Teach Me A Song

Nov 22, 2019 — Feb 15, 2020
Field:

Exhibition

Description:

Teach Me A Song was an exhibition by artist and composer Elisa Harkins that presented a series of songs and sculptures building on her ongoing research in translation, language, preservation, and Indigenous musicology. The exhibition was structured on a series of exchanges, wherein Harkins invited Osage elder Louis Gray, Muscogee (Creek) language teacher Don Tiger, and artist Mateo Galindo to teach her a song. 

Working with various textiles, Harkins embellished shawls and installed them on found stools and chairs that supported the garments as anthropomorphized sculptures. Each of these forms stood as a performer, individually voiced with speakers playing back the songs connected to each of Harkins’s collaborators. With the recordings of these songs—which varied from ceremonial, to religious, to rock and roll, to electronic music—Harkins’s practice of nation to nation sharing and trading music was presented as a means of decolonizing traditions of Indigenous musicology.

As part of the exhibition, Harkins was joined by collaborators Hanako Hoshimi-Caines and Zoë Poluch for performances of their pieces Wampum / ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᏕᎫᏗ (2017–) at Western Front, and Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ (2019) at Left of Main with plastic orchid factory.

Documents:

On the foyer white wall, next to the gallery entrance, hangs a TV screen with a person with long dark hair playing the guitar. Attached to the television are wired headphones, and to the left is a stack of booklets sitting in a wooden holder. Left of the TV screen is a title card, in vertical consecutive order it writes, quote, Teach Me a Song, Elisa Harkins, Performance November 23 at 3 p.m., unquote.
The gallery entrance doors frame the image of three shawls uplifted by stools on a white stage on the left side of the brightly lit, white gallery. From the left stand, a US flag shawl with draping white tassels, in the middle an azure blue shawl with a horizontal red line and blue tassels, and to the right a yellow and red shawl with a vertical rainbow in between the shoulders on the back.
The camera is positioned to the left of the stage, in the white gallery, on a spotlighted white stage stand three shawls. Uplifted by wooden stools, the shawls resemble human figures in a triangular order, the centre one closest to the wall. From the left stands a draping yellow and red shawl, in the middle an upside-down US flag with white tassels draping to the bottom, and on the right an azure blue shawl with a purple and white horizontal line across, draping blue tassels. The azure shawl has two stacks of silver cans, in a cylinder shape, at calf length, sitting at its front.
Facing the stage from the front, in the white gallery, on a spotlighted white stage stand three shawls. Uplifted by wooden stools, the shawls resemble human figures, and the spotlight enlarges the centre shawl’s reflection onto the white wall behind it. From the left stand, a yellow and red shawl, in the centre an upside-down US flag with draping white tassels, and to the right an azure blue shawl with a purple and white line horizontally across it and azure blue tassels draping down to the floor. In front of the azure shawl sit two stacks of cans, both shaped in a circular order, at calf length.
Facing the stage from the right, in the white gallery, on a white stage stand three shawls, with the gallery doors open in the background. From the left, resembling human figures, on wooden stools stand a yellow and red shawl, in the centre an upside down US flag shawl with white tassels, and to the left, an azure shawl, with a white and purple horizontal line across, blue draping tassels, and two silver can stacks, in circular order, at calf length, sitting in the front.
A yellow and red shawl stands on a wooden stool. The stool has a wooden leg and shoulders on which the shawl stands, resembling a human figure. The shawl has yellow drapery in the front and red in the back.
On a white background, the back of a yellow and red shawl from the waist up hangs on a wooden stool, and between the shoulders, a vertical rainbow fan is embroidered. Separated by color, the fan spells out creator.
In the centre of a white background, with a spotlighted reflection on the back wall, stands an upside-down US flag shawl with white tassels draping downwards. The shawl is held up by a wooden hanger that sits on a wooden stool.
In the centre of a white background, an azure blue shawl with tassels drapes down a wooden stool, uplifted by a wooden leg, resembling a human figure. At the shawl’s centre is an embroidered yellow, blue and purple patterned line. At the foot of the stool hang two sets of stacked tin foil can tubes at calf height.

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Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.

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