Running 'Interference': Nicholas Galanin challenges the legacies, consequences of colonization through art
By Kathaleen Roberts / Assistant Arts Editor
December 17, 2023
You can hear the screams at Site Santa Fe.
Multidisciplinary Tlingit and Unangax artist Nicholas Galanin’s solo exhibit “Interference Patterns” features a neon sign reading “Take a knee and scream until you can’t breathe.” “There’s been a lot of participation,” said curator Brandee Caoba. “We had to put up a lot of warning signs saying, ‘You may hear screaming in the building.’ ”
Galanin’s show includes installations, sculpture, video and sound celebrating Indigenous knowledge challenging the legacies and consequences of colonization and occupation. Some works read inherently political; others are poetic but unflinching in their critique and disruption of the dominant culture.
“Unconverted/Converted” displays a deer hide next to a painted digitized version of the same object. The piece echoes the conversions that took place during European settlement. “The deer hide is camouflage; it’s waterproof,” Caoba said. “Then on the right, Nicholas has taken the deer hide and broken it down. “It’s referencing the way the complexity of something gets lost when it’s converted.”
Galanin created the 8-foot-tall “Loom” from prefabricated children’s school desks. “The tops of the desks have been covered with Tlingit form lines with (of course) No. 2 pencils,” Caoba said. The form lines or drawings symbolize cultural resistance. “The sculpture is made to mimic a totem pole,” Caoba said. “It focuses our attention on the legacy of residential boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada. The children were often subjected to abuse and neglect.”
The Site-commissioned “Neon American Anthem (red)” invites audiences to participate in a response to legislated violence and oppression by the United States on those inside and outside its borders. “It references the murders of George Floyd, so many other people of color murdered by the police,” Caoba said. “His work is deeply rooted in his relationship to the land and culture, and also his experience of living as an Indigenous man in North America.”
Visitors will see a wolf mounted on Site’s ceiling in “Infinite Weight.” The found taxidermied animal hangs over a landscape video. “It’s kind of like a feedback loop,” Caoba said. “The landscape moves. You can see the weather and the clouds moving. It’s referencing the extent of white colonization and how the settlement of his homeland has been controlled. “In white culture, it’s a trophy of conquest. Wolves are incredibly important to the survival of ecosystems. Who determines the value of other species? The wolf in the work carries the weight of all life.”
Galanin lives in Sitka, Alaska.
As a young boy, he learned to work with jewelry and metals from his father and uncle. At 18, Galanin worked a desk job at the Sitka National Historical Park. On a slow day, his superiors discovered him drawing Tlingit art. He was informed he was only allowed to read Russian history books during working hours. He quit his job to pursue art.
In 2002, he studied silversmithing at London’s Guildhall University.
“He had never left the country,” Caoba said. “And he was told he couldn’t use his cultural roots in his designs.”
The reverse was true in 2007 when he earned his master’s degree at New Zealand’s Massey University, where he apprenticed with master carvers and jewelers.
Galanin participated in Desert X, Palm Springs (2021); Biennale of Sydney (2020); Venice Biennale (2017); Whitney Biennial (2019); and Honolulu Biennial (2019). Galanin’s work is in permanent collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Detroit Institute of Arts; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Denver Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Princeton University. He received an award from American Academy of Arts and Letters (2020) and received a Soros Arts Fellowship (2020).