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UBC Theses and Dissertations
The trickster shift : a new paradigm in contemporary Canadian Native art Ryan, Allan J.
Abstract
Over the last fifteen years a select group of professionally trained and politically astute Canadian artists of Native ancestry has produced a compelling body of work that owes much of its power to a wry and ironic sense of humour rooted firmly in oral tradition. More than a critical/political strategy, such humour reflects a widespread cultural and communal sensibility embodied in the mythical Native American Trickster. The present study explores the influence of this comic spirit on the practice of several artists through the presentation of a "Trickster discourse," that is, a body of overlapping and interrelated verbal and visual narratives by tricksters and about trickster practice. Most of the research for this project took place between January 1990 and November 1991 and involved extended conversations with artists, elders, actors, writers, linguists, curators and art historians in six Canadian provinces. Over 80 hours of interviews were amassed along with several hundred slides and photographs of artists' work. From this body of material 140 images were selected for analysis with well over 100 commentaries and reflections on practice excerpted from the interviews. These verbal and visual narratives have been gathered together under the broad headings of self-identity, representation, political control and global presence. In light of the highly eclectic and hybrid nature of these narratives, an eclectic and hybrid conceptual framework has been constructed to consider them. Accordingly, a multiplicity of theoretical concepts has been braided together and interwoven throughout the chapters to reflect the complexity, density and interconnectedness of the material. To convey the sense of raultilayered communication and simultaneous conversation, quotation and footnote have been used extensively as parallel and overlapping texts. In this they constitute a form of hypertext or hypermedia. More importantly, the text honours and participates in a non-linear process of representation shared by many of the artists.
Item Metadata
Title |
The trickster shift : a new paradigm in contemporary Canadian Native art
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
1995
|
Description |
Over the last fifteen years a select group of professionally
trained and politically astute Canadian artists of Native
ancestry has produced a compelling body of work that owes much
of its power to a wry and ironic sense of humour rooted firmly
in oral tradition. More than a critical/political strategy,
such humour reflects a widespread cultural and communal
sensibility embodied in the mythical Native American
Trickster. The present study explores the influence of this
comic spirit on the practice of several artists through the
presentation of a "Trickster discourse," that is, a body of
overlapping and interrelated verbal and visual narratives by
tricksters and about trickster practice.
Most of the research for this project took place between
January 1990 and November 1991 and involved extended
conversations with artists, elders, actors, writers,
linguists, curators and art historians in six Canadian
provinces. Over 80 hours of interviews were amassed along
with several hundred slides and photographs of artists' work.
From this body of material 140 images were selected for
analysis with well over 100 commentaries and reflections on
practice excerpted from the interviews. These verbal and
visual narratives have been gathered together under the broad
headings of self-identity, representation, political control
and global presence. In light of the highly eclectic and hybrid nature of these
narratives, an eclectic and hybrid conceptual framework has
been constructed to consider them. Accordingly, a
multiplicity of theoretical concepts has been braided together
and interwoven throughout the chapters to reflect the
complexity, density and interconnectedness of the material.
To convey the sense of raultilayered communication and
simultaneous conversation, quotation and footnote have been
used extensively as parallel and overlapping texts. In this
they constitute a form of hypertext or hypermedia. More
importantly, the text honours and participates in a non-linear
process of representation shared by many of the artists.
|
Extent |
69784756 bytes
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Geographic Location | |
Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-06-03
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0088816
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
1995-11
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.