VWIM Storytelling Programming

By Dana Claxton

This short documentary serves as a portrait of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, one of Canada’s most important painters. We meet him at the Bisley Rifle Range in Surrey, England, where he’s literally shooting the Indian Act in a performance piece called “An Indian Shooting the Indian Act.” It’s in protest of the ongoing effects of the Act’s legislation on Indigenous people. We then follow him back to Canada, for interviews with the artist and a closer look at his work.

Dana Claxton is a critically acclaimed international exhibiting artist. She works in film, video, photography, single and multi- channel video installation, and performance art. Her practice investigates indigenous beauty, the body, the socio-political and the spiritual. Her work has been shown internationally at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), Walker Art Centre (Minneapolis, MN), Sundance Film Festival, Salt Lake City (UT), Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis (IN) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, AU), Cyrstal Bridges (Bentonville, AR), with exhibitions at Nasher Gallery of Art at Duke University (Durham, NC), Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (TN) and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Minneapolis (MN). Read More…

CIBOLA: Seven Cities of Gold

VWIM Storytelling Programming / By Jamie Schulze

WATCH CIBOLA: SEVEN CITIES OF GOLD

A film by Jamison Chas Banks

1864- NEW MEXICO TERRITORY: While the Civil War rages in the east, a Confederate renegade embarks on a mythic trail of stolen Union gold. Rival bounty hunters vie to claim the riches and the Red Rebel’s scalp. There is no law here, but the law of man.
It is a time of GOLD.
It is a time of CIBOLA.

Performed by Jamison C. Banks, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Keith Secola, Garnett Thompson, August Walker, Leahi Kekahuna Mayfield, Marty Two Bulls, Cole Bee Wilson and Mark Herndon.
Co-Directed by Daniel Augustin Grignon.
Photography by Cameron Tafoya.
A Syndicate Production

Jamison Chas Banks is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates films, paintings, performances, and installations. His works often explore the history of war and territorial expansion, both literal and psychological. Banks appropriates and alters symbols employed in propaganda and popular culture and redeploys them in contexts that subvert their original meanings.

VISIT: JAMISON CHAS BANKS WEBSITE

SWAIA Artist Spotlight: Eugene Tapahe Art Heals, The Jingle Dress Project

VWIM Storytelling Programming / By Jamie Schulze

Eugene Tapahe

Watch: Art Heals, The Jingle Dress Project

ART HEALS: THE JINGLE DRESS PROJECT

Our project originated from a dream to unite the beauty of the land and the healing power of the jingle dance during these uncertain times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The origin of the jingle dance to the Ojibwe people happened during the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. It came as a dream to a father whose daughter was sick with the virus. His dream revealed the new dress and dance that had the power to heal. When the dresses were made, they were given to four women to perform the dance. When the little girl heard the sound of the jingles, she became stronger. By the end of the night she was dancing too. Our dream is to take this healing power to the land, to travel and capture a series of images that will document spiritual places where our ancestors once walked.

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