{"id":46663,"date":"2021-03-22T17:33:03","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T21:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=46663"},"modified":"2021-04-16T17:25:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T21:25:54","slug":"acts-of-erasure-at-moca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=46663","title":{"rendered":"Acts of Erasure at MOCA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Acts of Erasure<\/em> at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Toronto is a stunning installation that brings two prominent artistic practises together into a dialog. Fatma Bucak and Krista Belle Stewart come from different geographical areas and heritages. Bucak was born in Iskenderun, on the Turkish-Syrian border and identifies as both Kurdish and Turkish. She now resides in London, UK. Stewart is a member of the Okanagan Nation in British Columbia. Their thoughtful work integrates interlocking layers of the historical, the political and the emotional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Installation view: Acts of Erasure, MOCA\nToronto, 2020 With works by artists Fatma Bucak and Krista Belle Stewart Photo:\nToni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stepping into the warehouse-like exhibition hall at MOCA, Fatma Bucak\u2019s installation caught my eye immediately. Titled And so we were told<\/em> (2020) is mounted on fifteen curving layers with nine images in each row. It gives the impression that it might rotate so the images would come up to eye level. However, that proves to be an illusion. I have to kneel to see the pictures. They each show the artist\u2019s arms holding a glass jar containing dirty water. The work itself doesn\u2019t send a clear message, so it seems that we need to uncover the layered narratives within. The stained water from the washed-out ink of 84 Turkish newspapers \u2013 published in the days following the \u201cbasement massacre\u201d without talking about it \u2014 is bottled and held for all to witness. Bucak said she wanted to turn the government propaganda into liquid, to transform it into different layers, showing how intimidating she finds the way propaganda manipulates society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fatma Bucak, And so\nwe were told, 2020 (installation from the series Remains of what has not been\nsaid, 2016) Installation view: Acts of Erasure, MOCA Toronto, 2020 Photo: Toni\nHafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bucak\u2019s works are often poetic and beautiful. As she explained, she is not afraid of beauty and talking of politics doesn\u2019t require ugliness as the stories are already ugly. A Study of Eight Landscapes<\/em> (2012 \u2013 2016) is a photo series where Bucak reconsiders how some governments use borders to physically suppress people from certain national, ethnic or gender backgrounds. Her images capture experiences she shared with people who lived at borders or tried to cross them, often facing political and military violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series depicts discarded objects found along the borderlands of Turkey-Armenia, Syria-Turkey and US-Mexico. Bucak collected and organized them into sculptural compositions in her studio. The depicted items seem real at first but they are more abstract and layered. An incomplete history<\/em> (2014), shows a bread beside the stone in which it was baked. The cracked stone form has been used many times \u2014 a history in itself. Bucak treats her subjects with such respect, their silence is so meditative that it feels like a prayer. Regardless of the absence of people, these artifacts talk about human lives and objects sometimes unveil aspects of history that humans can\u2019t. Beyond their aesthetic appearance we still keep wondering about the hidden narrative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fatma Bucak, An\nincomplete history, 2014 Installation view: Acts of Erasure, MOCA Toronto, 2020\nPhoto: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a rich and sorrowful story behind De Silencio<\/em>. The artist travelled the path of Latin-American migrants across the US-Mexico border in August, 2015. These people were pressured into leaving their country and entering a state of limbo. It is a difficult journey and people often discard their unnecessary belongings, especially clothes, along the road. Bucak collected many of them and a Mexican migrant woman cut them into small pieces and sewed them together into a patchwork quilt. The quilt is colorful and happy looking, the stories behind it are not. Together they create a juxtaposing, cruel beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Fatma Bucak, De Silencio, 2015. Installation\nview: Acts of Erasure, MOCA Toronto, 2020 Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blessed are you who come<\/em>, a video performance (2012, 8\u201942\u201d), takes place in a Turkish border village; a place of a contentious genocide. There is a lot of tension in this complex scenario. A young woman dressed in black performs the ritual of breaking bread and passing the pieces around. Her actions remind us of the Catholic ceremony of communion. In front of a bombed-out Christian church thirteen old men stand expressing confusion over the woman\u2019s gestures. We can feel the estrangement of the participants, the mistrust between Armenians and Turks, the vulnerability of the young woman who couldn\u2019t predict the reactions of these traditional Muslim men. This performance is very disquieting, but it also gives us the hope of human reconnection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fatma Bucak, Blessed are you who come \u2013 Conversation on the Turkish-Armenian border (detail), 2012 Installation view: Acts of Erasure, MOCA Toronto, 2020. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krista Belle Stewart also addresses rituals, however very\ndifferent ones. Truth to Material<\/em> (2019 \u2013 ongoing) is a project that\ninvolves two artifacts, a video and a series of large photographs printed on\nvinyl, covering the concrete floor. As a European the respect for art is deeply\nrooted in me and stepping on artwork is a taboo. Stewart\u2019s work was a challenge\nfor me that I could not overcome without knowing how and where these images\nwere taken and the cultural and ethical layers within them. Understanding this\nwork, with its complex context, was the real challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stewart visited Germany in 2006 and 2007 when she started to research a subcultural group calling themselves \u201cIndianers\u201d. The \u201cIndianers\u201d belong to a cult built around Karl May, a 19th century writer who created an idealized vision of First Nations people. May\u2019s series of novels depict the adventures of Winnetou, an Apache youth and his German advisor Old Shatterhand \u2013 two fictional characters. May\u2019s stories were created under the influence of German romanticism. He was looking for innocent and heroic people, so he invented them and put them into a past before colonialization would ruin them. These \u2018bands\u2019 imitate North American Indigenous nations, painstakingly copying their costumes and living in teepees for a week while re-enacting their rituals. I wonder why these invented \u2018heroes\u2019 are so popular in Europe even these days. What is it that people appreciate so much in these stories? Honestly, I don\u2019t get it; I guess it\u2019s a boy thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Krista Belle Stewart,\nTruth to Material, 2019-ongoing. Installation view: Acts of Erasure, MOCA\nToronto, 2020. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stewart attended a summer gathering with the \u201cIndianers\u201d in\n2019. Returning to Germany after thirteen years she still found their\nceremonies challenging. As an artist, she wanted to witness what these\n\u201cIndianers\u201d do and found it very difficult emotionally. \u201cWhat\u2019s weird about the\nexperience,\u201d she told Philip J. Deloria in an interview for Aperture (2019) \u201cis\nthat they are real . . . but I can\u2019t quite believe it. Because we are real\ntoo.\u201d It is a contradiction she still hasn\u2019t overcome. But no matter how\nuncomfortable she felt in the situation, she has always engaged her subject in\ngood faith and with an open mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title of the project Truth to Material<\/em> comes from Susan Hiller\u2019s theory of \u2018truth to materials\u2019 indicating a complex negotiation between an artist\u2019s idea and the one, very particular way it could be realized. Stewart found the true way of presenting her photographs by mounting them on the floor of MOCA. The viewers have to walk on the photographs, scuffing the surface with their feet. The cracks caused by their steps become symbolic as images of faces and rituals of the Indianers become blurry \u2013 an act of erasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Krista Belle Stewart,\nTruth to Material, 2019-ongoing. Installation view: Acts of Erasure, MOCA\nToronto, 2020. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019 she was presented with a dress made by a friend she\nmet in 2007 specifically for Stewart. The Gift<\/em> (2019) is displayed in a\nvitrine, so much like regalia in a museum but here it is clearly a faux relic.\nFor Stewart it involves the past, present and future of Indigenous people with\nall their historical and political issues \u2013 not an easy thing to bear or wear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes German people dress up like Indians and try to copy their ways for a week? It is much more than a summer camp, as the Indianers have 40,000 members in 40 groups. A \u201chobbyist\u201d group could be considered innocent. The truth behind Indianers is less faultless. Their enactments are built upon their fantasies and truly misrepresent the old and rich cultures and nations who faced colonial displacement and undergo racism even now. There is also a danger that their false representation will overshadow or even replace the true history and present life of these Indigenous people. For those German \u201cIndianers\u201d their own history is difficult to face too. Their present life may be boring and taxing. Their desire for escapism is understandable. But as Stewart concluded in her conversation with Gabrielle Moser of MOCA (October, 2020), what the Indianers do \u201cis not funny, it is not OK. They should find a different hobby.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emese Krun\u00e1k-Hajagos<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Exhibition information: <\/a>Acts of Erasure<\/a>,<\/em> Perceptions of heritage, indigeneity, and political identity, Fatma Bucak \/ Krista Belle Stewart at Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, October 1, 2020 \u2013 May 2, 2021.\u00a0The Museum is temporarily closed due to COVID-19 restrictions. The exhibition is organized in partnership with Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Emese Krun\u00e1k-Hajagos<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this stunning installation Fatma Bucak’s and Krista Belle Stewart’s thoughtful work integrates interlocking layers of the historical, the political and the emotional.<\/p>\n

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