Performance artist returns to Ontario

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Rebecca Belmore has become one of the leading contemporary First Nations artists in Canada. A multi-disciplinary artist, she is specifically interested in performance art. She recently brought her latest exhibition, called 33 Pieces, to Definitely Superior Art Gallery in Thunder Bay.

Now living in Vancouver, Belmore has performed and exhibited extensively throughout Canada and the world. She describes her work as, "low-key, simple, raw." Others see it as powerful.

"I'm naturally an exhibitionist," Belmore said. "Performance is so open that the possibilities of engaging an audience on an emotional level is limitless."

The audience at her Thunder Bay performance was amazed at her versatility. She showed videos of her performances, explained the remnants of previous performances that make up this collection, and talked of the mentors in her life. She also did a presentation that produced a permanent piece in this exhibition. It combines current world politics and the stereotyping of First Nations people. Her work is challenging. Like a dream, it is layered, with things only coming together upon reflection.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Belmore made a name for herself in Northwestern Ontario with several controversial performances. In response to a royal visit, she fashioned and wore a Victorian gown complete with a beaver dam, trade goods, and royal paraphernalia. She also satirized the film "Pocahontas" with her piece "Patty Wagon Polka Haunt Us." Her performances have raged against colonialism, the struggles of the Lubicon Cree, loss of Native languages, Oka, Burnt Church and more. In a street performance in Vancouver, she grieved the women suspected murdered by Robert Picton.

Belmore's 1991 outdoor performance with a seven-foot-wide megaphone titled Speaking to Their Mother really caught attention. The huge horn originated in the Rockies and has moved to other areas of protest. First Nations leaders have used it on Parliament Hill. Others have used it to protest clear-cutting. It projects voices a long way until they interact with the land. It symbolizes that words do affect Mother Earth.

Now 42, Belmore grew up in Upsula, Ont., and spent summers on the Lac Seul reserve. She proudly calls herself Anishnaabe and says she misses her family in Ontario. She attended high school in Thunder Bay where a librarian gave her books about civil rights. She enrolled at the Ontario College of Art after a relationship with an artist opened her eyes to new possibilities.

David Karasiewicz, Definitely Superior Gallery's curator, says it is fortunate to have Belmore return with this exhibition.

"She has gone from Northwestern Ontario to show extensively. Not many artists make it to this level. She is a mentor to show us it can be done."

Students from the Thunder Bay area were attending the exhibition to experience their first taste of performance art.

Though Sarah Milroy, writer for The Globe, called her work "disturbing" and "arresting," Belmore said, "I see myself as someone who lives an ordinary life. But because I've done performance art for many years, I am inspired to perform by whatever is going on." The artist has lots of work lined up, including a show at the Ontario Gallery of Art in May.