Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada — Monday, 1 February 2021: The MacKenzie Art Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition by artists James Nicholas and Sandra Semchuk, Ithin-eh-wuk—we place ourselves at the center. Curated by Timothy Long, the exhibition will include over a dozen photo-installations plus a selection of videos. For fifteen years, James Nicholas and Sandra Semchuk collaborated on a series of nationally exhibited photo-installations and videos which unveil the mindset and effects of colonialism through the lens of their remarkable intercultural marriage. This exhibition traces for the first time their creative output from their initial meeting in 1993 until Nicholas’s accidental death in 2007. Timothy Long will share in conversation with artist Sandra Semchuk at an opening reception for the exhibition, which will take place over Zoom on Thursday, 4 February at 7 PM.
“The MacKenzie is honoured to host this overdue comprehensive look at the work of Semchuk and Nicholas,” says John G. Hampton, Executive Director and CEO of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. “This profound body of work is both intensely personal and powerfully relatable, and in many ways sets the stage for the necessary conversations and question that we are grappling with today. I am so proud and excited to share this work with our community.”
The questions Nicholas and Semchuk ask of each other are personal, at times humorous, at other times painful. Whether dealing with the marginalization of Ukrainian-Canadian settlers or Nicholas’s experiences as a residential school survivor, the effort is always, in Semchuk’s words, “to recognize the truths in each other’s stories.” At the same time the works embrace a “wider-than-human” context by honouring the land, plants, and animals that ground their stories. “The work of James Nicholas and Sandra Semchuk is incredibly relevant to the work of conciliation going on today,” says Head Curator Timothy Long. “They show us what an open and empathetic intercultural dialogue looks like. It’s a model we can all learn from.”
The work of Nicholas and Semchuk reveals a profound commitment to dialogue in which Semchuk’s identity as the child of Ukrainian-Canadian settlers from Saskatchewan meets Nicholas’s experiences as a Rock Cree man from Manitoba. Guided by equality, their collaborations are love stories that open us to an honest and compassionate consideration of who is in the centre and who is not.
A publication featuring contributions by Dana Claxton, David Garneau, Richard Hill, Elwood Jimmy, Andrea Kunard, and Althea Thauberger will address their work and the intercultural sharing which informed their practice.
