CAFKA.22

Raven Davis Mmenwenmad | To Save for Later

Mmenwenmad | To Save for Later

Raven Davis

February 9 - March 25, 2022
Presented in partnership with University of Waterloo Art Gallery

Location: University of Waterloo Art Gallery - 263 Phillip St., Waterloo
UWAG will be open Wednesday to Saturday from 12-5 PM and limited to 5 visitors at a time

Join us for a conversation between Raven Davis and Glodeane Brown: March 17, 7:00PM - Register
Co-presented by UWAG, University of Waterloo Department of Fine Arts and CAFKA.
ASL interpretation and automatic transcriptions will be provided. 

Mmenwenmad | To Save for Later is a new body of work by Raven Davis rooted in acknowledging the physical body, and lived experience as an incalculable, unwritten document. Davis’ monochromatic images capture the artist on the coastline of Mi’kma’ki, also known as the Atlantic coast. Through movement, sound, and the juxtaposition to land, body, Davis engages with a common archiving 2-drawer filing cabinet that is incapable of archiving the continuum of one's lived experience or intimate relationships with the land. Exploring transgenerational epigenetic matrilineal inheritance, Davis embodies a personal choreography that expresses the impacts of colonialism, trauma, disability, transness, diaspora, and relationship to the land. In doing so, Davis draws on their previous body of works with monuments, creating temporary tributes honouring the water, land, sky world. Questioning, what has been deemed “worthy” of saving, what has been lost, and what has been intentionally left out.

Raven Davis is an Anishinaabe, 2-Spirit, transgender, disabled multidisciplinary artist, activist, and educator whose mother is from Treaty Four in Manitoba. Davis was born and raised in Michi Saagig Territory/Toronto, Ontario, and resides and works fluidly between Toronto and Kjipuktuk/Halifax. A parent of three sons, Davis works within the mediums of painting, performance, and media. Challenging systemic oppression, Davis fuses narratives of colonization, race, gender, disability, transformative justice, and 2-Spirit/Indigiqueer identity in their work. Davis’ performance and art practice bravely embodies their lived experience, reclaiming histories of Indigenous peoples’ restoring cultural knowledge, and honouring land, water and collective kinship futures. 

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Raven Davis, Mmenwenmad | To Save for Later (February, 2022). Installation view. Photo Documentation: Scott Lee.

CAFKA would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and our curatorial partner, University of Waterloo Art Gallery. 


This exhibition is an extension of the CAFKA.21 biennial, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost.

 

Gallery

Picture of gallery with four photographs hanging that range in subject matter.
Three photographs hanging on the wall. The one on the left features a figure standing on a box in a field. The middle image showcases a figure crouched on a box which is in water. The image of the right shows a figure standing on a box further in the distance in a lake.
Gallery walls with three hanging photographs a different subject matter.
Two photographs hanging on wall. The left image is of a figure standing on a box on the beach, looking to the left to view the water. The image on the right is a figure laying on the beach arms outreached grasping a box as the waves crash into their body.
Photo graph on the left, showcases a file cabinet on the beach with water in the background. Text on the write.
An image of the gallery with viewer standing in a red jacket in the center.

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