Artist Rande Cook will speak at Camosun\u2019s Lansdowne campus on Monday, March 16 (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWithout a bachelor\u2019s degree, a master\u2019s program is even more demanding. For it, Cook is required to take additional courses, including Art History, but there is an invisible adjective in front of that class title. Western Art History doesn\u2019t include Indigenous art, and contemporary art galleries are unsure of where it fits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI didn\u2019t realize just how challenging it would be, and I say this [as an] Indigenous artist,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd one of my questions is why are you pounding me with western art history when you don\u2019t acknowledge my history? I have 20 years\u2014I have, like, a PhD in my art history\u2014and it\u2019s not even acknowledged.\u201d<\/p>\n
From 2015 to 2016, Cook held the Audain Professorship of Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest within the Visual Arts department at the University of Victoria. In his program now, he is learning alongside students he taught at that time. The experience of learning in an institution is so different from the ways he learned as an apprentice of master carver John Livingston. For example, beyond design and history, he learned economics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cSo, going back to the university, there\u2019s, like, not one conversation about economics,\u201d says Cook. \u201cThese kids go on to school, and then once they\u2019re done, they don\u2019t even know how to sell their work.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Cook navigates the university structure with a wide range of knowledge as a successful artist, professor, and, now, student, he finds himself asking big questions about defining the art form, its origins, and whether it fits in the category of modernism or postmodernism. However, questions of origins are intertwined with questions of land and who controls the resources on those lands.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c[We\u2019re] still struggling and being forced out of our traditional lands due to industry, and capitalism, and how it\u2019s actually starting to shift the art as well, in a contemporary sense,\u201d says Cook. \u201cThis is a really, really interesting conversation and I think these are the things that need to be spoken about in a public arena.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cook is an optimist, and throughout this deeply polarized time, he is always thinking about ways to connect people and ideas. As a hereditary chief, Cook has an obligation to protect the future of the lands he has say over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s protecting the freedom for all of us to say and feel and to know that we\u2019re valid. Everybody has emotions and those emotions are real and we deserve to express that,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that\u2019s where my optimism comes in\u2014you still have to keep thinking about love within all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rande Cook
\n2:30 Monday, March 16
\nFree, Young 216, Lansdowne campus
\ncamosun.ca\/art<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On March 16, Rande Cook, a Kwakwaka\u2019wakw artist born in Alert Bay, will give a lecture at Camosun on contemporary Indigenous art and its origins as part of the college\u2019s Visiting Artist Series. Cook is an accomplished multimedia artist who has apprenticed, researched, and honed his craft while working all over the world. That\u2019s why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-march-4-2020"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19178,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19122\/revisions\/19178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Rande-Cook-2.jpeg\")
<\/a>