"Cedar People: Ancestors Living Among Us"
2000-11-08 until 0000-00-00
Bishop's University Art Gallery
Lennoxville, QC, CA

The Art Gallery of Bishop's University is proud to present the exhibition Cedar People: Ancestors Living Among Us by photographer Nancy Bleck and sculptor Aaron Nelson-Moody. Cedar People is a multidisciplinary exhibition that explores the diversity of cultures existing within parallel histories. The content of the exhibition acknowledges and celebrates social, ecological and environmental issues.

Cedar refers to a community of forests and peoples, whose common health and history are inextricably linked together. People, in this context, references both Coast Salish People and 'witnesses' who have participated through ceremony as 'keepers of history' and who recall a personal testimony of remembrance. Cedar people articulate individual cedar trees, in a sacred area of old-growth forest, who have lived and witnessed time for millennia (Nancy Bleck and Aaron Nelson-Moody).

The exhibition was motivated by the 1999 discovery of culturally modified markings on the outside of bark of ancient cedar trees, which indicated an authentic historical site thousands of years old. The same area of forest, located in the Northern Squamish territory of British Columbia, was scheduled for clear-cut logging that same year. Successful efforts were made to halt the logging until a Land Claim settlement could be agreed upon.

The exhibition will showcase a selection of large-scale vertical panoramic color photographs by Nancy Bleck. The medium of photography documents the natural and cultural history of the Squamish territory and is intended to facilitate open and inclusive dialogue. Visitors to the gallery are also invited to participate in woodcarving workshops, which will be held by Aaron Nelson-Moody from Monday, November 6 until Friday, November 10. Lastly in conjunction with the exhibition, there will also be three films shown at Centennial Theatre, opposite the Art Gallery. The films, a mixture of fiction and documentary, call attention to the urgent need for effective forest management, and simultaneously enrich the content of the exhibition.

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