Hold This

Hold Me (2018), Touch Me (2018), and Master Gesture (2018) were completed and formatted for the Belkin’s exhibition, Surrounded: Skeena Reece (June 28-August 11, 2019).

Hold Me (2018) follows on Skeena Reece’s earlier film, Touch Me (2013), that was part of the Belkin’s exhibition Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools and is already part of the Belkin’s permanent collection.[1] Shot through a pinhole camera at the outset, Hold Me shows Deanna Pointe[2] wrapping Marie Prince (who is never visible) in Reece’s adult-sized moss bag, which is part of The Time It Takes (2017). Like a child entranced by their mother’s face and gestures, the physical movement of watching Pointe wrap Prince becomes an intimate and absorbing moment between the viewer and the caregiver.

When one enters a sweat lodge ceremony, personal metal objects are placed on an earthen alter outside to be taken care of by the person responsible for tending the fire. These objects – which are often of value and worn daily, such as rings or watches – are taken off so they do not heat up and burn the skin. Hold This (2018) documents these objects and their careful placement outside the sweat lodge, as well as their retrieval.

Master Gesture (2018) refers to a distinctive action that serves as a clue to a character’s personality. This silent video includes a close up of one figure whispering in another's ear, money being exchanged in a handshake, a carver making a mark, all of which hold significance passed down through generations and cultures.

With the ability to be shown together or apart, the three films speak of a process of care in the face of loss through colonial violence and detachment.

[1] Skeena Reece writes: "Upon the invitation to do a solo show at the Belkin Gallery for the exhibition Surrounded, I was invited to make a new work. The curator wanted to enliven an existing work and so I chose the moss bag, The time it takes. It was used firstly in a live performance at the Audain Gallery at SFU for the exhibition The Fraud that Goes Under the Name of Love curated by cheyenne turions and Amy Kazymerchyk. I wrapped twelve formative individuals in the moss bag from the Indigenous arts, culture and political landscape from the 1990s to now. For the show I wanted to use these photographs, the now moss bag sculpture, and some new works which became the 3-channel installation. The show Surrounded was a nod to the menacing feeling 'others' get when Indigenous thoughts and actions take up space. It is also a nod to the literal and figurative feeling of being held/taken care of. I used the same crew as the first video made for Belkin, Touch Me. I used 16mm film to create warmth and a dream like atmosphere perhaps invoking a sense of memory as a trigger. The recurring theme in this tryptic is holding, the action in master gestures holding age old meaning, the dirt holding and taking care of precious personal items while the participant is being held by the sweat lodge."

[2] Skeena Reece writes: “My participating actors in Hold Me are my Aunt Deanna Pointe. The other character is my age - Marie Prince. I wanted to convey these older characters as a nod to the 1st and 2nd generation of residential school survivors, also people of Indigenous descent as a nod to surviving grief and loss and the ability to successfully retain, hold, care and take care of. All of it, essentially, is about resilience.”