Yuxweluptun
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
In 1868 the Canadian government passed the Indian Act to subdue Native peoples by confining them to reservations, outlawing their languages, destroying land rights and denying them a vote. Yuxweluptun: Man of Masks opens at the Bisley Rifle Range in Surrey, England, where Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun is shooting the Indian Act, a performance piece to protest the ongoing effects of the legislation on Aboriginal people. Back in Canada, "An Indian shooting the Indian Act" opens at Vancouver's Grunt Gallery where framed copies, riddled with bullet holes, are on display.
Yuxweluptun is a modernist whose artistic influences come from his home in Vancouver, British Columbia. His surrealist canvases deal with ozone depletion, land claims, Aboriginal rights, clear-cut logging and racism.
One of Canada's most important painters, this Salish artist has exhibited in Paris, Zurich, Barcelona and Switzerland. Interviews with Yuxweluptun, striking images of his paintings and a visit to his virtual reality longhouse provide a glimpse into contemporary First Nations art making and the politics of the artist.
Citation
Main credits
Yuxweluptun (on-screen participant)
Claxton, Dana (film director)
Jacob, Selwyn J. (film producer)
Other credits
Editor, Shelly Hamer; camera, Dana Claxton [and 4 others]; music, Russell Wallace.
Distributor subjects
Indigenous Peoples in Canada - British Columbia, Indigenous Peoples in Canada - Portraits, Indigenous Peoples in Canada - Visual Arts and Architecture, Dance - Folk Dancing, Dance - Portraits, The Arts - Related NFB Films, Visual Arts - Indigenous Art, Visual Arts - Nontraditional Media, Visual Arts - Painting, Visual Arts - Western Canada, DocumentaryKeywords
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I\'m here in London to shoot the Indian
Act it\'s an Indian Act shooting
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the Indian Act it\'s a performance
piece it\'s dealing with a bit of
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legislation edits symbolic protest
of time and history in place
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The audience to participate as witnesses
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and tell the outside world that
they participated in sharing
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this quite lovely moment of
shooting the need act I am
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a person to visually stimulate your mind in
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color and I\'m a native and I
do arc in it it\'s barter.
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If there happens to be Politics in
it that\'s just part of our gaga
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Here looking into my eye what I see
what I feel you\'re looking into
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my heart
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arteries
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culture art
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is life and you share you give you give
it up That\'s what that\'s what art is
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suppose that\'s what my
work is about the love of
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art to create art to show it
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to have the world see at two to see
how we think as native people.
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My name is Yahoo leptin.
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It means men who possesses
many masks Men of the myths
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I come from a different culture
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it just so happens that I\'ve had exhibitions
around the world that I\'ve been able to
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be in perished be in Barcelona to be
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in Zurich in Switzerland in
to see castles and culture
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but as a youth mine
influences came from right
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here
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modernist A product
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of my environment this is my heritage.
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This is where it from and
break in my Salish old.
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How did we meet. How do we meet culturally.
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How can we tie these two cultures.
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First Nations where where\'s
this meeting point
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If you don\'t understand my culture
you fear me but if you know
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my culture if you see my
culture and you can relate to
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it that\'s when modernism is
about the capabilities of
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transferring one culture to another I think
that\'s what I\'ve been able to do is take
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this identity of mine and
share it with the world
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The virtual reality is about bringing
culture into virtual reality
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And the bio apparatus
Project is about a working
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ever the group it\'s a team
effort to create this piece.
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So it wasn\'t there wasn\'t
just myself I was like
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a director in Savoy shared with
others to create something that was.
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Modern
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people
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don\'t know
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what it\'s like to be in a role horse
herd So Lord it\'s like to feel.
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Would have spirit moves through a logos
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How do you deal with modernism
as a native person when you have
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alcoholism fetal alcoholism
welfare a welfare state you
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have Major human social
conditions of oppression.
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These things are all a part of our daily
lives Native people have to suffer
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the consequences of colonialism
and suffer do they
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do that you\'d have to pay from your heart
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The only way to maintain
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a regulatory framework came
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into Trinitarian anyway
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How do you pray to bear.
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How do you get in touch
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speared a bear wolf frog.
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Should be Images were designed to
bring you into that world of what
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I am about being
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Salish It\'s not some other place it\'s
great here this is Salish territory.
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This is what it means to be stylish.
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It\'s about having those sacred things
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Native people were treated in differently
on their own land in their own motherland.
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For having spirituality.
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How can you paint I am
outline your right to have
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culture in history you know
that\'s that\'s not really
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beautiful it\'s it\'s it\'s
really ugly When you\'re
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in the process of being so busy
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oppressing Aboriginal people you
will never look into the eyes.
00:11:10.670 --> 00:11:14.959
Into the suffering are
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we going to have a real democracy are we
going to live under a real democracy.
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I want to know what
freedom is real freedom.
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I\'m here to finish this business of India
This performance piece is a protest
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with the acts of weapons and might and
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power and the same head like
colonialism has used against
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Aboriginal people the objectives
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were here the objectives were met and
I was very pleased with the shootout.
00:12:06.500 --> 00:12:14.500
At the UK corral now that
I\'ve shot the Indian Act.
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I\'m gonna bring it back home into Canada
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and it\'s going to be an ongoing
and traveling exhibition
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I wanted to decorate these these guns
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that were going to shoot this
document give these guns that
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honor killings are colored ribbons beads
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and leather and that\'s a
celebration that\'s why I wanted
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to to share this Glee joy and so
it was fun that was a relief.
00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:10.069
We started a whole bunch of times What
I\'m gonna do with the documents is.
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Send one to the Parliament buildings
is pointing to the queen went
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to Ottawa went to the EFN wanted
the union obesity and chiefs.
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It\'s about. Showing this
continuation of Indian politics
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and it\'s a political piece of art but
it is a book review damn good one
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I wanted to talk about
this big hole in the sky.
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The ozone is falling the sky is falling.
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It\'s about an Indian standing
up and saying no that\'s wrong
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it\'s about this planet
and an accountabilities
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It\'s a humorous way of an
individual can speak out
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and there\'s a portrait of myself even
looking at it in disgust and it was
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about B. I read bed clot
within these two worlds
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My influences the paper wars of the
union of BCA achieves the manifestos
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of Aboriginal rights position papers books
of Wounded Knee looking into the eyes of
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a photograph of Sitting Bull we should
honor those that have walked before us
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We went traveling around
to sketch wanted to visit
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native earthworks after putting up the TP.
00:16:07.700 --> 00:16:10.984
And we\'ve been looking
around at earthworks for.
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Couple of days I wanted to know what it
felt like to be a part of the Earth.
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Just work with the
earthquake objects are there
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I made a shaman I didn\'t know what I was
gonna do at first And I just let it happen
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it\'s about old old old earthworks
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having that connection with those things
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The lambdas.
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Is connection spiritually to meet the
mountains the spirit of the mountain.
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It\'s sacred. Everything is is sacred.
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Looking at a 500 year old tree
native people looked after
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those things For a long long
time in which not out of greed.
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To take those trees down in there they\'re
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like there\'s like a brother and
sister to me I need those things
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I want to tell my grandmother
or any grandmother.
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There\'s no more salmon
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I think you have to be responsible
and challenge this world
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Pretty
00:19:53.560 --> 00:19:55.830
good
00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:25.860
But
00:20:51.370 --> 00:20:54.090
other than that
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Let\'s have
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a look
00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:15.150
at that