The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts is the country’s foremost institution for exhibiting, collecting and interpreting progressive work of contemporary Native artists. It encourages artists to explore radical thought and disruptive approaches to art making that address environmental and political issues. Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology will explore the responses of Indigenous artists to the impact of nuclear testing and uranium mining on Native peoples and the environment. The exhibition aims to give international Indigenous artists a voice to address the long-term effects of man-made disasters in the forms of nuclear poisoning and uranium mining.
Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology
APY Art Collective (Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara/Luritja) artists
Kulata Tjuta (“many spears”), 2017
550 suspended kulata (spears), each ca. 1.8 - 2.1m (ca.5.9-6.9 ft)
27 coolamons
dimensions vary: ca. 10 x 10 m (32.8 x 32. 8 ft) (19.6-23 ft) circumference
Will Wilson (Diné)
Mexican Hat Disposal Cell, Navajo Nation (Connecting the Dots series)
2020
Drone-based digital photograph, triptych
Ca.44 x 110 in. total
Collection of the artist
Will Wilson (Diné)
Mexican Hat Disposal Cell, Navajo Nation (Connecting the Dots series)
2020
Drone-based digital photograph, triptych
Ca.44 x 110 in. total
Collection of the artist
Adrian Stimson (Blackfoot)
Fuse 3, 2010
2014
Oil and graphite on canvas
60 × 84 in.
(62 × 86 × 2 1/4 in. framed)
Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts
2016.028.004
Anna Tsouhlaraskis (Diné/Creek/Greek)
Breath of Wind
2017
Film, running time: 3:18
Anna Tsouhlaraskis (Diné/Creek/Greek)
Breath of Wind
2017
Film, running time: 3:18
Anna Tsouhlaraskis (Diné/Creek/Greek)
Breath of Wind
2017
Film, running time: 3:18
Hilda Moodoo
Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia, 1952
Destruction I
2002
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
119.0 x 98.2 x 3.0 cm
46.85 x 38.66 x 1.18 in.
Place made: Oak Valley, South Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia
Santos Fund for Aboriginal Art 2002, 20025P24
Kohei Fujito (Ainu)
maquette for siw-siw-atki kor-ram ka oray-oray kipip-kipip
(The Singing of the Needle)
2020,
Iron, acrylic, and deer skull
Height 6.9 ft (2.1m); outer diameter main body 6.2 ft (1.9m); lower platform height 4 in. (10 cm) x diameter 6.9 ft (2,1 m)
Weight 200 kg
Photo courtesy of the artist
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”