The Uplifting, 2012

Dana Claxton - Vancouver, Canada

Video Installation with Sound

The Uplifting combines a set of three scenes. The Nobility, The Suffering, and The Encouragement study the movement of the central figure Indian Woman. She has nobility through heredity chiefdom, the practicing of traditional knowledge and good deeds. The good work that she does for the people is honoured through gifts from the hunt and adornments for her body. Although she has suffered as a result of cruel histories, she has also suffered through self-sacrifice and selflessness so the people may live. Through her noble good deeds and suffering, she has acquired and been bestowed with manna and she in turn gives this manna back to the people. The ancestors have given her medicine and in the third installation she freely gives the healing to the people.

The Uplifting engages with idea of Museum for the End of the World, in that through endings there are new beginnings and possibilities, as well, the artist is suggesting that through sanctifying the museum through a re-enchantment of sorts that the museum can be a place of exaltation in the most particular ways through the enjoyment and embodiment of art: to feel the art, to live the art, to breath the art, to be the art.

Claxton works in film, video, photography, single/multi-channel video installation and performance art. Her practice investigates indigenous beauty, the socio-political and the spiritual. Claxton's work has been shown internationally and held in public collections including the Vancouver Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada. Her work was selected for the 17th Sydney Biennale. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia.

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Toronto City Hall underground parking garage, 100 Queen Street West (Accessible from entrance ramp on Bay Street. Wheelchair accessible via "SEAL" elevator on Nathan Phillips Square.)

This project is indoors.