Jeneen Frei Njootli

casino chips fall out of you, broken hearts and baggies too

In Jeneen Frei Njootli’s casino chips fall out of you, broken hearts and baggies too a ceremonial drum is wrapped in a blue tarp and held together by a leather bondage harness positioned on a folding metal chair. In the artist’s Vuntut Gwitchin culture, a drum that is being played in ceremony connects to an individual’s heartbeat, the community, and the spiritual world. In this work, it evokes human life and healing. Folding chairs are often used in gathering spaces including Powwows, community halls, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Here, the tarp provides a protective cover, like a contemporary version of the traditional animal hides that Indigenous communities have depended on for centuries of survival. The leather harness which binds the drum and tarp together raises questions about modes of control and the tensions that exist between materials in order to emphasize what is shared, given, or withheld across cultures. As many Indigenous cultural belongings were dispossessed and subsequently ogled by viewers as museum artifacts, Njootli reclaims ownership and the right to visibility. The work calls into question the cultural practices, traditions, and Indigenous rights that are still being inhibited or denied by continuing assimilation policies. casino chips fall out of you, broken hearts and baggies toocan be viewed as a site of cultural restraint and liberation as Njootli reckons with histories of displacement and the ongoing struggles that Indigenous peoples face.