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Walter Harris, Dogfish and grizzly bear mask, 1973, High Commission of Canada, Australia
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People of the Cedar: First Nations Art from the Northwest Coast of Canada is the result of collaboration between the National Museum of Australia and the Canadian High Commission in Canberra. The exhibition runs in the National Museum's First Australians Focus Gallery from 2 March to 28 May 2006.
People of the Cedar features works celebrating the artistic expression and cultural identity of Canada's First Nation peoples in the western province of British Columbia. It includes masks and carvings, cedar bark weaving, textiles, works on paper and paintings. Predominantly made from yellow and red cedar wood and cedar bark, the works reflect the artists' deeply spiritual relationship to the western Canadian coast and forests.
The core collection was established as a travelling exhibition in the mid-1970s by the then Canadian Department of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs Canada) as the First Nation peoples began to reaffirm themselves in the modern multicultural society of Canada. Today, the work of the First Nations artists from the northwest coast is universally recognised and exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide.
The exhibition includes 47 works from the Canadian High Commission's collection, augmented by objects from the collections of the National Gallery in Canberra and the Australian Museum in Sydney.
Twenty-five artists from nine different First Nation groups are represented in the exhibition. There are many variations in technique and style which highlight the artists' direct and ongoing connection with the land and its stories, both past and present.
Artists include Dempsey Bob (Tahltan/Tlingit), Joe David (Nuu-Chah-Nulth), Freda Diesing (Haida), Walter Harris (Gitxsan), Fred Modeste (Coast Salish), Glen Rabena (Yakima/Haida), Ron Sebastian (Gitxsan/Wet'suwet'en), Roy Henry Vickers (Tsimshian) and Glen Wood (Gitxsan/Tsimshian).
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