Nadia Myre
Untitled (Tobacco Barrel)
First exhibited as part of the recent multidisciplinary project Code Switching and Other Work, at Art Mûr, Berlin in late 2018, Nadia Myre’s Untitled (Tobacco Barrel) takes inspiration from the cylindrical vessels used to import tobacco from North America to Europe during periods of early colonial settlement. Responding to the history of clay pipe production in the ports of London, Bristol, and Glasgow by weaving together the literal detritus of the colonial tobacco trade, Myre’s work poetically untangles material links between the British Empire, Canada, and Indigenous peoples. Following contact with the so-called New World in the 1600s, the growing popularity of tobacco use in Europe led to the design and widespread manufacturing of disposable, pre-stuffed clay tobacco pipes in Britain. An appropriation of the implements traditionally used by Indigenous peoples to smoke dried tobacco leaves, the clay pipe was among the first commodities meant to be discarded post-use, with its stem designed to be broken off in segments as the user consumed the tobacco.
Responding to this shared history, Myre began to conduct excavations along the banks of the River Thames in 2015, uncovering the bowls and broken stems of buried clay tobacco pipes, often with her young son in tow. Readily found in British waterways, their simple appearance and meagre economic value belie their significance in historical and archaeological terms: the artefacts are often used to date sites during excavations. Moreover, in their ready-made, bead-like form, the mass-produced shards paradoxically recall the smooth texture of porcupine quills and other materials used to construct the handmade wampum belt integral to First Nations people and Myre’s present-day weaving practice.
Identity is a central concern in many of Myre’s works, and bones and teeth from the excavation process remind the viewer of the all-too human element present within every historical context. As a whole, Myre’s new body of work marries craft production with European and Indigenous material culture and museum-style modes of presentation to humanize many of the questions that persist around the public display of the material remnants of colonial legacies.