Anspayaxw
· Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, in Border Zones: New Art Across Cultures, 2010
· ‘Ksan Museum Gallery, Hazelton, British Columbia, 2011
· Alley Cat Gallery, San Francisco, curated by Ethnographic Terminalia for the American Anthropological Association, 2012
· MoA Satellite Gallery, Vancouver, 2013
· Surrey Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2015
Anspayaxw (Kispiox) is a small reserve in northern British Columbia where I worked with linguist Tyler Peterson and visual artist Denise Hawrysio to record and photograph members of the Gitxsan community. Their native language, Gitxsanimaax, is one of many seriously endangered languages on the west coast of Canada, an area of remarkable but dwindling linguistic diversity. There are roughly 400 ‘competent’ speakers of Gitxsanimaax, but most of these are middle-aged or older and their average age is rising.
Language is a primary repository of culture and history, and once a language is no longer spoken, the rich knowledge it carries is gone forever. The linguistic diversity of the world is under threat: there are currently about 6,000 languages spoken now but it is variously estimated that between 50 and 90% of these will be gone by the end of this century.
The word Anspayaxw ends with a ‘voiceless fricative’, a breathy sound characteristic of the language which influenced the way I have worked with the environmental sounds. All the sounds in the piece are derived from the participants’ voices and recordings I made in and around Kispiox. Sometimes, these sounds are filtered, stretched and resonated, but no other sounds have been added.
The panels hanging in the Surrey Art Gallery are both photographs and speakers. The larger ones are 2 metres wide, and each panel plays an independent channel of sound. (Photo by Scott Massey)
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Panoramic view of the installation at the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver
Click for an article in The Globe & Mail
Interview with curator Karen Duffek at the Museum of Anthropology
The symposium On Endangered Languages: Indigeneity, Community and Creative Practice at the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver. It included the performance “Hello Darlin’” by Tahltan artist Peter Morin. (see below)
Poster for Anspayaxw at ‘Ksan Museum in Gitxsan territory in Hazelton,close to the Kispiox reserve where the recordings were made.
This project is dedicated to the memory of Doreen Jensen (Ha’hl Yee), artist and project participant (1933–2009).
Special thanks to Barbara Harris for introducing me to her language, to her community and to my collaborator, linguist Tyler Peterson. Thanks also to Karen Duffek, Denise Hawrysio, Tyler Peterson, Chris Rolfe, The Weget family, Louise Wilson, John and Helen Heit and the community of Kispiox, in particular those with whom we worked, but also to everyone in Kispiox for welcoming us to their community.
The project was funded by an ELDP Fieldtrip grant from the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project at SOAS and a production grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, with additional in-kind support from Amina Technologies, University of the Arts London and the UBC Museum of Anthropology.