zhigwe/aim week 4
Adrian Stimson, Sick and Tired (2004)
Week 4 – Adrian Stimson, Sick and Tired (2004) -installation
Adrian Stimson’s Sick and Tired is an installation that explores identity, history and transcendence through the reconfiguration of architectural and natural fragments. It is an homage to colonial history.
The installation is made up of three elements from the Old Sun Residential School, an Anglican-run Residential School on the Siksika Blackfoot Reserve near Gleichen, AB established in 1883. The two school components are: the windows, filled with feathers and back lit, and an old infirmary bed from the school. The third element is the bison robe folded into a human shape and placed on the bedsprings. The bed is illuminated from the top to create a shadow beneath similar to a stretched hide.
This work references material culture and post-colonial issues in Aboriginal art. Sick and Tired is a continuation of Stimson’s explorations into his Siksika (Blackfoot) identity and the reality of cultural genocide. For him, these elements speak to fragmentation, re-signification and counter memory—ideas that are a part of colonial or post-colonial discourse. Residential schools were instruments of genocide; they created isolation, disorientation, pain and death and ultimately broke many human spirits. Stimson has stated, “I can imagine many children peering out of these windows, longing to be home with their families.”
For more information on Adrian Stimson’s work, go to:
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