Indigenous Installation Art as Story: Material, Method, and Memory in the Practices of Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Maureen Gruben, and Hannah Claus

Contemporary Indigenous art is deeply intertwined with Indigenous life, communal and personal histories, stories, worldviews, and practices. Artists imbue their artworks with memories and cultural knowledge through their material choices, references to customary practices, and engagement with their communities in the past, present, and future. This dissertation analyzes the art practices of Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq, Athabascan, Irish, German), Maureen Gruben (Inuvialuk), and Hannah Claus (Kanien'kehá:ka/English) using Indigenous frameworks, such as materiality and relationality, to understand the complexities within their art installations. With Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies, I analyze culturally specific, place-based, and personal knowledge embedded within these contemporary Circumpolar Indigenous artist's practices. Each of these artworks presents to viewers a kind of story, the histories of their communities, personal and cultural memories, their current lives, and hopes for the future. Throughout this dissertation, I use storywork—an Indigenous research method introduced by Jo-Ann Archibald (Stó:lō) that focuses on engaging Indigenous storytelling practices as legitimate methods of disseminating information—and visual sovereignty—visual expressions as embodiments of intergenerational knowledge—to argue that these contemporary Indigenous artworks are representations of persistence and preservation of cultural knowledge, techniques, stories, and worldviews. The introduction of this dissertation defines terminology, such as Indigenous, Native, customary, and traditional, discusses storywork as a research process and analytical perspective, and explains theoretical frameworks like materiality, relationality, experiential engagement, and visual sovereignty, to reinforce the importance of this project as one that foregrounds the multivalent and culturally specific knowledge entrenched within these works of art. Chapter 2 considers Sonya Kelliher-Combs's Small Secrets (2009), a work that consists of forty-nine walrus gutskin pouches, embellished with hair, glass beads, and nylon threads. These pouches represent "secrets" which the artist states are created by traumas, like suicide and experiences at residential schools. This chapter argues that this installation uses personal and communal knowledge and experiences to represent persistence, reclaim agency surrounding Indigenous histories, and reflects the possibility of healing from traumas. Using Indigenous theories and research tools, I reflect on this piece as an embodiment of intergenerational knowledge of gutskin harvesting, relationships between Alaska Native communities, colonization, and the importance of audiences' knowledge in the process of discovering the secrets the artist subtly discloses. In Chapter 3, I consider Maureen Gruben's performative and endurance-based installation, Stitching My Landscape (2017), as a representation of Inuvialuit cultural memory rooted in place, materials, symbols, and legacies of colonialism. Stitching My Landscape is an approximately six-minute-long video of the artist drilling holes and laying out red broadcloth in a suture patten on the frozen ocean near Ibyuq Pingo in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. Recalling memories of harvesting a seal with her brother, stories surrounding the importance of pingos, and calling attention to the now unused ice road into Tuktoyaktuk, Gruben visually depicts the idea of repair using a visual language inherently connected to this place. Chapter 4 explores Hannah Claus's installation our minds are one (2014). This piece consists of acetate circles printed with images of the artist's world, including the sky, trees, and sidewalk, threaded together and hung from the ceiling in a dome shape. This chapter argues that our minds are one symbolizes Haudenosaunee and Kanien'kehá:ka principles of interconnectedness through personal and culturally specific symbols, references to stories, and customary practices, like beading clothing and creating Wampum Belts. As a dome suspended in the air, viewers are invited to enter the space of the work as active participants to foreground their interactions and place in the world. In conclusion, I reiterate the importance of using a multi-sited, Indigenous approach to analyzing Indigenous artworks. In doing so, we can ensure that the context of the artists' backgrounds, community histories, customary practices, contemporary experiences, and cultural knowledge are central to their interpretation.

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