Venice Biennale 2007 - THE REQUICKENING PROJECT

52nd La Biennale di Venezia
University of Venice, Zattere, Dorsoduro June 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 2007
Featuring Indigenous artists
Shelley Niro and Lori Blondeau
Download PDF of Requickening Brochure

What is Requickening? Requickening is an aspect of traditional Iroquois condolence ceremonies where human relationships are negotiated and brought back into balance after death or trauma. This cycle of grief and restoration speaks to larger concerns of global warfare and peace, colonial histories, memory, and importantly, healing. The REQUICKENING PROJECT agenda calls upon indigenous knowledge to contribute to the conversation initiated by the Biennale curator Robert Storr. In response to Storr’s curatorial reference “the fragility of culture in violent times,” our statement speaks to indigenous concepts of resilience; acknowledging spirituality, memory and the essence of life.

Lori Blondeau will present GRACE at dawn and dusk (5:50 AM and 8:25 PM) at the University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari, June 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10th with Shelley Niro screening her film TREE each evening at 8:30 PM. Lori Blondeau is a Cree-Saulteaux artist based in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Artist Shelley Niro, a Bay of Quinte Mohawk, lives in Brantford, Ontario. Curators Ryan Rice (Mohawk of Kahnawake, Quebec) and Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache, New Mexico) are exhibiting in concert with Italian Anthropologist Elisabetta Frasca of Rome. REQUICKENING is hosted by The University of Venice, Department of Postcolonial Literature, Zattere, Dorsoduro 1405.

Blondeau’s performance GRACE acts as an empowering decolonizing mechanism to balance fate and the disrupting tensions that continue to shift the Native North America diaspora. In Niro’s film TREE, a young Earth Mother is witness to the travesties of capitalism, consumerism, warfare and spiritual trauma that are manifest in contemporary Western society. We experience her loss, her reverberations of grief and ultimately, her ability to manifest life.

For the past decade, the Indigenous Arts Action Alliance (IA3) has shared the beauty and wisdom of contemporary Native North American arts as a component of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2007, we honor a founding member of IA3, the acclaimed artist Harry Fonseca of Santa Fe, New Mexico who died December 28, 2006. For more on his legacy see: www.harryfonseca.com

This event is made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts Aboriginal Peoples Collaborative Exchange, the Institute of International Education New York, NY (USA) and Smith College, Northampton, MA (USA). For details in Venice please contact: Studio dal Ponte at: studiodalponte@libero.it or (041) 523-9315.

Download PDF of 2007 postcard