Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art

This summer, the National Gallery of Canada is staging the most ambitious contemporary art exhibition in its history. With installations that will fill both floors of our special exhibition spaces, as well as our contemporary art galleries—not to mention several public spaces inside and outside the Gallery—Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art promises to be Canada’s must-see art exhibition this summer. 

Sakahàn—meaning “to light [a fire]” in the language of the Algonquin peoples—brings together more than 150 works of art by over 80 artists from 16 countries, celebrating the National Gallery’s ongoing commitment to the study and appreciation of Indigenous art. This exhibition is the first in an ongoing series of surveys of Indigenous art. Collectively, the artworks included in Sakahàn provide diverse responses about what it means to be Indigenous today. The works touch on ideas of self-representation; they question colonial narratives of encounter and present parallel histories; they place value on the handmade; they explore relationships between the spiritual, the uncanny and the everyday; and they and put forward highly personal responses to the impact of social and cultural trauma. The art will include video installations as well as sculpture, drawings, prints, paintings, performance art, murals and other new, site-specific projects created specifically for this exhibition.

Sakahàn will also feature stunning and intricate works, such as an exquisite sculpture of a zippered shirt carved entirely from wood and a pair of masterfully carved stone hands held together by a chain, alongside monumental pieces such as an ambitious column comprised of 300 folded and stacked blankets that were donated by the public, a 50-metre-long banner which has been hung above the colonnade ramp, and a commanding installation which will transform the façade of the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Canada into a work of art.

Sakahàn will even appear in other parts of the city: Murray Street will feature a billboard displaying a series of photographs that depict an artist dressed in powwow regalia as he goes about his daily, very metropolitan life. Museums and galleries in Ottawa, Gatineau and Wellington, New Zealand will also be staging related exhibitions, in what promises to be a summer of international Indigenous culture not to be missed.

Sakahàn is co-curated by Greg Hill, the NGC’s Audain Curator of Indigenous Art; Christine Lalonde, Associate Curator of Indigenous Art; and Candice Hopkins, the Elizabeth Simonfay Guest Curator, with the support of an international team of curatorial advisors: Arpana Caur (India), Brenda Croft (Australia), Lee-Ann Martin (Canada), Reiko Saito (Japan), Irene Snarby (Norway), Jolene Rickard (United States), Megan Tamati-Quennell (Aotearoa New Zealand), and Yuh-Yao Wan (Taiwan).

List of Artists

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