BEMIDJI — When it comes to Rory Wakemup’s multimedia art, he’s all about subversive education: flipping the script, using satire, and delving deep into Native identity and how it’s presented to the general public.
Wakemup said he’s known he wanted to be an artist since he was a child: First it was drawing and painting, then ceramics in high school, then glassblowing, photography, sculpture and mural art.
But while in graduate school, inspiration struck, helping to hone his point of view and leading to the work he creates and displays today.
"I'm not trying to be invisible anymore. That's the new racism. So, I'm not going to stop. ... People don't like it. I'm sorry, but not sorry."Rory Wakemup
Canadian performance artist Rebecca Belmore was one of those inspirations. Over 30 years ago, she shouted the names of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in the streets of the communities where they went missing on the West Coast of Canada and the U.S.
“I thought that was probably the most powerful art piece and performance,” Wakemup said in an interview on Area Voices.
Charlene Teters and her activism in her own graduate schoolwork, calling out racism in sports mascots, also inspired him. Wakemup said mixing activism into art is his favorite form of expression — whatever it takes to get people’s attention.
That approach plays a big role in the St. Paul-based artist's current exhibit at the Watermark Art Center in Bemidji.
“‘Kill the idiot, save the fan.’ You know, a parody of, ‘Kill the Indian, save the man,’” he explained. “Kind of flipping the script and using satire is my favorite type of art concept.”
Wakemup said it took some contemplation of his own identity to arrive at his current approach to his art.
“It was kind of like my existence is resistance, being Native and alive and coming from a peoples that survived genocide and forced assimilation,” he said. “ ... But it's still not enough. You can't just sit around being happy to be alive, when things are still on a downward trajectory.”
The beginnings of his current exhibit “Smart Wars: Gaa-miinigoowiziyang" came from work on his master’s degree show. A year later, Wakemup became frustrated seeing Indigenous war shirt regalia behind museum glass, and he said it made him want to break the glass. He decided to craft his own version of a war shirt.
“I made a glass war shirt and headdress and proclaimed myself a chief — which is not how you become a chief — and kind of [played] with humor. I got fed up with doing the Indian 101 with all my artwork. I just gave up on trying to educate folks on what my perception of being Indian and Indian art is.”
A campaign by alumni to bring back Chief Illiniwek as a symbol at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign led to another transformation in his thinking.
“In mass media, they dehumanize us and sexually fetishize us and all the stuff that causes missing and murdered indigenous relatives,” Wakemup said. “So I was gonna sexually fetishize Chief Illiniwek and [use] all this imagery to dehumanize Chief Illiniwek ... [create] this whole messaging campaign to flip the script, and how it feels to be Native being looked at that way and obviously going overkill.
“But just so folks would get what it feels like to have their Native idol be dehumanized and used as a circus trick.”
But then he decided to change his approach. Wakemup said he wanted to subversively educate youths as well. It became a live-action role play, and in his last year of grad school, he created Darth Chief, the mascot hunter.
Current exhibit
Wakemup hopes audiences take away two major things from visiting his exhibit at the Watermark: how important social and environmental justice are.
“Social justice seems to be doing much better, but environmental justice is not, in my eyes, really making any progress,” he said. “ ... Your far right, Trumpers want to protect fish and land and everything, too. So, it's not just a left, right-wing political issue. It's a human issue. If we want to coexist with the planet.”
It’s also important to Wakemup that audiences know the work in his exhibit should be called outfits, because regalia should not be called “costumes.” And you don’t call costumes “regalia.” In this situation, he is mixing costumes inspired by powwow regalia and not traditional ceremony regalia.
“It's kind of in the spirit of that non-ceremonial celebratory dance, and I call it ‘funktivism’ — fun activism, where the performance is kind of a hybrid between standing in front of area protesting and holding this sign and being angry and doing something fun.”
Wakemup also said he hopes people understand that he is not creating art just for the sake of satire. There’s a deeper meaning to his work.
“I'm not trying to be invisible anymore. That's the new racism. So, I'm not going to stop ... [if] people don't like it. I'm sorry, but not sorry,” Wakemup said. “You’ve got to kind of play with the curiosities of non-Native folks to get them to pay attention, and then slap them with some serious truths.”
Wakemup and community members will install a metal tipi sculpture on the Watermark’s south lawn at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 5. He will also give an artist talk later in the day.
Tell us about upcoming arts events where you live in Northern Minnesota by emailing psa@kaxe.org.
Area Voices is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.
