Join Contemporary Calgary for an online Artist Talk with WATER EVENT artist, seth cardinal dodginghorse as he discusses his work The Glenmore Rezerveoir, a water sculpture made in response to Yoko Ono’s invitation to produce a container that held water. The work is one of six water sculptures produced for Ono’s ongoing collaborative work, WATER EVENT (1971/ 2020), part of Ono’s exhibition GROWING FREEDOM at Contemporary Calgary.
This Artist Talk it is hosted as a Public Program of the ongoing exhibition, Yoko Ono: GROWING FREEDOM and will be held online on Zoom and broadcast through Contemporary Calgary’s Facebook Live. A recording of this discussion will be posted on Contemporary Calgary’s website at a late date.
About The Glenmore Rezerveoir
Made of the dirt from Tsuut’ina/The SW Calgary Ring Road, parfleche, earth pigments, sinew, 15L grocery store water jug meant to hold and sell Calgary municipal water, the sculpture is in direct response to the necessitated purchase of bottled water on the Tsuut’ina Nation and is concerned with the larger issue of displacement for alleged progress.
Describing the work, seth writes, “The Glenmore Reservoir is built on Tsuut’ina Nation land that they were forced to sell in the 1920’s to the city of Calgary. The SW Calgary Ring Road is currently being built on my family’s Tsuut’ina land that was stolen and sold in 2013 to the city of Calgary. Since 2013, I haven’t been able to drink clean water from my tap on Tsuut’ina because of the SW Calgary Ring Road. I now have to buy bottled water that comes from stolen Tsuut’ina land.
“Dear Calgary and Calgarians, stop forcing Tsuut’ina Chief and Councils to sell land, they can’t say no. Think about what you drink and where you drive.”
seth cardinal dodginhorse
About the Artist
seth cardinal dodginghorse is an experimental musician, cultural researcher, and multidisciplinary artist working within performance, printmaking, installation, sound and video. He grew up eating dirt and exploring the forest on his family’s ancestral land on the Tsuu’tina nation. In 2013 he and his family were forcibly removed from their homes and land for the construction of the South West Calgary Ring Road. His work explores his family’s history and experiences of displacement.
