Exhibitions > Archive

In the MacOdrum Library: Weaving Together: The Art of Shirley Bear

April 22 - May 30, 2024

Shirley Bear (1936-2022), "Basket Weaver" (1988), woodcut on paper. Gift of Lesley Sinclair, 1995.

“I think it’s time we started speaking the truth about ourselves from our own vantage point and our own point of view.” - Shirley Bear (Wolastoqiyik, 1936-2022)

This exhibition features a selection of works by Shirley Bear from the Carleton University Art Gallery collection. Bear was a Wolastoqiyik artist, poet, curator, herbalist and respected Elder from Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) in Wabanaki territory, also known as New Brunswick.

Belonging to a prolific Wolastoqiyik artistic lineage, Bear has continued to inspire many Indigenous artists across media and generations, with work shown in exhibitions both nationally and abroad. A political activist, Bear also advocated for social change and the rights of Indigenous women in Canada, strongly defying repressive and patriarchal narratives of colonial legislation and ideology.

Through nine of Bear’s works and two pieces of her poetry, Weaving Together considers basketry as a metaphor for relationality. Just as splints of ash are woven together to form a basket, Bear reveals Wabanaki life as a constellation of entwined relationships between people, community and land across generations. In this way, her work encourages a different — and more malleable — understanding of time.

Bear inscribes historical petroglyphs over scenes of the everyday and brings together images of contemporary Wabanaki life with those drawn from oral history, including depictions of culture heroes like Klooscap and other spiritual beings.

Deeply underscored through several works in this exhibition is a celebration of Wabanaki womanhood; works like Nudkat-Dancer reveal that women have always held important roles in Wabanaki societies and intellectual traditions.

From depictions of intergenerational relationships and portraits of family members to scenes of daily life, like in Tilly Road to Grand Falls, Weaving Together: The Art of Shirley Bear demonstrates the importance of Wabanaki self-representation. The scenes in these works — drawn from the everyday, as well as oral tradition — reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary, and the deeply interwoven relationships that carry Wabanaki worldview from one generation to the next.

A note from the curators:

We as curators wanted to highlight an important Indigenous artist whose work is deserving of greater recognition. We wish to thank the staff at Carleton University Art Gallery and the Indigenous Art Centre (Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada) for their help with research, and Emma Hassencahl-Perley for visiting with us during the development of this exhibit.

We respectfully acknowledge our location on the traditional, unceded territories of the Algonquin Nation.