adrian Stimson: Maanipokaa’iini
remai Modern, April 2, 2022 – September 4, 2022
Maanipokaa’iini means newborn bison in Siksikáí’powahsin, the Blackfoot language. It was chosen for the title of this exhibition following the birth of a bison calf in September 2021, when Adrian Stimson was an artist-in-residence at Wanuskewin Galleries. The new calf is part of the second generation born on that land since the almost total extermination of the Buffalo Nation in the 19th century, highlighting maanipokaa’iini as a powerful symbol of resilience, renewal and futurity.
Across installation, painting, photography, video and live performance, Stimson re-signifies colonial history through humour and counter-memory. The exhibition features significant works from Stimson’s nearly 20-year practice that draw on his lived experience as a Two-Spirit Blackfoot person and survivor of the residential day school system. In Stimson’s works, Iini (bison) represents the violence of colonial westward expansion while also grounding his practice in the culture- and life-sustaining relationship Indigenous communities have with this revered kin. These interconnected areas of focus form an encompassing vision wherein the fraught history of Indigenous-settler relations on the Plains is simultaneously mourned and turned on its head.
PUBLICATION
Adrian Stimson: Maanipokaa’iini - Art Metropole
140 pages; designed by Sébastien Aubin, Otami
Texts by Elder Mary Lee, Tess Allas and Joseph Pugliese, Tarah Hogue, Erin Sutherland, and Ernie Walker
“Across Stimson’s practice, the cyclical movements of destruction and renewal are intimately bound. The decimation of the great bison herds, the displacement and starvation of Indigenous peoples, and the assimilative abuses of the residential school system were all part of a settler teleology that figures time as linear and the demise of Indigenous and Buffalo Nations as an inevitable consequence of “progress.” But in the Blackfoot lifeworld, rather than progression, balance is key, and that requires attending to all one is in relation with. In his practice, Stimson strives for balance as a truth-teller and a Trickster who tips the colonial scales in his favour. In Maanipokaa’iini he is once again renewed—both wilder and wiser—and ready for the next revolution.” — Tarah Hogue, “Cyclical returns and transformations in the art of Adrian Stimson”
PRESS
Laura St. Pierre, “Adrian Stimson: Bison at the heart of show that reflects on prairie history, Galleries West, May 30, 2022, https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/adrian-stimson/
Stephanie Danyluk, “Maanipokaa’iini, countering Colonialism, contemplating Reconciliation,” Muse Magazine (Spring 2022), https://museums.ca/site/reportsandpublications/museonline/spring2022/stimson
Amanda Short, “Remai Modern hosts Maanipokaa’iini, the first survey of Adrian Stimson's work,” April 14, 2022, https://thestarphoenix.com/entertainment/local-arts/remai-modern-hosts-maanipokaaiini-the-first-survey-of-adrian-stimsons-work
Saskatoon Morning with Leisha Grebinski, CBC, April 1, 2022, https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-88-saskatoon-morning/clip/15904241-a-siksikanation-artist-bringing-character-created-years