Installation view of Teach Me a Song by Elisa Harkins. Courtesy of the artist. Photos by Blaine Campbell.
ELISA HARKINS
Teach Me a Song | Upper Gallery
14 OCTOBER 2023 - 13 JANUARY 2024
Titled after Elisa Harkins’ artwork of the same name, Teach Me a Song is an ongoing song preservation project where the artist asks Indigenous friends to teach her one song. Each song is performed for video and the resulting audio is transcribed into sheet music, preserving the songs for possible future performances. Since 2021, Harkins has recorded nine songs with singers and musicians from Osage, Cree, Seminole, Cherokee, Kiowa, and Blackfoot traditions. Part performance and part song preservation, Teach Me a Song is based on an exchange between artist and performers, of sharing and vulnerability in the common pursuit of playing and listening to contemporary Indigenous music.
The iteration of Teach Me a Song at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin features videos of five songs, two of which were recorded specifically for Harkins’ exhibition at the Gallery. Earlier this year, Harkins travelled to Sikoohkotoki/Lethbridge to record “The Grandmother’s Song” by the White Buffalo Singers (Blackfoot), a drum group composed of Jerome Blood, Keira Fox, and Brooke Provost as well as “Hold Her Pillow Tight” an original song by Marilyn Contois (Saulteaux from Cowessess First Nation). The exhibition also features recordings of performances by Louis Gray (Osage), Eli Hirtle (Cree), and Cheyenne Rain LeGrande ᑭᒥᐊᐧᐣ (Bigstone Cree Nation).
After each song, Harkins captures a portrait of the singer at the time of its recording and begins the process of transcribing each song into sheet music. The transcription becomes a kind of portrait of the song that allows it to be disseminated and subsequently reperformed. In addition to the portraits and sheet music, Harkins creates a custom shawl dedicated to each singer or group. Fancy Shawls are worn by women over their shoulders at powwows and in shawl dances from the Cherokee Nation and across the plains to our place on Blackfoot territory. As a continuing project of musical performance and transcription, Teach Me a Song ensures that musical practices that may otherwise go unheard or exist on the periphery, are appreciated for years to come.
Curated by Adam Whitford, Associate Curator & Exhibitions Manager
Elisa Harkins Elisa Harkins is a Native American (Cherokee/Muscogee) artist and composer based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work is concerned with translation, language preservation, and Indigenous musicology. Harkins uses the Cherokee and Mvskoke languages, electronic music, sculpture, and the body as her tools. She is the first person to sing in the Cherokee language in a contemporary song. Harkins received a BA from Columbia College, Chicago and an MFA from CALARTS. She has since continued her education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited her work at Crystal Bridges, documenta 14, The Hammer Museum, The Heard Museum, and Vancouver Art Gallery. She created an online Indigenous concert series called 6 Moons, and published a CD of Creek/Seminole Hymns. She is also the DJ of Mvhayv Radio, an Indigenous radio show on 91.1FM in Tulsa, OK and 99.1FM in Indianapolis, IN.
Artwork framing generously supported by L.A. Gallery 2.0.
We acknowledge the support of the City of Lethbridge, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.