Tanya Lukin Linklater: Inner blades of grass (soft) inner blades of grass (cured) inner blades of grass (bruised by the weather)

Her largest presentation to date, the exhibition explores Lukin Linklater’s multidisciplinary practice over the past decade and features a Wex-commissioned project informed by her visit to Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Newark, Ohio, the nation’s newest United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. You’ll encounter other new works that cite Indigenous art lineages, embrace ancestral belongings, and consider how weather organizes communities as well as our environment.

Lukin Linklater’s perception of time and place comes across in her sculpture, installation, rehearsals, video, works on paper, and writing. She explains that her practice is inspired by her upbringing in the Kodiak archipelago of Alaska. “I look to my Alutiiq/Sugpiaq knowledges in relation to our homelands, waterways, atmospheres and our minds.”

The exhibition’s title is informed by an interview with the late Sugpiaq cultural worker Eunice von Scheele Neseth and a poem by Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Solider. Describing grass in different states—soft, cured, and bruised by the weather—references the procedures that women of Kodiak Island follow when harvesting and processing plant material used to weave baskets. The imagery evoked by the words also asks viewers to consider observation and touch in the acts of restoration and repair.

During the exhibition’s opening and closing moments, visitors can experience a multiday series of improvisational open rehearsals with dance artists in relation to Structure of Sustenance Three in the galleries. In August, Inner blades of grass will also culminate with a gathering of Indigenous artists, musicians, poets, and performers.

IMAGE CAPTION
Tanya Lukin Linklater, Hair Prints open rehearsal with Ivanie Aubin-Malo at Open Space, Victoria, Canada, 2023. Courtesy of Catriona Jeffries. Photo: Miles Giesbrecht.