Beau Dick
Indian Act
Americas, Canada, Alert Bay
2010–11
Plastic, paper, cardboard, wood, feathers; carved, painted, and assembled
Joseph Isaac (Business Manager of the U'mista Cultural Centre) facilitated the installation to Claus Deimel (former museum director)
Purchased by the museum from Deimel in 2012
NAm 5150
The installation by Beau Dick (1955-2017) from the Kwakwaka’wakw community addresses part of the history of First Nations in Canada.
The skull mask carries items associated with a potlatch ceremony, a hospitality ritual still practiced by First Nations communities on the Northwest Coast of North America. Potlatch ceremonies can be held for major events like death, marriage, house construction, or initiation, as well as everyday moments.
Beneath the mask lies a photocopy of the Indian Act, a Canadian law from 1876 that continues to dictate the legal standing of First Nations in Canada. Among other things, the Canadian government mandated the establishment of residential schools for Indigenous children through this act, transferring caregiving and educational authority to religious institutions. Until the schools were gradually closed at the end of the 20th century, widespread neglect, abuse, and violence against children occurred, leading to numerous deaths and causing lasting trauma in Indigenous communities. Although Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized to First Nations communities in May 2008, they continue to fight for their rights to this day.
A chair from a closed residential school on Vancouver Island, painted with Kwakwaka’wakw symbols, accompanies the installation. The work confronts the hypocrisy of the Indian Act’s authors and contrasts their values with those of the First Nations. It highlights how a supposedly protective law was used to disempower, mistreat, and traumatize people.
Team GRASSI.SKD