News

Nadia Myre鈥檚 Pursuit of Reciprocity

Myre Portrait BG small

鈥淲hat you鈥檙e learning in art school opens your mind to the world,鈥 says artist Nadia Myre, who is the 2024 recipient of an Emily Award from Emily Carr University. (Photo courtesy Nadia Myre)

This post is 11 months old and may be out of date.

By Perrin Grauer

Posted on

The celebrated multidisciplinary artist and 2024 Emily Award recipient reflects on the relationship between art, meaning-making and perennial openness.

is at home in Montr茅al between trips abroad, and the city is buried under snow.

The award-winning, multidisciplinary artist, whose past decade has seen her participate in well over 100 shows, more than 25 of which have been solo exhibitions, is enjoying the soft reprieve granted to her city 鈥 and perhaps herself 鈥 by the early spring snowfall.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really awesome,鈥 she says.

Nadia is currently preparing to return to France where she鈥檚 conducting a residency at Le Centre International d鈥橝rt et du Paysage. A solo exhibition at the centre will follow in the summer.

Known for her longtime exploration of themes including identity, language, longing and loss, Nadia鈥檚 work often makes reference to her Indigeneity (she is an Algonquin member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation).

But her inquiry into nationhood and the politics of belonging is far from strictly personal. Through its expansive conceptual purview and a seemingly intuitive sensitivity to material languages, Nadia draws lines between her own lived experience, the process of collective meaning-making and the possibility of collective healing.

ACROSSTHEOCEAN GOREE2
Nadia myre goree house

(Top + bottom): Nadia Myre, Traverser l鈥橭c茅an / Across the Ocean, 2014. Installation view on Gor茅e Island, Senegal. (Photos by Aur茅lie Leveau / Courtesy Mus茅e Dapper, Paris, and Nadia Myre)

She notes this can be complicated in a country like France, where post-colonial discourse has yet to penetrate many mainstream conversations.

鈥淚 sometimes struggle with how to always question my relationship to a place; why am I here talking about my work? What鈥檚 the connection with my work to this place?鈥 she says of such experiences.

鈥淎nd then sometimes more lately, I鈥檝e given myself permission to not necessarily have to always be digging so deep. The world is really, really intimately connected, and the histories are connected. There鈥檚 a link and there鈥檚 a tie, and there鈥檚 a commonality of experience. And I do think it鈥檚 of value to do international exhibitions and participate on an international stage in that regard.鈥

To her credit, Nadia has consistently found thoughtful, evocative ways to foreground these interconnections. Her work , created in 2014 for the exhibition Formes et Paroles on Gor茅e Island in Senegal as part of the 15th Summit of La Francophonie, was made in part using traditional fishing-net techniques. She first began learning the skill during a residency in Qu茅bec organized by Sonia Robertson, then later from fishermen in Mexico while working on a land-art piece for the Cumbre Taj铆n festival, and again from local fisherman in Senegal during the making of the work itself. In doing so, Nadia surfaces a material history that connects distant cultures.

Across the Ocean also makes explicit reference to an 18th-century Black enslaved woman in Montr茅al known as Marie-Joseph Ang茅lique. Marie-Joseph鈥檚 story provided an opportunity to 鈥渆xplore Montr茅al鈥檚 slave history and share it with the people of Gor茅e, metaphorically bringing a story 鈥榝rom the New World鈥 home,鈥 Nadia in 2014.

Papers Always Crooked Lithographseries2022
Things Left Unsaidrawhideroadimensionsvaried2022

(Top + bottom): From Nadia Myre's Tell me of your boats and your waters, where do they come from, where do they go? 2022. Installation view at Gallery 2 of Edinburgh Printmakers. Commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival. (Photos courtesy Nadia Myre)

This characteristic depth and humanity have earned Nadia a string of honours including the Sobey Art Award, the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Qu茅bec Cultural Ambassador Award, the inaugural Walter Philips Gallery video award from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and the Pratt & Whitney Canada and Conseil des arts de Montr茅al: Prix les Elles de l鈥檃rt.

Her work is held in collections belonging to museums, governments and corporations. She has won public art commissions across Canada and abroad. She is the recipient of nearly two dozen grants including several from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. And she has a long history of curatorial and community engagement, including as co-founder of , Qu茅bec鈥檚 first Indigenous artist-run centre.

As of 2024, she is also the recipient of the Emily Award from Emily Carr University, which recognizes the outstanding achievements of 全民彩票鈥檚 alumni community.

But Nadia says the career she鈥檚 built over the past quarter-century since graduating from Emily Carr was far from a sure thing.

鈥淚 was interested in getting an education in art not because I had a conviction that I was going to be an artist, but rather I was interested in understanding the world differently,鈥 she says.

Even after completing her MFA at Concordia in 2002, she considered pursuing disciplines including writing and architecture.

鈥淐ircumstance and opportunity changed that for me,鈥 she says, noting it鈥檚 the unforeseeable that so often helps a life take shape. But a career as a professional artist also requires a degree of fortitude that can be hard-won if not entirely out of reach for many aspiring practitioners, she adds.

鈥淚t requires a faith in the universe that is uncomfortable, and a lot of people don鈥檛 have the tenacity for that,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut that doesn鈥檛 matter, right? Because what you鈥檙e learning in art school opens your mind to the world. And the tools you get through your education allow you to be adaptable and flexible and courageous, in a way.鈥

Nadia Myre MG 9319
Nadia Myre MG 9301

(Top + bottom): From Nadia Myre's Balancing Acts, 2019. Installation view at Textile Museum of Canada. (Photos courtesy Nadia Myre)

Nadia鈥檚 own faith in the universe was tested early when, in 1997, during her final year at Emily Carr, she was accused of racism by a fellow student who took exception to an artwork she displayed in a campus gallery. The issue divided the school, spurring public forums from which Nadia herself was conspicuously absent. She notes the controversy effectively ended her participation in her final year of studies. She graduated on the strength of her acceptance to Concordia鈥檚 MFA program, and by making up missing credits during a summer semester.

Looking back, Nadia says the issue was driven by overreaction and misunderstanding. But she also acknowledges the ways the experience influenced her approach to art-making.

鈥淚 can see how this event shaped my practice; to make work that was more under-the-surface,鈥 she says. 鈥淭o not spit out what I was thinking.鈥

She adds that this lesson stood her in good stead as she began to develop the themes that animate her practice today, though it would be years before she found a community of like-minded practitioners. The conversation around colonization was, at that time, far from prepared for an encounter with her exploration of Indigenous identity, she says. 全民彩票, for instance, only hired its first Indigenous representative in the years following Nadia鈥檚 graduation.

But Nadia says the issue was no less complex for her personally.

鈥淎t the time, I was struggling with my own relationship to an Indigenous identity that, in a way, was new,鈥 she says. Her mother, an orphan, wouldn鈥檛 reestablish contact with her Nation until later in life. Neither she nor Nadia grew up on reserve or with their Nation鈥檚 language. Nadia only obtained status in 1997, the year she left Emily Carr.

鈥淭he work I was doing was really trying to understand what it means for me to be this person who speaks English and French and has this education and on the outside seems pretty assimilated and white. What does it mean to be Indigenous, having never really grown up in the culture, with the language, on the land? I guess that鈥檚 the primary question that drives the work.鈥

12 Indian Act
Indian Act

(Top + bottom): From Nadia Myre's Indian Act, 2000-2002. (Photos courtesy Nadia Myre)

Arguably, this type of complexity also endows her work with its broader resonance.

Understanding how to contend with such complexity came from finally discovering 鈥渢here were others out there like me. And that my search was, in a way, legitimate.鈥 Meeting and encountering the work of artists such as Dana Claxton, James Luna, Rebecca Belmore, Greg A. Hill and David Garneau proved to be revelatory. The process of having moved through a place of uncertainty to one of equilibrium and interconnection has defined Nadia鈥檚 artistic trajectory ever since.

鈥淥ne of the things I鈥檝e always been motivated by is learning. I never want to put myself in a situation where I think I know what I鈥檓 doing,鈥 she says. 鈥淚t becomes a challenge of understanding how you are leaving your voice in a particular process. But if I鈥檓 guided by learning, then I鈥檓 always excited about a project.鈥

Nadia鈥檚 considered engagement with specific mediums and processes bears evidence of this perennial openness. Her works and , for instance, both employ beadwork. But they follow different sets of 鈥渞ules,鈥 she notes. The former, which was produced with contributions from more than 230 friends, colleagues and strangers, uses beads to trace every word and space of the Government of Canada鈥檚 56-page Indian Act, engaging metaphorically and directly with the legislation that governs Indigenous status, First Nations governments and the management of reserve land and communal monies in the country. The latter tracks drops of blood, bead by bead, to question the notion of hybrid identity, and appeared as large-scale photographs on billboards in nearly every province and territory in Canada.

Both works are premised on a question 鈥 one about sovereignty, the other about personhood. And both use a formal device to mark Nadia鈥檚 engagement with these questions, which are at once personal and existential. But both works also exhibit a profound aesthetic sensitivity, suffused, as they are, with what one might be forgiven for calling real beauty. According to Nadia, this is by no means an accident.

鈥淚 think some of the best art sometimes really moves you through affect,鈥 she says. And while a pursuit of affect can be a slippery one, its success often relies on preserving space for not-knowing. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important for me to develop ways of working that allow for mystery to embed in the practice.鈥

Myre meditation WEB EDIT

(Clockwise from Top L): Nadia Myre, Meditations on Red #3, #4, #1 and #2, 2013. (Photos courtesy Nadia Myre)

In essence, Nadia is describing a kind of quest for reciprocity 鈥 with the world, with its histories and with the works themselves. She notes she aims to 鈥渁llow space for other information to come back through the making of work.鈥

It occurs to me, at this point, that I can see some of what generates the genuine warmth, good humour and resolute groundedness with which Nadia has conducted our conversation. She laughs a little when she says that she finds the notion of constantly exerting one鈥檚 will 鈥渋ncredibly boring.鈥 Though she adds that 鈥渟ome people do it really well and they鈥檙e very successful. Maybe mine was the harder path. I don鈥檛 know.鈥

She pauses, giving some thought to where her reflection might lead.

鈥淪ometimes, exerting your will can be necessary, especially when it鈥檚 in service to a vision,鈥 she continues. 鈥淏ut I believe that if the thing is supposed to be, then it happens, and it happens in the way it鈥檚 supposed to happen. And all of that is information. It鈥檚 about seeking, really.鈥