La Rábida, Soul of Conquest: an Anishinaabe encounter

La Rábida is a Franciscan monastery overlooking the mouth of the Rio Tinto near the small town of Palos de la Frontera on the Atlantic coast of Spain. Christopher Columbus set sail from this place in August 1492 confident he would find a new route to Asia. He landed instead on an island in the Caribbean Sea. The cultural confrontation that followed his landing is the inspiration and subject of this exhibition.

Using texts and images from European and Indigenous sources Bonnie Devine explores the techniques of the conquistadors, to document and question the evangelical justification for their conquest. The exhibition includes sculpture, drawing, painting, video, and a specially commissioned choral work by Anishinaabe composer David DeLeary that is based on the Latin text of the 1493 Papal Bull, Inter Caetera – the Doctrine of Discovery.

A member of Serpent River First Nation, Genaabaajing, an Anishinaabe Ojibwa territory on the north shore of Lake Huron, Bonnie Devine’s work emerges from the storytelling and image-making traditions she witnessed as a child. Her art explores issues of land and environment, treaty and history. She is an artist, curator, writer, and educator. Though formally educated at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD U) and York University, her most enduring learning came from her grandparents, who were trappers on the Canadian Shield.

Devine’s installation, video, and curatorial projects have been shown in solo and group exhibitions and film festivals across Canada and in the USA, South America, Russia, Europe, and China, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Berlin Film Festival, the National Museum of the American Indian, and Today Art Museum in Beijing. In addition to her art practice Bonnie is a tenured professor at OCAD University in Toronto and the Founding Chair of OCAD University’s Indigenous Visual Culture program.

Artist Talk: Bonnie Devine

Recorded November 2016

Videography by: Matt + Steph