"Cont(r)act by Nadia Myre"
2002-05-17 until 2002-06-15
OBORO
Montreal, QC, CA

Cont(r)act by Nadia Myre circulates between the verbal or physical object which is a contract, and the action signified by contact. As indicated by the title, one word is embraced semantically by the other. Thus the touch of a pen upon paper is transformed to the meeting of two entities, the passing of a glance between two pairs of eyes, the exchange of a handshake, the sexual pressing of flesh, or the touch of a ship's hull upon the boulders of a New "Found" land.

The work of Nadia Myre investigates, interrogates, and circumnavigates these elided histories (not as an "authority," or even as a singular, undivided subject) in a diverse and divergent series of works unearthed "from the trenches" (as she describes it). Deploying "iconic artifacts" such as the wampum belt, birch bark canoe, and beaded fabric, Myre reveals that not only is her own transient identity in renegotiation, but that of an ostensibly unified and "post-colonial" Canada.

Reinstated under Bill C-31, visual activist Nadia Myre is an Algonkin (Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg) born in Montreal, Quebec. A graduate of the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, she has recently exhibited at the Indian Art Centre (Hull, Quebec), the Centre de créativité des Salles du Gesù (Montreal), La Maison des cultures amérindiennes (Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec) and the University of Montreal. Formerly a professor at the White Mountain Academy of Fine Arts, she is a recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the BC Cultural Fund, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation.

Employed as an educator at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Rhonda Meier also works independently as a writer, editor, consultant, and curator with particular committment to issues of First Nations sovereignty and global decolonization. She is the founder of dark horse productions, a non-profit collective which, with Robert Houle and Audra Simpson, will produce a catalogue on Myre's work to be released this December.

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