Stories My Father Couldn’t Tell Me: Jeff Thomas Origin is a reflection of Jeff Thomas’s 40 years of art-making, resistance, and activism as an urban Iroquois photographer and cultural theorist.
His exhibit is coming to the Ottawa Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada from Oct. 19, 2024 to March 16, 2025.
Photographic montages, family portraits, re-contextualized archival images, and artist travelogues unveil his stories of resilience.
Thomas also explores his artistic past, Indigenous masculinity, disability, fatherhood, and the connections between land, ancestors, and family in his latest series, Dream Panels, at the exhibit.
Jeff Thomas, Indian Father and Daughter, Riverdale Park, Toronto, 2009 pigment print on archival paper. Courtesy of the artist.
Rachelle Dickenson, who curated the exhibition, says Thomas shares a “holistic view of shared experiences of the land.”
“Jeff meets history where it’s at, and his role as an artist is not to correct (since there is no way to be ‘correct’), but rather to nuance, ask questions. Jeff’s practice activates layers of meanings that make many kinds of truths woven together in ways that are powerfully articulate,” she writes in a press release.
“Jeff’s four decade-long career documenting, articulating and empowering Indigenous voice and presence on this land marks his incredible significance as a storyteller, cultural theorist and an artist of profound vision and insight,” says Steven Loft, vice-president of Indigenous Ways and Decolonization at the National Gallery of Canada.
There will be a reception for the exhibit unveiling on Oct. 24 at the OAG. The event is free and open to all and registration is open on the OAG website.
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