struggle with arms similarly covered in names, the scene representing Belmore’s imagining of how the women tried to fight for their lives. 

An image from Rebecca Belmore's nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations)

Rebecca Belmore. nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), witness, 2017. inkjet print, Overall: 142.2 × 106.7 cm (56 × 42 in.). Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift of the artist, 2022. © Rebecca Belmore 2022/7161

Although nindinawemaganidog is based on past performances, the series is a completely unique work in itself. Belmore archives her past performances while newly situating viewers to the topics explored in her work. Given the site-specific and temporary nature of performance art, Belmore uses nindinawemaganidog to re-approach her original work from a new space and perspective, examining how topics explored in her past performance art have both evolved and remained extremely relevant in our current social and political climate. 

An image from Rebecca Belmore's nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations)

Rebecca Belmore. nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), matriarch, 2018. inkjet print, Overall: 142.2 × 106.7 cm (56 × 42 in.). Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift of the artist, 2022. © Rebecca Belmore 2022/7160

Re-visiting past performances through a different medium, performance is still a key aspect of how Belmore understands photography. She explained to Nanibush: “If the model is facing away from you, you know they’re looking to something, and you’re looking at them looking, which adds a performative aspect to the image. Because that’s what, as a performance artist, I’ve always been aware of—being watched. You create your own visual space, and then the photographs re-create the performer who is being watched but refusing the gaze.”

Get a glimpse into Belmore’s performance repertoire and see her impactful re-imaginings through nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), on view now in The J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous + Canadian Art, located on Level 2 of the AGO in galleries 227 and 228.

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