Post #83
Public Art: The Wavers of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation
When I first moved to Manitoba, my partner's family, from a small town outside Winnipeg, told me of the Wavers of Brokenhead. This was one of the first site-specific stories shared with me about this place. They showed me Wavers of Brokenhead Gas Station and the oversized lawn chair on Highway 59 that commemorate the much-beloved 'Wavers' of the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation. For twenty years, the late James and Nelson Starr could be found waving from their lawn chairs to passersby at the side of Highway 59 near the Brokenhead Reserve and the community of Scanterbury.
I see it as necessary to include collaborative, community-driven interventions like the oversized lawn chair and renamed gas station when considering what constitutes public art. As Leah Sandals notes in “Why I Care(d) About Nuit Blanche,” there is a “disparity in reverence” toward art that exists in some places in comparison to others.¹ Authority given and value credited to artworks within exclusive art institutions and commercial sites located in urban centres. Though the Wavers Monument, located an hour northeast of downtown Winnipeg, was not a commissioned artwork, nor does it represent a specific authorial artistic vision, it is public; it embodies the spirit of a community and tells a story. The oversized lawn chair marks the material moment of two men waving and the immaterial human connection and gestures of kindness between people. In the same way, this story was passed to me when I moved to this place, I imagine it has passed to many people. I see the chair and the gas station as existing somewhere between a public monument, a tourist attraction, a gift, and the physical embodiment of storytelling.
In “Introduction: Toward a Critical Literacy of Racisms, Anti-Racisms and Racialization,” Jo-Anne Lee and John Lutz suggest that the viability of ideologies that impose and propagate hierarchies of power are dependent on their integration into the collective consciousness as common sense.² Informed by this, when considering how to resist and defy regimes of power, I aim to underscore actions that oppose hegemonic ideologies of common sense.³ Their actions abrade the smooth surface of normal, making space in our collective consciousness for something else. Their undeniable impact inspired community member John Bear to construct the oversized lawn chair cum monument and gas station manager, Allen Hocaluk, to change the name of the Brokenhead Gas Station.⁴
Grant Kester outlines the value and positioning of dialogue within contemporary art in "Conversation pieces: The role of dialogue in socially-engaged art."⁵ The principles of discursive practice, the importance of conversation and human interaction, are encapsulated in the Wavers Monument. James and Nelson Starr engaged in verbal and non-verbal exchanges for twenty years; these connections are embodied in and remembered through the oversized chair that holds their place.⁶ Their positive modelling of dialogical exchange asserts the value of openness, care, and human interdependence. As Alyssa Fearon sought to promote love in the community through her curation of Nuit Blanche Scarborough, the Starrs', through the simple gesture of waving, cultivated reciprocal relationships that have had a lasting impact on place and space.⁷
Figure 1. Photograph of oversized lawn chair created by John Bear in memory of James and Nelson Starr. Photograph from CBC News.
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1 Leah Sandals, “Why I Care(d) About Nuit Blanche,” in Holding Ground : Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures (Tkaronto, Canada: Public Books, 2021), 68.
2 Jo-Anne Lee and John Lutz, "Introduction: Toward a critical literacy of racisms, anti-racisms, and racialization." in Situating “race” and racisms in space, time, and theory: Critical essays for activists and scholars (Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 5.
3 “Big Chair Honours Brokenhead Wavers | CBC News,” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, August 17, 2012, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/big-chair-honours-brokenhead-wavers-1.1182210.
4 “Big Chair Honours Brokenhead Wavers.”
5 Grant Kester, "Conversation pieces: The role of dialogue in socially-engaged art," in Theory in contemporary art since 1985 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004), 80.
6 “Big Chair Honours Brokenhead Wavers.”
7 Alyssa Fearon, “A Scarborough Love Ethic,” in Holding Ground : Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures (Tkaronto, Canada: Public Books, 2021), 51.
Bibliography
“Big Chair Honours Brokenhead Wavers | CBC News.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, August 17, 2012. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/big-chair-honours-brokenhead-wavers-1.1182210.
“Creator of big red chair, monument to famous Brokenhead Wavers, dead at age 60.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, January 16, 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/john-bear-obit-wavers-red-chair-1.5429961
Fearon, Alyssa. “A Scarborough Love Ethic.” in Holding Ground : Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures. Tkaronto, Canada: Public Books, 2021.
Grabish, Austin. “Man Whose Hobby Was Waving to Drivers in Brokenhead Dead at 73 | CBC News.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, November 24, 2018. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/brokenhead-waver-passes-away-1.4919605.
Kester, Grant. "Conversation pieces: The role of dialogue in socially-engaged art." in Theory in contemporary art since 1985. Wiley-Blackwell, 2004: 76-100.
Lee, Jo-Anne, and John Lutz. "Introduction: Toward a critical literacy of racisms, anti-racisms, and racialization." in Situating “race” and racisms in space, time, and theory: Critical essays for activists and scholars (2005): 3-29.
Sandals, Leah. “Why I Care(d) About Nuit Blanche.” in Holding Ground : Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures. Tkaronto, Canada: Public Books, 2021.
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Grace Braniff